That's a good summation by Pommygranate. I am one of those calling for restrictions on the franchise, and now I know that 55% of the British electorate is dependent on the government for its income, I think it's time to get a bit noisier.

At the very least we have to disenfranchise the public sector workers. I would prefer to see long-term (i.e., six months or longer) welfare recipients also lose the vote. Why should they vote when the contribute nothing to the national weal?

With long-term welfare recipients, there would, of course, be no choice - other than to go out and earn a living. Public sector people who value their franchise over their pension could find work in the private sector, although I'm not holding my breath; but the decision to work in the public sector, and thus sacrifice their vote, would be theirs to make.

I've been banging on about this for almost two years now, but I still expect it to pick up steam.

The Levelers (who centuries of people have tried to confuse with the Diggers) were in favour of denying both people who worked for the government (not that the Levelers actually wanted much of an Executive of course - they wanted annual Parliaments and that was about it) and people on public relief (local relief only for the Levelers - and they were not too keen on that) from voting.

In the 18th century there were various efforts to stop people working for the government voting (by both Tory and Whig people). As there were only a few constituencies where anybody "who had a pot to put on their own fire" had the vote, people on poor relief having the vote was not a problem.

Some of the efforts to deny the vote to tax collectors and other such were successful, but they got rolled back. There were also long efforts to prevent any member of Parliament from getting a government post -but people in Parliament wanted to be Ministers and Ministers wanted to be paid.

In the 19th century such efforts in Britain and the United States (especially the United States) continued.

The Reform Act of 1832 (remembered for giving the vote middle class types) also took it away from people in those handful of seats that allowed any householder the vote (although those individuals who already had the vote kept it they died).

The much wider voter rules for Poor Law Guardians under the Poor Law Act of 1834 and for local councils under the Muncipal Corporations Act of 1835 allowed any rate payer to vote (which meant many workers had the vote) but, of course, people looking for Poor Relief (even though twice as many people were on "Out Relief" at any time then went to the workhouses) did not pay local property tax (the rates) and therefore had no vote.

The later Acts of Parliament increased the percentage of the population that had the vote (the 1867 Act is important because it meant that the majority of voters were now non income tax payers).

However government employees were not a great problem - even as late as 1913 only about 12% of income went to local and central government (in all taxes put together) and that meant that government could not afford to put vast numbers of people on the payroll.

The 1908 pensions law was the first time that even the very poorest people could expect money AS A RIGHT - without having to convince a local board that they really needed it.

The 1918 Act was the first time that large numbers of really poor people (as opposed to factory workers who got the vote in 1860's and 1880's) got the vote - so the princple of "universal sufferage" is not that ancient.

For local councils "rate payers only" plus a "business vote" (for business enterprises that paid rates in a local area) carried on (I believe) right into the 1960's.

In the United States - I forget when the anti "Poll Tax" Constitutional Amendment came is. But I think it was the early 1960's.

But no - restricting the vote has not got a hope in hell.

People believe that the vote is an ancient and sacred right - even though every adult having the vote for everything only really came in the 1960's.

Of course government providing more than half the invome of about half of the population (via direct employment of by various welfare schemes) is not sustainable.

Britain may well be the first of the Western nations to go bust - other nations may have higher taxes and spending on paper, but I suspect that Britain may still be the first to go.

After all it has already done it once - the collapse of 1976 (in peacetime) when the government had to go begging to the I.M.F. (like a Latin American joke country) and emergency government spending cuts were brought it.

The Labour government was back to spend, spend, spend, by the start of 1979 (with lots of post dated public sector pay promises that hit Mrs Thatcher when she took over).

And what restraint Mrs T. brought in the mid 1980s (NOT in the early 1980s - the Howe years were ones of tax and spend) has now been reversed.

The real public spending levels (when one takes acount of "private-public partnerships", "private finance initiatives", "independent network rail" (and other smoke and mirrors activities) is most likely higher than in 1979.

This country is also becomming one of the most regulated in the Western world (what deregulation there was under Mrs T. has been more than made up for in other ways since the lady left office).

Britian next serivce to the Western world could be to act as a warning.

Mr Blair's "Third Way" is just nasty dishonest statism with a lot of free market talk on top.

I doubt Mrs Clinton is capable of seeing the folly of British statism. But I hope that whoever the Republicans pick (thankfully it can not be George Bush again) will see the warning.

It is not yet too late for the United States - and even government employees do not want to live in a bankrupt country (who is going to pay their wages?)

I suspect that it is too late for Britain.

"Dave" Cameron and his "compassionate Conservatives" make even George W. Bush look good.

I have been thinking along these lines for a while also. Though I have no clue where I got the idea.

You go on the dole, or govt payroll, lose the vote.

I would go father though: Those who work for any company that receives 50% or more of its revenue from govt contracts also loses the franchise. Employees, corporate officers, every one. Maybe even stockholders.

So all those defense contractors would be voteless as well. Like the EVIL Halliburton. That should interest the left.

I must admit to some initial skepticism when the idea was first proposed on this blog (it was here I first heard it, at least.) But I think tiered citizinship of this sort is definately the way to go: taxpayers may vote, but no one else. It would almost guarantee a small, weak state. On the one hand, the public servants: if they are our servants, why should they get to tell us what to do? On the other hand, welfare recipients: doing nothing for one's living and leaching off others is an abnegation of adult responsibility, so why should they not be treated like teenagers.

The only part that rubs me the wrong way is lumping pensioners in with public servants and welfare dependants. I think if you wanted to bring it to a vote, and win said vote, you'd have to make an exception for pensioners, on both moral and practical grounds (hell of a lot easier to win if you haven't alienated that 26%, especially when people vote their age.)

For any Heinlein fans out there who remember the government in Starship Troopers: this is like the anti-Starship Troopers!

(apologies if this is not a new observation.)

Sounds like a lot of spite to me! Surely everyone has an important stake in the way society is run, therefore there shouldn't be any more elections?

"If so many people do not really care about liberty, are they really so attached to voting? I wonder."

I'd imagine they are. Those who "do not really care about liberty" because they work for the state or are on the dole are suffering from your definition of liberty. If you disenfranchise people because of your commitment to ideology, that's tyranny, not liberty!

John: "If you disenfranchise people because of your commitment to ideology, that's tyranny, not liberty!"

