NationStates Jolt Archive

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.

Yes, people should be allowed to sell votes. However, I have no vote to sell, because I don't vote at all, period.

Bill Gates would then become president for life? Assuming that most people would sell their votes to the highest bidder.

That completely destroys the entire idea of Democracy, and since Democracy and Consensus are the only two acceptable forms of government are the only acceptable kinds it must be prevented at all costs.


Also, I probably wont respond to this, since I 'll forget I posted or won't be able to find it again, so don't get pissy if I don't.

Wouldn't the problem with this be that the richer the person standing for the votes would gain the most votes?
I understand what you're saying but i don't think selling votes is a very good idea.

This is the kinda thing I used to roleplay doing in my NS of Santa Barbara. So much so that voting was an actual market, with a variable value per vote depending on the economy of the voter district region.

But in real life there would be too many problems. Right off the top of my head, poorer people would feel more inclined to sell their votes simply because they need money more than a say in the political system. This would mean that over time, poor people would lose political power simply because they need the cash.

Of course, the US system of representative democracy plus campaign funding and media whoring is close enough to vote buying that shit, we may as well get something for our (useless) votes.

I'm surprised that the OP does not see the inevitable outcome of this retarded idea.

Rule by the rich, for the rich. And I mean much more so than we have right now.

I'm surprised that the OP does not see the inevitable outcome of this retarded idea.

Rule by the rich, for the rich. And I mean much more so than we have right now.

Which actually has a name, Plutocracy.

Meh, I don't really like this idea. I don't really like democracy, and reckon it has no inherent value, but this is just like democracy, but... well... lamer. A plutocracy won't be benevolent before being interested in the world of business, full stop.

A people's welfare is what's really important, and rule by the rich somewhat flies in the face of this. Minimising costs involves, more often than not, slashing wages or losing jobs, neither of which really helps the average worker much.

Which actually has a name, Plutocracy.

I thought that was when a Disney character finally gets a majority - like Donald Duckracy?

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.And here kids is why libertarianism will never work. People simply aren't foresightful enough to make qualified decisions. Your gains from a sale of your vote, provided it catches on, will be less than the losses the person who bough all these votes will inflict upon you, ending you with a net loss much greater than you currently experience.

I thought that was when a Disney character finally gets a majority - like Donald Duckracy?

LOL. From Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, also the god of gold, silver and just about anything else valuable that can be pulled out of the ground.

LOL. From Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, also the god of gold, silver and just about anything else valuable that can be pulled out of the ground.
Woo I learn stuff from NSG every day! :)

But if our votes are for sale, it'll completely destroy the illusion that our votes matter. *nod*

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.

I think that both points 1, and 2 are more grounded in your dislike of politicains than in any real concerns.

You should have your vote, and you should use your vote.

That is all!

In a sense, politicians 'buy' votes by aligning themselves to certain policies and issues. However, money should have no part of politics, I find it awful how Obama's campaign keeps boasting about its tally of donations.

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.

Funny thing is you already do exactly that. A block of constituents "sells/gives" their vote to the person they feel will give them the most return. The most bang (laws) for their buck (vote). The highest bidder is the one who promises the most bang, the most legislative process that falls into you (the voters) belief and value system.

The 'vote buyers' are the politicians. And they would have the power to ignore you either way once your vote was cast/sold. How are you going to enforce a "money back guarantee"?:p

I seem to recall a similar assignment when I was in college. ;)

Selling votes is, symbolically, selling your democracy for a few dimes and giving power to the richest and most power-hungry person of the country.
Did we fight Hitler, communism, Saddam, the Taliban and Milosevic to eventually sell and barter away our democracy for a couple of bucks ???

The only ones who really profit from selling votes are corrupt politicians who believe they can buy their power.

Vote or don't. But don't sell it.

This is the kinda thing I used to roleplay doing in my NS of Santa Barbara. So much so that voting was an actual market, with a variable value per vote depending on the economy of the voter district region.

But in real life there would be too many problems. Right off the top of my head, poorer people would feel more inclined to sell their votes simply because they need money more than a say in the political system. This would mean that over time, poor people would lose political power simply because they need the cash.

Of course, the US system of representative democracy plus campaign funding and media whoring is close enough to vote buying that shit, we may as well get something for our (useless) votes.

Well, why shouldn't poor people be able to sell their votes? They obviously need the money from the proceeds, hence why they are foregoing keeping their vote in favor of alienating it. Plus in order to gain the maximum future returns the vote-buyers would want to maximize the capital stock, which would include encouraging human capital formation, which would mean that poor people would be helped out. It is a much better alternative than the current system of political machinery, in which people pay politicians a small sum to externalize their costs onto everyone else. Better, I say, to have an interest in maintaining the capital stock of the nation instead of externalizing costs willy-nilly.

