[Prev] [Next] [Index]
[Thread Index]
00495: Systems of Voting: there is a bug there? (I/II)
From: |
Antonio Rossin <rossin(at)tin.it> |
Date: |
Sat, 10 Dec 2005 07:41:03 +0100 |
Subject: |
Systems of Voting: there is a bug there? (I/II) |
Hi Democrats,
I've been reading recently an interesting debate between an
American and an European fellow about the equality of
voters.
The (American) thesis is:
_ "We
are still fighting for the right to vote, and there are groups who are
constantly trying to limit who can vote. Many States in the US have
laws which hinder the right for certain groups to vote. This allows
certain "elites" to control the election. Whenever a person
or group of persons are excluded or if their vote is not equal, power
is no longer equal.
Humans are
all equal. Regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual preference, age
etc. we are equal. We have fought hard for EQUALITY, and must continue
or we will loose it.
Globally, a person existing in Iraq, Africa, France, Netherlands
should have a right to vote on Global matters. One vote, one
person. "
The (European) antithesis is:
"one man/one vote is a way to point to
another man who's got to do the job; NOWadays in our complex community
this is a false paradigm hidden in our democracy system of voting ...
WE can do and invent a better way of communicating our life together
..."
Well, I do not know what is the best, either thesis or
antithesis,
at least at start -- even though, we can see in the global
outside,
to the American the idea that the Iraqi humans are equal to
the
U.S. humans could be felt as a good, whilst to the Iraqi the
idea
that the U.S. humans are equal to the Iraqi humans is very
likely
to be felt as a bloody insult. This notwithstanding, let me
search
for what a "a false paradigm hidden in our democracy
system
of voting"
could be eventually
It seems to me, the bug arises when the voters' equality
moves
from the politics to the economics domain. Plainly, in both
the
U.S. and the Europe democracies, the voting system deals
with
the power of deciding and implementing policies -- but
every
voted policies has unavoidably an economic implication. There
is
no practical difference between the two domains: they look
like
the two sides of the same coin. Let's now go and see
whether
us democrats are able to spend this coin in fair equality.
To this regard, the American thesis goes like saying: "All
of us
humans are equal, so let us go and vote, one man / one
vote.
Done? Done. Now we equals have the free market: and now
that all of us have voted in a fair equality, let us equal
persons
go to the free market all together, happily and
fraternally..."
The European antithesis does not comply with this free
market
equality. Let me quote, from the American
Journal of Political
Economy <
http://www.arpejournal.com > March
2005:
Quote
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
After being thrown out of the WB in 1999 for
whistle-blowing, Joe Stiglitz, ex-finance man of that venerable
institution, received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, for his
explanation of how “asymmetric markets” work. An asymmetric market
is one where some people know more than others. Had the Nobel Prize
existed in Aesop’s time, the fox that enticed the crow to speak so
as to make him drop his cheese would have easily qualified for
it.
The man and his prize are emblematic of the disorder in
economic affairs that has been spreading since The Wealth of
Nations. The past 200 years have increasingly seen what may well
be called “the Stiglitz paradox:” parallel to the setting up of
university chairs, tenured professors, prestigious textbooks, journals
of great erudition, and thousands upon thousands of doctoral theses
(published or not), not to mention the Nobel awards, the economy of
the real world, suffered in the flesh by countless men, women and
children, is a world where poverty reigns side by side with opulence;
unemployment rises its ugly head side by side with the need for work;
the gap between the rich and the poor widens by the day; and the
scourge of war and terrorism goes together with a diminishing freedom
caused by the oppressive intromission of the State in personal and
family affairs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endquote
I question: how could the American thesis of a Humans'
equality
based voting system accomplish with the above economic
reality?
Mostly in the world of today where the political votes are
bought
by the rich? Is the rich equal to the poor? Especially in the
U.S.?
Well, I stop here this (I/II) contribution of mine, to be
continued in
a next (II/II) post with some hypotheses of a practicable
change
in the voting system, to fix the "asymmetric (market)
equality" bug
in its political origins.
In the meanwhile, comments are welcomed
Cheers,
antonio
[Prev] [Next] [Index]
[Thread Index]