Illegal immigrants in the U.S. don't get to vote (at least, not legally.) Yet society depends on them for their cheap labour. Would you suggest giving them the vote, given that they live in the U.S., work in the U.S., raise their children in the U.S., and quite obviously have some stake in U.S. society?

This would not be remotely tyrannous. A public sector worker, if he's committed to his ideology enough that voting matters more to him than a safe paycheque, can always quit, find a jon in the private sector, and resume voting. Similarly, nothing stops a welfare dependant from getting out and finding a job, even if it is menial McWork.

Delusional rubbish.

The idea that the state has a captive band of voters is risible, particularly given that record *LOW* numbers of people are voting at all, and only a proportion of them vote for the current governing party.

The thesis that 55% of the electorate is beholden to the state and therefore will vote for the governing party is laughable and flatly contradicted by the inconvenient facts:

In the last general election, 61% of the voting population bothered to vote. 37% of them - i.e. 22.5% of the voting population - voted for Labour. What are the other 33% doing?

It may well be that a disproportionate number of state employees would vote Labour or for a big-state policy, but what is overlooked here is that many of those people would vote for such party and policy ANYWAY, even if they were not employed by the state.

Oh, and there's a hell of a difference between granting the vote to illegal immigrants and granting the vote to legal citizens who happen to be employed by the state.

EG

The western democracies have seen a more or less steady decline in vote participation since the end of WWII. Coincidentally or not, this is the same period in which the state experienced it's most explosive growth.

If you make the statistical assumption that a large enough group of voters (say, for instance, 60% of the population) is actually representative of the entire 100%, then a majority of that 60% can be taken to imply a majority within the 100%. Is the assumption warranted? I don't know; I'm not a statistician, and further I don't know if the non-voting 40% are staying away due to all-politicians-are-pricks cynicism, or due to apathy, or what. In other words, I don't know if their political attitudes closely mirror the larger population or not. If they do, then 37% of the 61% that voted comes out to the support of about ... hey, 61% of the population. Or, very damn close to the numbers that work for, or depend on, the state.

Also, just because only 22.5% of the entire voting population votes for Labour doesn't mean the rest are voting for small government. In my home country of Canada, for instance, the majority of our public sector types vote either Liberal (the crooks, now thankfully deposed) or the New Democratic Party (the Commies.) In the UK I imagine the LDP fills in for the NDP.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that a private sector worker will always vote small-government; my own parents - a policeman and a teacher, both of them members of Canada's militia - are life-long Conservative voters. But exceptions don't disprove trends.

Not that I'm convinced this is viable. Flat taxes are equally sensible, people have been banging on about them for decades now, and they still haven't been implemented. Still, one can always hope....

Actually, I like the idea of a tiered citizenry. If we are to have any govt at all, and looking at human nature that seems garanteed, we should prevent the citizens voting themselves benefits out of the public treasury.

To illustrate the point:

How many of you have children?
Do they get an allowance?
If so, this could be considered a form of dole.
Now imagine this is put up for a vote and there is at least one more child than adults in the household.
What would you expect the outcome to be, more often than not?

An alternatice might be to give those targeted by a tax veto power over it. Unless they agree to the tax, no tax.

So everyone gets to vote on programs, politicians, and such, but those that pay can say 'take a hike'.

So a two tier system, where the second tier is composed only of tax payers who get a veto.

Regarding illegal immigrants and state-dependants: I wasn't trying to say they're the same, or that denying the franchise to either group is remotely similar, but simply pointing out that assigning voting rights merely based in having a 'stake in society' is silly. The principle could be extended to ludicrous extremes: Chinese or Japanese investors, teenagers, landed immigrants, all of these groups have a 'stake in society', and none of them are given the vote.

Matt has some interesting points.

I suspect most of the decline in voting is due to a mix of apathy and frustrated cynicism. But like Matt, I have no hard evidence of this.

But another thing I have been thinking is if we were to count non-voters in all elections as voting either for none-of-the-above in elections for office holders, and for no-change in the case of referendums.

Unless something is so important as to mobilize the majority of voters to get off their asses and cast a vote, it probably should not be done.

Lots of offices may remain vacant, not such a bad thing in many cases, and most referenda would fail, also a good thing in most cases.

The problem being, if this was started now, we would likely end up with the current situation as the status guo, with little likelyhood of change for the better. The good thing is we would likely end up with the current situation as the status guo, with little likelyhood of change for the worse as well.

tomWright: "So a two tier system, where the second tier is composed only of tax payers who get a veto."

Interesting. And perhaps more politically viable than outright disenfranchising.

Paul Marks - Thank you for your fascinating post. This is wonderful background.

Matt Schultz, this was first mooted about on Samizdata by me. There's no reason to recommend that you read my back posts on the subject, because the idea is clear enough, but I did say all along that I would exempt pensioners. I also said I would exempt our armed forces.

I don't agree with tomWright regarding employees of companies that derive at least 50% of their income from the government - for the practical reason that the burden of putting people onto the electoral roll and taking them off again according to their companies' fortunes would be too crazy. You'd need an army of public sector workers just to key it all in. So, no - although I'm with you in spirit.

I think a good start would be, disenfrancise all public sector employees (including MPs). Boom! Their choice: work in the public sector and enjoy all the benefits thereof, but lose your vote. And people on long-term welfare. As I have said before, if you reduce yourself to being a ward of the state, you have reduced yourself to a childlike dependency and minors don't get the vote.

These two sectors would be a good start and would go some way towards redressing the balance in favour of economic sanity. It could be fine tuned later on, but I think the original proposal should be very, very simple.

One co-worker I spoke to on the issue expressed that he would like to see only net contributors to society have the vote. So if you pay more taxes than you get back. I summed up his conviction with the phrase:

"No representation without taxation!"

Interesting. And perhaps more politically viable than outright disenfranchising.

It's called aristocracy and it isn't particularly viable.

EG

Euan

That over half of the electorate are reliant on the State for money provides prospective political parties with almost zero incentive to campaign for a smaller State.

I am not advocating withholding the vote from 55% of the electorate, but merely highlighting the absurdity of the current situation.

It is the equivalent of a school headmaster being selected based on the votes of the children.

Verity:

I don't agree with tomWright regarding employees of companies that derive at least 50% of their income from the government - for the practical reason that the burden of putting people onto the electoral roll and taking them off again according to their companies' fortunes would be too crazy. You'd need an army of public sector workers just to key it all in. So, no - although I'm with you in spirit.