And here kids is why libertarianism will never work. People simply aren't foresightful enough to make qualified decisions. Your gains from a sale of your vote, provided it catches on, will be less than the losses the person who bough all these votes will inflict upon you, ending you with a net loss much greater than you currently experience.

Who is to say that? People would buy votes from each other because they would think they would gain a greater future return, and the way to maximize future returns would be to enhance the capital stock which benefits everyone. There is, of course, the moral issue of the fact that the vote-buyers still do not have a title to the volitional actions of everyone else, which a monopoly on jurisdiction asserts for their own political class, but that is the problem of every state. If I have to have a ruler, I would prefer one whose self-interest is to leave me alone as much as possible.

That completely destroys the entire idea of Democracy, and since Democracy and Consensus are the only two acceptable forms of government are the only acceptable kinds it must be prevented at all costs.


Also, I probably wont respond to this, since I 'll forget I posted or won't be able to find it again, so don't get pissy if I don't.

Isn't their consensus to alienate their votes instead of retaining them?

I'm surprised that the OP does not see the inevitable outcome of this retarded idea.

Rule by the rich, for the rich. And I mean much more so than we have right now.

A non-argument will not help you demonstrate the alleged 'retardedness' of my idea. And the difference is that the rich will not be able to externalize their costs as they do now because they will hurt themselves concerning future returns, which is better than our current regime.

Hell, politicians sell their votes all the time. Why shouldn't the electorate be able to do the same thing. A couple beers, a steak dinner, a tank of gas, there's plenty of things I'd trade a vote for.

Selling votes is, symbolically, selling your democracy for a few dimes and giving power to the richest and most power-hungry person of the country.
Did we fight Hitler, communism, Saddam, the Taliban and Milosevic to eventually sell and barter away our democracy for a couple of bucks ???

The only ones who really profit from selling votes are corrupt politicians who believe they can buy their power.

Vote or don't. But don't sell it.
Don't you think we're already offering our votes to the highest bidder? Isn't that why our government has doubled in size over the last eight years? Isn't that why we always want to shift the tax burden to the small number of high achievers?

Seems to me like selling out for short term gain rather than doing your part to ensure your interests are met long term.

Isn't that why we always want to shift the tax burden to the small number of high achievers?

Wealth /= achievement

I see a rather basic flaw in your argument:)

You are talking how the politicians would protect and develop the human stock to sustain future returns. But since when was that ever the case? Western capitalism = maximising returns in the shortest time possible => have a 4 year mandate to steal the underwear off people and enslave them to pay for the air they breathe > having a lifetime of caring for people in the hope they will maintain your pension fund.

The whole idea os voting and democracy is that everyone has an equal say in government, not just the very rich.

That's why buying votes is a bad idea.

I see a rather basic flaw in your argument:)

You are talking how the politicians would protect and develop the human stock to sustain future returns. But since when was that ever the case? Western capitalism = maximising returns in the shortest time possible => have a 4 year mandate to steal the underwear off people and enslave them to pay for the air they breathe > having a lifetime of caring for people in the hope they will maintain your pension fund.

There's another flaw, wherein "taking care of the human stock" has nothing to do with getting re-elected. It doesn't matter how well you govern if, once your term is up, someone else has more money to bribe the electorate. The officeholder's best strategy is to use the state to generate as much money for him/herself so as to finance the next election.

And people call me the crazy one...

snip of pseudo-intellectual crap

A frequent, and quite naive assumption that many libertarians make, is that everyone's an economist. Most working class people are not. Anyone who's ever been working class knows this. People who are worried chiefly about putting food on the table, getting the health care they need for their kids, and struggling to stretch their dollars as much as possible will sell their votes to the person who will give them the most money so that their immediate and most pressing needs can be met.

Thus, the richest and most power-hungry person will get the most votes. To this individual, the people whose votes he bought are likely thought of merely as a means to an end, no more than one thinks of the guy behind the counter at Burger King. This rich and now powerful individual will likely have policies that benefit his friends, mainly other fabulously wealthy people.

Think about it.

Sell your vote a few hundred times over, and vote for whoever you want! It's a win/lose situation!

Also, think about how much each vote would be! MOST people won't sell their vote for any less then a few hundred!

SNIP

for once I can say: "go move back to Russia!"

Also, think about how much each vote would be! MOST people won't sell their vote for any less then a few hundred!

I would vote Torie for maybe a subway *feels dirty*

...actually I probabaly could get some cool (as in not a shitty hat and flag) free stuff by playing the conservatives :)

A frequent, and quite naive assumption that many libertarians make, is that everyone's an economist.

Perhaps. Maybe they believe that a lack of economic or financial know-how is a self-inflicted ailment and therefore one that large companies that can pool infortmation and expertise should be allowed to exploit.

