Systems of Voting: there is a bug there? (I/II)

[Antonio Rossin <rossin(at)tin.it>]

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

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        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.

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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