Yah, I do not really agree with myself on that one, but it was offered int he spirit with wich you agree...

Matt, Yes, but niether is likely to be politically viable since it puts a condom on the joyous rogering the politicians enjoy giving us so often. Probably only barely possible in areas that have initiative and referendum, and even then would likely be struck down in the US and Canada, dunno about Britain, Australia, et al.

There is also the need to make all taxes clearly targeted as well, or so general as to apply to everyone. This may be good, since it would likely lead away from things like income taxes and such.

Matt Schulz's and tomWright's posts when up while I was posting, but yes, giving wealth creators a veto is a good idea. That could work very well indeed. I think it's a definite improvement on my original idea.

That over half of the electorate are reliant on the State for money provides prospective political parties with almost zero incentive to campaign for a smaller State

I don't agree. I see no evidence that people vote the way they do because of who employs them. I know unemployed people who vote Conservative, and company directors who vote Labour and want large scale welfare. They vote the way they do because of what they believe, not because of who pays them.

A party advocating a *radical* reduction in the size of the state in the UK would not do well at the polls NOT because 55% of the electorate is dependent on a big state but because a sufficiently large proportion of the electorate - irrespective of their source of income - thinks a big state solution is the best answer.

EG

Euan:

It's called aristocracy and it isn't particularly viable.

How so? Just curious.

If every person targeted by a tax, regardless of wealth or social standing can excercise only a veto on the vote on a tax in an open election, and would have to pay the tax unless it was vetoed in that election, why would this be aristocracy? They would not have an individual vote on whether to pay the tax or not every time it came due.

Plus, if a tax was a general tax, such as a flat rate sales tax say, then everyone would vote on it, since it could be safely assumed that everyone buys something at sometime during thieir life.

If a tax was proposed on only automobile purchases, then only automobile owners would have a veto, car-hating ultra-greens, critical-mass riders and ELF'ers would presumably not, unless they also own cars of course, (the hypocritical buggers).

Delusional rubbish.

When Euan Gray reacts like that I guess we might be on to something, given that he is pretty much the quintesential member of what Sean Gabb called the 'enemy class' who comments here.

John wrote:

If you disenfranchise people because of your commitment to ideology, that's tyranny, not liberty!

"Actually, I like the idea of a tiered citizenry. If we are to have any govt at all, and looking at human nature that seems garanteed [sic], we should prevent the citizens voting themselves benefits out of the public treasury."

Then you create yourselves as "we" and curb "them" and their liberties to vote as they choose. The way I see it is that if your arguments for small government are better than arguments for large government, they will eventually prevail because the intellectual climate will shift that way. In fact, it is, more or less, given the privatisation of prisons, Qinetiq, roads, etc. But if you have some agenda so radical that it will always contradict the will of the majority and the only way you can achieve this agenda is by suspending the freedom to vote for the majority of people, I certainly wouldn't call it liberty.

If a society wants to protect its mothers through child support, then surely it should be free to do so after a fair vote?

The minute I saw the words "Delusional rubbish", I knew that Euan Gray had arrived. He will work vigorously on derailing this thread with picky little side issues.

"I do not really think limiting the number of people who can vote to have the state mug me is tyranny. The 'liberty' you are talking about is the Chomskyite notion of the 'liberty' to help yourself to other people's money."

The right to vote for your government, whatever you may feel about the result, is a right and a freedom. Suppressing free individuals makes you as bad as those you criticise.

If a society wants to protect its mothers through child support Oh, gawd!

Disenfranchisement? Never happen. No way. No how.

The way to fix this is not to decrease democracy. Instead, increase it. Split the legislature into two separately-elected chambers, the first of which legislates, but without the power to tax to pay for it all, and passes the legislation for funding to the taxing legislature, who can raise the money (or not) by taxing or borrowing as they see fit, unencumbered by the legislators' hopes, promises or ambitions. That way corrupt power-hungry porkers can't get elected on the schools-and hospitals vote and also tax the losers to pay for it, and there is pressure on the taxing legislators to hold taxes down, since they get no electoral credit for spending legislation.

Now you have a situation where there is a true democratic adjudication of the balance between taxing and spending - unlike the usual Western democracy, where the real politicking over taxation and spending goes on in the upper echelons of the single party currently in power.

John,

If a society wants to protect its mothers through child support, then surely it should be free to do so after a fair vote?

But if it is truely fair, then those targeted by the tax would likely vote in the majority for it.

But if you had a tax proposed on, say, wood burning stove users to pay for the support of river cleanup and maintenance, they might rightly object, since there is no linkage to it. Now if the tax was on boat owners, they would likely agree since they use the river, and would also benefit directly from it.

Most folks are fair minded, and will go along if they feel it is a fair proposal.

Thon:

The way to fix this is not to decrease democracy. Instead, increase it. Split the legislature into two separately-elected chambers, the first of which legislates, but without the power to tax to pay for it all, and passes the legislation for funding to the taxing legislature, who can raise the money (or not) by taxing or borrowing as they see fit, unencumbered by the legislators' hopes, promises or ambitions. That way corrupt power-hungry porkers can't get elected on the schools-and hospitals vote and also tax the losers to pay for it, and there is pressure on the taxing legislators to hold taxes down, since they get no electoral credit for spending legislation.

Interesting, but how would those who lobbied the proposing legislature be prevented from lobbying the taxing legislature?

This seems like the veto idea, just with the power removed from the individual and concentrated in the hands of a few. Concentrated power attracts those that seek to use it for thier own ends, so that makes it unattractive at first glance, to me.

This is precisely why I will never, ever, under any circumstances, vote Libertarian again in my life. Rather than focus on pragmatic gains that can made they'd much rather alienate 99% of the populace with a Randroid bit of ideology that has not a hope in hell of going anywhere.

Under your oh-so-charming scheme those notorious leeches who suck on the government teat; the military, would receive no vote. Yeah, Libertarianism really has a future. *eyeroll*

Ditto, Hank.

And while libertarians of this ilk play intellectual gains, soldiers who are paid by the state work, risk and in some cases die to provide them with that self-indulgent leisure.

Pfeh.

Hank Scorpio - Did you read what I said above? And in all the other posts I have written on this subject? And did you read all the people who agree with me when I addressed it on previous posts?

