Recently I listened to the latest episode of The Public Philosopher on the subject of 'Why vote?' and was horrified that the LSE audience did not know what the point of democracy is. Not once was the word ''power" mentioned despite the fact that the word "democracy" comes from the Greek words 'demos' (the people) and 'kratia' (power). All forms of government are fundamentally about power and in particular the power to take away a person's liberty, either through the legal system or through warfare ('use of force'). Importantly, this also includes compelling people to participate in collective action as needed (eg. paying taxes to pay for roads which everyone can use for free, or providing free vaccines to achieve herd-immunity).
Monarchy gives this power to a single person through right of birth,
oligarchies give it too a small number of elites, democracies give share
the power equally to all citizens. Voting is the act of exercising your power to decide to whom to delegate the decisions on when and for what should people be compelled to act/contribute. Not voting is choosing to throw that power away.
The last part of the radio program focused on whether people should be able to sell their vote to the highest bidder. Horrifyingly most of the commentators could not explain why this seemed like a very bad idea, why this would undermine democracy. Perhaps this was because of how the question was phrased; rather than ask whether someone should be able to sell their vote we should ask whether someone should be able to buy other peoples votes. Clearly the act of buying another persons vote undermines the equality of power between all people which is the basis of democracy. People with more money could buy more votes and thus have more power than people with less money turning the democracy into an oligarchy.
Politicians often get accused on buying votes through campaign promises of benefits, subsidies etc... which benefit their voter base. However, since all politicians have access to the same amount of public money to spend on such campaign promises this does not create inequality of power. More troubling are advertisements, parties, dinners, and other campaign activities paid for through private donations to political parties. Since the amount one can afford to donate to a party depends on ones personal wealth and these activities are effective in swaying the votes of others they create inequalities of power, undermining democracy. The higher the limits on donations and campaign spending the more democracy is undermined. In the USA limits are non-existent in some cases thus 'the greatest democracy in the world' is effectively an oligarchy.
Ideally, political campaign financing would be apportationed in such a way to reinforce equality between individuals, for instance a fix amount per vote recieved. This not only maintains the equality of power it also limits the total amount spent to something reasonable (less than the $6 billion the last USA election cost).