OUR ARMED SERVICES WOULD BE EXEMPTED AND WOULD RETAIN THEIR VOTE. I just don't know how I could make it any clearer. This has been written ad nauseam. No one has demurred.

Thon Brocket - No. Your scheme calls for the veto to be placed in the hands of the few. No. Everyone who contributes to the creation of wealth should have the veto. Not, for gods's sake, elected representatives who are going to vote in their own interests - not yours.

This is a very simple, easily understood concept. It has clarity. Dicking around with it is going to muddy it.

OUR ARMED SERVICES WOULD BE EXEMPTED AND WOULD RETAIN THEIR VOTE

What about the police?

Where is the line drawn between what type of state employment is "acceptable" and what parasitic?

EG

Tom:

Interesting, but how would those who lobbied the proposing legislature be prevented from lobbying the taxing legislature?

They wouldn't - but that's kinda the point. Right now, a lobbyist has to swing one legislature. But under double-democracy he has to swing two. If he's lucky, both will at least be controlled by the same party, but even so there is at least twice the work and expense, and the need to deal with opposing motivations between the two legislatures, which doesn't exist now. If the two chambers are controlled by opposing parties (and I hope they would be) then his job becomes almost impossible and he's out of business - and without any more formal restrictions being placed on him than he's under right now.

This seems like the veto idea, just with the power removed from the individual and concentrated in the hands of a few.

A veto is binary, on/off. This idea is capable of a lot more complexity.

Concentrated power attracts those that seek to use it for their own ends,

Well, yeah - have a look at the current UK Government for a perfect example.

so that makes it unattractive at first glance, to me.

The idea is to dilute power, not concentrate it. Nothing you've written doesn't apply in spades to the current one-legislature setup. A double-democracy would go a long way to split power and tame the state.

too true - or may I call you too stupid? Do you have reading comprehension problems? What part of my first post above didn't you understand?

How very kind of you to exempt the armed forces, Verity. Why, it really goes a long way to making the disenfranchisement of the citizenry palatable.

Were this scheme ever to come to fruition (and of course it won't, this is just a collossal intellectual circle jerk) I'd be completely comfortable taking up arms and shooting every one of you people who advocate this position.

Aside from prohibiting felons and non-citizens from voting there should be no reason, none, zilch, zip, for denying anyone the vote. To even advocate such a position should be repugnant to even with a decent bone in their body who cares about democracy. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

As much as I like these ideas, Hank and tootrue have a point about libertarians debating pie-in-the-sky ideas. I have critisized the LP numerous times for this in the past, since I think a political party should be based on actions, not pub debates.

But they are wrong on the military point, as others have pointed out, military service can be considered in lieu of taxes while serving.

But for the veto proposal, since those in the service pay taxes, and can be targeted by taxes, they would retain a veto in those cases. They would also still retain the 'standard' vote regardless.

The same goes for poor folk, and those on the dole, if they are targeted for a tax.

Those on the dole eat, so if a tax was proposed on food, they would have a veto vote.

The idea of removing the franchise from leeches is attractive in a spiteful and rather satisfying way, but in the end problematic.

I do not respond to Euan Gray's trollish contributions, but to others here, he has involved himself in muddying this debate before and he is well aware that we have addressed the issue of the police. We have also discussed other* emergency services.

*I am not certain the British police can still be identified as an emergency service.

Hank Scorpio - I don't know that democracy's that great. Look where it's got us. Or perhaps I should say I don't think the universal franchise has been beneficial.

Thon:

The idea is to dilute power, not concentrate it. Nothing you've written doesn't apply in spades to the current one-legislature setup. A double-democracy would go a long way to split power and tame the state.

The most diluted spread of power is to have it in the hands of each person, as opposed to a few legislators.

I am in the U.S.. Believe me when I say a bicameral legislature is no barrier to waste, corruption, self dealing and special interest lobbies.

For some time now I have preferred something closer to the Swiss system. Specifically, let a legislature wrestle over the details of a proposal, but have everything they do need ratification in a general election. With our current communication technology and roads infrastructure the barriers to this that existed centuries ago when our current systems were devised, no longer exist.

As long as we're taking a look at universal suffrage maybe we should review the right of women to vote. After all, these are basically just overgrown children ruled by emotion who are already represented by their husbands or fathers.

Hey, you're on to something, Verity!

The principal of voting yourself rich is hard to address If you create a voting class then you put the liberty of those who are unemplaoyed at risk. Maybe voing could be divided into two sections, money relaed and principal realted? anything to do with the way in which TAX money is spent is decided sloey by those who pay tax. This doesnt stop non-tax revenue being divided up unfairly, ie to the retired. Maybe it could be divided up equaly by person and contributions would be made to the services that the individual want to use. If they dont want access to a service they dont make the contribution. Exceptions might have to be made for the NHS? Police? Military? It is hard to find a way which doesnt fall foul of human selfishness and greed. are people really wiling to give up money to help others unless they are forced to?

John:

Then you create yourselves as "we" and curb "them"

No. Those differences already exist: We pay our taxes and they live at our expense.

In Nevil Shute’s novel In the Wet there’s a tiered voting system. Everyone over 21 gets the basic vote and extra votes are granted for things like education, business achievement, having lived abroad, and having successfully raised children. The ultimate “seventh vote” is granted personally by the Queen for exceptional services to the nation. Under this system, everyone gets at least one "citizen's" vote and therefore has some stake in the system.

he is well aware that we have addressed the issue of the police

You have not addressed where the line is drawn and what criteria are necessary to define useful as opposed to parasitic state employment.

Even if you restrict it to the pretty much undeniable need to maintain armed security services, which of these categories of state employees are NOT allowed a vote, and why:

uniformed military personnel;
civilian support personnel, without whom the armed services would cease to function;
civilian MoD staff;
civilian weapons procurement staff;
SS and SIS staff;
uniformed police;
non-uniformed security police;
non-uniformed civilian support personnel for the police;
Treasury staff who collect the money to pay those of the above who are entitled to vote;
civil servants whose taxes also go to pay for the armed services;

and so on.

EG

maybe people could form small sb-countries for those who share the same views and they would have control over the way some of their money was spent. In all the solutions you hit the respoisbilty for defence police health etc. When it comes down to I dont think I trust the majority of this country to be decent human beings

Hank Scorpio - I believe they have that system in Saudi Arabia. If you'd feel more comfortable there, don't let us keep you.

David Farrer - Thanks. I couldn't remember the name of the Shute book or how his system worked, but I heard about it when I was a little girl. I think my father read the book and was talking about it.

fh an exception made for the NHS? What the NHS needs is a stake through the heart. When it comes down to it I dont think I trust the majority of this country to be decent human beings. Neither do I. Society has intentionally been fragmented into dozens of competing constituencies to make it easier for politicians to hang onto power.

The contributors to the wealth of the nation need to find a way of taking the reins back into their own hands.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft in this month's Prospect quotes AJP Taylor, explaining the peacefulness of Britain and the bellicosity of Germany in the mid-19th century, thus:

In England the taxpayers were also the ruling class; economy was of immediate benefit to them. In Germany the ruling class did not pay the taxes; economy brought them no advantage.

Euan's question is reasonable, not remotely trollish.

Why should members of the armed services vote? They are chosen for willingness to kill and obedience to authority, and deliberately brutalised in order to do the state's violence. The only segment of state pensioners that it makes me more uneasy to think of as enfranchised is prison officers.

........and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin..........or pinhead?
What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon!! ......while the Islamist clock ticks.
I think I'll get drunk

It would be better to setup a screening panel at the voting booth: vote with us and you can vote. Vote against us and you can't vote.

Or give voting over to people who are really disinterested. Like the residents of another country. Have Canadians vote on U.S. issues. Americans vote on Mexican issues. Mexicans vote on Canadian issues. The French vote on UK issues.

Or give people who pay more taxes more votes. Like shareholders in a corporation. Or give those who employ people 3/5 vote for every employee.

The possibilites are endless! You guys really have fired my imagination on this.

Yeah..........mine too. Where's the bloody corkscrew?

If a society wants to protect its mothers through child support, then surely it should be free to do so after a fair vote?

No, John. The 'right' to rob me without limitation or impose restriction on my freedom of expression is not something I want my neighbour to have. The 'freedom' to oppress me is only a 'freedom' in the sense that a mugger is 'free' to take someone's money.

The whole idea of limiting what can be done with politics is the very essence of freedom because voting yourself other people's money is easy, as is legislating the prejudices of the majority. If 'society' (though you really do not mean 'society' at all) wants to lock up gays and deport blacks, would denying people the 'freedom' to vote for that or would limited their right to vote for certain things be 'tyranny'? I guess you think it would be.

The much hated poll tax was actually an attempt to stop people voting for taxes that they would not have to pay themselves... and clearly many people really hated that idea, so deeply ingrained is the theft ethic. So it just seems that maybe just not allowing them to vote at all really is the solution. Why should people be able to impose burdens on other that they do not have suffer themselves?

Maybe a better solution is a Commons everyone votes for and an upper house with blocking powers which requires you to pay a certain amount of tax net of that which you recieve from the state (in any way) in order to vote for its members. Just an an idea.

It may or may not surprise you but as someone who spent much of his life on the government payroll, I agree with the premise.

I was a volunteer (thought there was conscription at the time when I went to sea, which does somewhat change things) and I did that job for a great many years in full knowledge of what I was doing and I was indeed shot at and subject to all the vagaries of service life. In an era of volunteer military service, there is no justification for regarding the noble profession of arms as somehow deserving special consideration politically (socially yes, but not politically). In fact there is really something to be said for utterly divorcing sailors, soldiers and airmen from the political process, doubly so for the 'townhall warriors' and other sundry hangers on the public teat.

Wouldn't be easier to simply have a constitution that clearly defines and restricts the role of the state to such things as defence, police, foreign affairs or whatever else?

A great many state workers are parasitic, some aren't and it is wrong to turn these people into some kind of indentured servant.

Given the idolisation of Karl Popper on this blog, would you deny him the vote. After all his professorial salary was stumped up by UK taxpayers?

There's another thing, this restriction of voting would be an attempt at social engineering on a truly Stalinist scale. I thought that is what libertarians are against?

It is looking like the idea of removing the vote from some is a huge problem for many, and I agree. But I think the idea of a veto for those that are targeted with paying for laws and programs has merit. (since I introduced it here, of course I like it).

I think if we vote to have government undertake a task, or to grant benefits to any specific part of the population, but decide to fund it with a targeted tax instead of a general tax, it is only fair to ask those targeted if they agree.

If they do not agree, back to the drawing board. Either rethink the program, or fund it elswhere or with a general tax.

If anything, this is an expansion of democracy and a diminution of mob rule. It prevents a majority from imposing punishing taxation on a minority, provided the rule of law remains in force. Of course, if the rule of law does not remain in force, no struction or procedure will survive.

There's another thing, this restriction of voting would be an attempt at social engineering on a truly Stalinist scale. I thought that is what libertarians are against?

Social engineering? But we are not talking about social, we are talking about political. I am all for people doing what they want regarding non-violent social interactions. Ideally just restricting what people can vote for rather than their ability to play at empowerment via voting is no doubt the only way this will ever work in the real world, but I do still like the concept of requiring the 'net takers' to not vote for how much gets taken. Just a dream of course.

tomWright -

I very much agree with the principle behind your proposal - that the targets of selective taxes should be able to review said taxes. In practice, however, this kind of system sometimes runs into trouble in terms of defining who is "targeted."

There was a case in Indianapolis a couple of years back where the city wanted to raise property taxes on certain kinds of property and held a special vote only for those property owners who would be directly affected by it. I can't remember the exact details, but it turns out to have been mostly reisdential rental properties - apartments and so on. The landowners had no particular problem with the tax increase as they then happily passed it on to their tennants, who had not been allowed to vote.

Of course, in principle, landowners can charge their tennants any kind of rent they like, so legally speaking this is all above-board. But I can't help feeling like the people who really bear the burden didn't get to have a say.

I'll try to dig up a link to details. I think the ICLU (Indiana version of the ACLU) filed a suit of some kind (of COURSE they did...), so there might be a link on their website.

Wouldn't be easier to simply have a constitution that clearly defines and restricts the role of the state to such things as defence, police, foreign affairs or whatever else?

I think this is the right solution, yes. The idea of government screening which citizens can and can't vote gives me the creeps. I mean, it seems like a good idea when clearly defined in terms of tax payment etc. , but the government is very creative at coming up with ways to abuse such setups. If we're going to go to the trouble to build in a new regulation, I think the safer route would be simply to put constitutional barriers in the way of certain taxes, as suggested here by Nick M.

Perry, the Poll Tax, in America anyway, was designed to keep blacks from voting.

Ivan-

I think it means something completely different in Britain. It was one of Thatcher's things - infamously unpopular. I don't know the details, really, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with covert racism.

tomWright-

Couldn't find any direct link. Apparently the case is called Jones v. Womack and is currently before the Indiana Court of Appeals. The never-helpful ICLU didn't post a link or even a casefile number. It's pretty clear from their site that the people they are defending are the bad guys (i.e. citizens wanting bigger cash grabs for themselves in city bond issues - no surprises there), but the case has interesting points anyway. It's a sticky issue. But certainly if we're careful about how we define who is targeted, I completely agree that those targeted by taxes should have final say.

Perry,
Social / Political - that's rather sophist. I stand by what I said. This is a dramatic step aimed at making a massive change to society. If that ain't social engineering I'm a monkey's uncle. This is particularly true for those folks who seem to be favouring an "aristocracy" of some form.

Joshua,
I'm not just against certain types of tax but also certain types of ways of spending.

The most obvious of these is redistribution. I disagree with doing that to "level" incomes and also, within a state, to "level" regions. I hate the fact that London is milked to spend billions on failing regeneration projects in the regions while the Underground is a shambles.

There are others. I see no reason why I should pay for feckless single mothers, "fact-finding" trips, Peter mandelson, the Dept of Culture (whatever that does) and the list goes on and on.

I live in Manchester BTW.

Nice to hear Ms Jowell in a spot of bother.

Sorry, I had no idea Britain had a poll tax of its own.

Is an attempt to reduce social engineering, itself social engineering? Interesting question.

I don't believe the figure of 55% of Brits on the dole or employed by the public sector. Even if you did restrict voting for those people, I doubt it would have an effect on most elections. I'm sure it wouldn't in the U.S.

I'm not just against certain types of tax but also certain types of ways of spending.

Yes, that's what I meant, but it wasn't very clear from the way I worded it. What I understood it to mean was First Amendment-type Constitutional prohibitions - "Congress/Parliament shall make no law raising revenue for the purpose of funding x (where x is some inappropriate social program like public daycare or whatever)." Or at the very least "Congress/Parliament shall raise no taxes save to fund x, y, z (where x y and z are the military, the police, and other enumerated justifiable expenses).

I agree that this is the right way to go about it. I'm not sure I trust the government to decide who may and may not vote -- certainly not in the US.

Neither approach seems likely to succeed, unfortunately.

Dammit, Permanent Expat - I wish you hadn't banged on about having a drink! I was going to wait for around another hour!

tomWright, I like your amendment to my bill, although I think it's too complicated if I'm reading it right. I would disagree with you about a "targeted" tax because I think is an unwieldy notion. You'd never get it to the vote because they'd quibble endlessly over who was being targetted.

But I think your notion of a seconding vote by the wealth producers for any large expenditures is good.

That said, I do believe in KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid. It would be cleaner just to disenfranchise those employed in the public sector. They would in effect, disenfranchise themselves by being employed in the public sector. Or they could trade off all their government bennies, if they felt strongly enough about the vote, and take a job in the private sector. In other words, it would be their choice to be disenfranchised in return for what they judge a greater advantage. A perfectly fair and adult approach.

The same would apply to long-term (six months or longer) welfare recipients. They would disenfranchise themselves by choosing to remain on the taxpayer tit. I can't see any of them minding very much, except for a bolshie few imbibing a few pints (courtesy the taxpayer) dahn the pub talking about "wot abah my rights as a citizen, den, eh?".

Ivan, we are aware of the American poll tax but the British, Thatcher imposed, poll tax was for a good purpose: to get everyone to pay local taxes. Needless to say, teddy bears got thrown out of prams and large temper tantrums occurred.

If you wish to impose a system such as a restricted franchise or taxpayers having a veto on taxes, you need to first get it made law. This is akin to dealing with the problem of turkeys not voting for Christmas by asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. How would you do that?

If you wish it to remain law, you need to come up with some system of preventing this law being changed or repealed. This is a major infringement of the right of the people to be governed as they wish. How do you propose to do this, and how do you propose to justify telling people they are no longer free to choose their form of government?

If you forbid legal change and yet the people object (as they would), you will need ultimately to put down insurrection. How are you going to do that without making it appear to be a system of aristocrats defending their own privilege? Do the people doing the putting down get a vote? If not, how do you prevent *them* rebelling? If yes, don't they then wield disproportionate power (the Praetorian Guard syndrome)?

The proposal is simply a selfish desire for the imposition of aristocracy, the aristocrats in this case being the (presumably) privately employed tax payers.

It seems to neatly illustrate the summation of libertarianism in the adolescent petulance of "I don't want to!" Tough. Life isn't like that.

EG

the British, Thatcher imposed, poll tax was for a good purpose: to get everyone to pay local taxes

It was actually a pretty naked attempt to enable the more prosperous (and thus generally more likely to vote Conservative) to pay LESS local tax, whatever the disingenuous hypothetical justification of it, and I say that as a life-long Tory. It should be an object lesson for those who propose a flat income tax (as opposed to a flat-rate income tax) - such things will not fly in the UK.

Given that over 2/3 of local government expenditure is met through grants from central government, the link between the cost of local government services and the amount of local taxation paid is not that strong in any case.

EG

If you wish it to remain law, you need to come up with some system of preventing this law being changed or repealed. This is a major infringement of the right of the people to be governed as they wish.

On what basis does the "right of people to be governed as they wish" outweigh individual rights to, e.g., property? There are numerous examples throughout history of people being governed "the way they wished" that ended up trampling on the very real individual rights of fellow citizens.

The right of "a people" (whatever that means) is ultimately the rights of all its members. What people on this thread are trying to set up is a system whereby these things are not confused - where, for example, the perceived right of "a people" is no longer allowed to automatically supercede individual rights. People are born into individual packages - not as members of super-individual structures. All meaningful rights are defined on the individual level.

The analogy someone (I forget who) made earlier about allowing the children in a family to vote on their allowance is apt. Simply being born into a particular family does not give a child any kind of "right" to an allowance. One could invent the right of "a family" to "distribute its money as it pleases" if one liked - but that would miss the point that only some members of said family are actually earning any money, and that the other members of the family are anyway not appropriately informed about economics and finances.

You can tally all the votes you want, but amassing a certain critical mass of supporters does not make a thing right. Theft is an affront to property whether I am robbed by a single man or a group of men.

How about this for a (maybe) neat solution to the voting issue?
It's based on the old problem of how to get two children to divide fairly the last piece of cake. The answer is to let one child cut the cake "in half" and for the other to choose which of the slices to take.
So, in a two-house parliamentary system let's suppose one house makes the laws which raise taxes and the other house makes the laws which spend the money so raised. The two houses work independently.
Every citizen then gets a vote. The catch is that everyone has only one vote and must first declare on which house's candidates he wishes to exercise his vote. So, everyone gets to vote but only on either the amount of taxes to be raised OR how these taxes are to be spent.
Can anyone envisage how such a scheme might work out?
Would a libertarian be more likely to pitch his vote for the tax-raising house, on the assumption that he would probably vote for a candidate who had a ticket to minimise tax raising, or would he choose to vote for a candidate for the tax spending house, on the assumption that he would vote for a candidate who promised to spend the taxes wisely?
Any ideas?

Sorry, perhaps too similar to TomWright, but hopfully still worth thing about as no-one gets disenfranchised.

Let people sell their votes.

Nick - I totally agree with that, actually, and why not? A vote belongs to you and should have a market value.

Although ... hmmm ... people like Tessa Jowell's husband would buy up thousands of votes in order to do the will of Silvio Berlusconi (whereas, Tony Blair would do it cheaper, tee hee).

In my mind, it still comes down to disenfranchising those who can vote themselves benefits - the public sector and the welfare sector. At least this way, it stays domestic. The international implications of being able to sell votes are too grave.

Nope sorry I dont.
Believe that your vote is a saleable commodity, that is.
It may well be bought, in many different ways, but when it comes down to a ballot box, your beliefs and your concience should be your only guide.

Let people sell their votes.

The instant I read that I had this nightmare (daymare?) of Bill Gates buying enough votes to regulate his competitors.

Somebody way up near the top, (Matt Schultz?) suggested basing vote counting on elgible voters.

In our local school district, the routine is they put up a very large taxing referendum, if it fails, they change it a little and put it up again. This can go on many times until it finally passes. 'No' does not mean 'no', it means try again. To meet the law, they subtract a little bit, call it a new referendum and try again. This method of getting it passed is refered to as the 'Neverendum'.

They go to great lengths to get them passed. Most ballots are voted on Tuesdays in the US. They have even put up ballots on a Saturday just a few weeks from a major election without any publicity beyond the minimum legal announcements, just to try to slip one through.

If a simple majority of all registered voters was required to pass a tax increase, that would defeat the 'secret' ballots and greatly reduce the voter fatigue that allows 'neverendums' to eventually pass.

By using registered instead of elgible voters, passage is a reasonable possibility if there truly is support for the referendum. Registered voters are those who actually cared enough to vote recently (or have applied to).

Yes, Midwesterner. Very earnest.

Now, if I could just learn to spell "eligible"

Selling votes or restricting the franchise are unethical, unworkable and impractical propositions. Let's go the whole hog and reinstate rotten boroughs and the corn laws! The idea that state workers and "dole bludgers" will vote for their own benefit has the corolllary that so would this "new aristocracy". We'd be back to 1800 again. Maybe the newly disenfranchised would agitate, set the revolutionary ball rolling and the cycle would repeat... Until in 2200 folks would be having the same discussion.

The minute you start saying some people should be eligible to vote... Well, everyone is going to have a different idea on that. The bureacracy of checking whether someone is elligible is mind-numbing. We'd probably need a whole new government department for it. Maybe ID cards would be needed!

If we are to have smaller government covering radically fewer things then the best way is, surely, to attract a much smaller number of much smarter people to those jobs, not treat them as second class citizens.

I've never heard ideas as naive seriously put forward since I read a Green Party manifesto 10 years ago. If libertarians take these ideas (which are at the eastern end of Hammersmith & City) seriously they are condemning themselves into the same cul-de-sac as the SWP, Veritas, BNP, Greens, Commies and the Liberal Democrats.

If you had a majority of legislators willing to vote to disenfranchise those who are financially dependent on the state with the objective being to downsize the state you would also have the majority needed to proceed directly to downsize the state. Additionally, there would be endless disputes about who should or should not be disenfranchised - everybody who gets child benefit?

I think that a more acheivable and realistic goal is to end the transfer of funds from one level of government to another. Local government in the UK is totally financially dependent on Central Government and has no real powers left. It's just one big shell game.

Joshua:

I very much agree with the principle behind your proposal - that the targets of selective taxes should be able to review said taxes. In practice, however, this kind of system sometimes runs into trouble in terms of defining who is "targeted." ...
...
But certainly if we're careful about how we define who is targeted, I completely agree that those targeted by taxes should have final say.

and

Verity:

I like your amendment to my bill, although I think it's too complicated if I'm reading it right. I would disagree with you about a "targeted" tax because I think is an unwieldy notion. You'd never get it to the vote because they'd quibble endlessly over who was being targetted.
But I think your notion of a seconding vote by the wealth producers for any large expenditures is good.

Yes, there would be issues to work out, I was just positing a general idea. There would probably need to be some sort of guidelines on how taxes are imposed, to minimize confusion. But then, difficulties and argument would lead to litigation and delays in the vote, which would prevent the tax from being imposed, so not such a bad thing, and would probably be an incentive for legislatures to not muck about with it.

But people being politicians, they will find a way to twist it to the needs of back room backers.

The best part of the idea though, is that you do not need to keep track of incomes or of who is a producer or a consumer, since even consumers pay taxes when they spend their dole-dollars.

While it is probably true, as you say, that defining who is targeted may be an issue, I think it would be a relatively minor one, except in cases where someone wants to be particularly bloody minded. But that can happen in any system. Again, it would be an incentive for clarity in the legislation, though there would undoubtedly be a rather wavy, and occasionally steep, learning curve.

OK, almost ten PM here, bedtime for bloviators

tomWright:

The most diluted spread of power is to have it in the hands of each person, as opposed to a few legislators.

No question. But it's a spectrum, not a switch. A double-democracy arrangement dilutes the power by a factor of 2. A good start, I'd say.

I am in the U.S.. Believe me when I say a bicameral legislature is no barrier to waste, corruption, self dealing and special interest lobbies.

Sure. We have a bicameral legislature here too, with similar results. But the House of Representatives and the Senate (and the HoL / HoC over here) both have full competence on both sides of the taxing / spending equation. The separated-powers legislatures that I'm advocating wouldn't, and the legislators in them wouldn't have the power to make corrupt bargains with proportions of the electorate as they do now. They would be checked and balanced, each against the other. They aren't now, and the result of that is the SuperState.

In a later post:

I think if we vote to have government undertake a task, or to grant benefits to any specific part of the population, but decide to fund it with a targeted tax instead of a general tax, it is only fair to ask those targeted if they agree. If they do not agree, back to the drawing board. Either rethink the program, or fund it elswhere or with a general tax.

That's pretty much how it would work, automatically, under a DD arrangement. The main legislature votes up a task to be undertaken, or a benefit, but the same bozos can't raise a penny of tax to finance it. They must pass it to the taxing legislature, who have no responsibility for the content of the actual legislation, but are responsible to their tax-paying electors, who may target a group of taxpayers (just as in your scenario) but with full democratic legitimacy unsullied by the need for votes from the resource-suckers on the statist side.

Freeman:

Every citizen then gets a vote. The catch is that everyone has only one vote and must first declare on which house's candidates he wishes to exercise his vote. So, everyone gets to vote but only on either the amount of taxes to be raised OR how these taxes are to be spent. Can anyone envisage how such a scheme might work out?

Hmmm. Interesting wrinkle. Gotta think that one through.

Sorry, perhaps too similar to TomWright, but hopefully still worth thing about as no-one gets disenfranchised.

Yeah, big point. Euan Grey is stopped-clock-right on this one. I love the idea of voteless jobsworth parasites, just as I love the idea of a free-energy perpetual-motion machine. But any attempt to restrict the franchise is, politically, suicidal lunacy. And, ultimately, it's wrong. Aristocracy, rotten boroughs, one-man-one-vote-one-election, Jim Crow, apartheid, yellow Stars-of-David all lie thataway. Don't go there.

So don't fight the state by restricting democracy. Champion it instead, by demanding democratic adjudication of the tax-spend equation, and we can wrong-foot the left-statists by having them come out against an extension of democratic rights in order to protect their own lovingly-padded arses.

"One co-worker I spoke to on the issue expressed that he would like to see only net contributors to society have the vote"

Ah, yes, the small problem of defining net contribution there. Apparantly it means "Tax" except for the nice soldiers, where it means "Service in lieu of tax" as well. I fail to see why the same should not be said of all state workers. Most state workers are of course doing a pointless unhelpful service in lieu of tax, but that's not the point - many private sector workers do pointless unhelpful jobs.

When we privatise the NHS we won't need to pay doctors from the treasury, but until then I fail to see why they are less deserving of the vote than an accountant in the RAF.

P.S. Since my company gets over half its revenue from state contracts, I am thrilled to have taken part in the first internet discussion where someone has seriously recommended disenfranchising me. Who needs fascists when you got libertarians, eh?!

On what basis does the "right of people to be governed as they wish" outweigh individual rights to, e.g., property?

On the basis that not all rights are individual, that no rights are absolute and that rights are social constructs which change over time.

But the question be put back to you - on what basis does the selfish individual's desire not to pay tax trump the basic right of everyone else to have a say in how society is governed? Americans fought a revolutionary war over that basic right, and before that the English executed a king for the same basic right. But all that plainly pales into insignificance when weighed against your desire not to pay tax.

Irrespective of whether they "contribute" to society - and the definition of "contribute" is surely subjective - all people live within society. Since the basic thrust of socio-political development over the past several centuries has been to increase the proportion of citizens who are allowed a say in how they are governed, the burden is on the proposer to demonstrate why reversing this process is a good thing, not just for the proposer but for everyone.

Why *should* society revert to an aristocratic system just so you can pay less tax?

EG

I have to agree with Euan on this one (sharp intake of breath, reaches for stiff drink), I mean, how is such a proposal going to become law?

I honestly don't see such a restriction on the franchise occuring. Nice idea in theory, unworkable in practice.

For starters, how does one decide which category of person working for or receiving some sort of public benefit qualifies to be excluded? Also, as much as I admire the Armed Services, I think it will be entirely arbritrary to allow a squaddie to vote but to bar a social worker. I'd love to see politicians explain that one.

I am afraid a lot of comments here are just expressions of prejudices we have about people who work in the state sector. I share some of those prejudices, but this vote-limitation idea is a non-starter.

I do not believe that disenfranchising state workers is the correct solution. And making exceptions for certain professions (e.g. soldiers) is a non-starter. The underlying point is not that certain jobs are more valuable than others, but getting around the Catch 22.

However, the current system is absurd and is leading to a dangerously indebted nation. The candidates for 'headmaster' are offering the 'children' policies such as abolishing detention, a four day week, abolition of uniforms and free sweets at the tuck shop - all designed to appeal and all certain to weaken the institution.

I can see merit in the proposal to have two Houses, one with tax raising and the other with tax spending authority.

I can also see merit in restricting votes in the tax spending House to those who pay income tax (this would include pensioners, the temporarily unemployed and the temporarily sick - but would exclude those who are completely reliant on the state)

This is not a clear cut issue. All ideas welcomed.

Nice idea in theory, unworkable in practice

Agreed, but it is a nice idea.

Social / Political - that's rather sophist.

Not at all. The difference between social and political is a key as the difference between a handshake and a court writ. You are making a category error to conflate the two, as pointed out by Tom Paine in 1776 in 'Common Sense'. 'Politics' is about controlling the means of collective coercion, 'social' is about individual interaction and the emergent characteristics of those interactions aggregated are what we call 'society'. It is far from sophistry to make it clear the two are quite different things.

I stand by what I said. This is a dramatic step aimed at making a massive change to society. If that ain't social engineering I'm a monkey's uncle.

In that case have a banana for the reasons stated above. It is no more 'social' engineering that Blair's radical plans to make much of