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.

Don´t lose heart. Even if you don´t see it at first, I think every vote does counts. Or perhaps I´m an idealist and such. Spain is going into a recession, so perhaps votes do not count after all. What´s gonna happen will regardless of what you do to prevent it. Suck, doesn´t it?:(

The thing is... politicians already buy votes. Oh sure, they don't go out and simply hand you a large check, but they buy your vote. Don't know how? Look up pork barreling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel). It's a little more work, and yes, it more typically applied to House Representatives, but it still stands. Politicians win votes by promising you pork, or pointing at pork that they've handed you in the past.

Ever actually call up your congressman? They'll kiss your ass, cause they know if they make you happy enough, you'll vote for them for the rest of your life. Example? My grandmother didn't receive her social security check. Called up her rep, they said they'd handle it. 'Bout an hour later, she received a call saying the check was in the mail, and indeed, she got it about 3 days later. She's voted for him ever since.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.
So you're willing to sell someone a product you yourself claim is useless? How is that any better than politicians screwing you over?

I see a rather basic flaw in your argument:)

You are talking how the politicians would protect and develop the human stock to sustain future returns. But since when was that ever the case? Western capitalism = maximising returns in the shortest time possible => have a 4 year mandate to steal the underwear off people and enslave them to pay for the air they breathe > having a lifetime of caring for people in the hope they will maintain your pension fund.

I dispute the idea that capitalism is focused entirely upon short-term return. While it is obvious that one desires an income of consumer goods, one would not want to receive consumer goods that result in a more than proportional decline in the present value that represents the future returns on an asset. So, while a person may desire some present income, he will sell the asset that has too distant future returns and transfer it to someone with a lower present-orientation rather than deplete it. It would be the same with a vote market.

A frequent, and quite naive assumption that many libertarians make, is that everyone's an economist. Most working class people are not. Anyone who's ever been working class knows this. People who are worried chiefly about putting food on the table, getting the health care they need for their kids, and struggling to stretch their dollars as much as possible will sell their votes to the person who will give them the most money so that their immediate and most pressing needs can be met.

So? This is a good thing, as it means that they are transferring their vote to someone who sees that he can gain the most income and present value from investing in the vote market. Although some working class people may not know about economics, their actions made in their own self-interest serve a purpose.

Thus, the richest and most power-hungry person will get the most votes. To this individual, the people whose votes he bought are likely thought of merely as a means to an end, no more than one thinks of the guy behind the counter at Burger King. This rich and now powerful individual will likely have policies that benefit his friends, mainly other fabulously wealthy people.

Hardly any different from the current regime. But the advantage is that the revenues of the vote-owner is, unlike modern politicians, his own, and he will want to maximize present value and income by adding to the capital stock of the nation, including the human capital stock, for his future benefit. This is in stark contrast from a system in which one is encouraged to steal as much as possible in their two, four, or six years in office due to the uncertainty of shifting particular interests.

for once I can say: "go move back to Russia!"

Why would I want to go "back" to Russia?

So you're willing to sell someone a product you yourself claim is useless? How is that any better than politicians screwing you over?

Because I don't want the politicians' bullshit, but the vote-buyer actually wants my vote. The difference is the mutual benefit.

That completely destroys the entire idea of Democracy, and since Democracy and Consensus are the only two acceptable forms of government are the only acceptable kinds it must be prevented at all costs.


Also, I probably wont respond to this, since I 'll forget I posted or won't be able to find it again, so don't get pissy if I don't.Absolutely not. Dictatorship is the absolute best form of government.

Libertarians in "restricting themselves by only wanting to look at things on an individual level" shock

We can look at this, in a simplified way, game theory style:

A working class person (WCP) is offered $100 for his vote, as are all the other working class people (OWCP). 51% of votes are needed to win the election and we'll make the safe assume that the individual vote of the WCP won't be decisive.

Okay, so:

WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $0, repressive government
WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP don't sell votes = $0, acceptable government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, repressive government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, acceptable government

On an individual level, it is clear what the best decision is but on a group level that decision is suicidal (and homicidal).

Libertarians in "restricting themselves by only wanting to look at things on an individual level" shock

We can look at this, in a simplified way, game theory style:

A working class person (WCP) is offered $100 for his vote, as are all the other working class people (OWCP). 51% of votes are needed to win the election and we'll make the safe assume that the individual vote of the WCP won't be decisive.

Okay, so:

WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $0, repressive government
WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP don't sell votes = $0, acceptable government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, repressive government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, acceptable government

On an individual level, it is clear what the best decision is but on a group level that decision is suicidal (and homicidal).
There are a few problems with your argument.
1. The constitution sets limits some of which not even todays polititions can weasel out of.
2. Do you relieze how many people is 51%?!?!? 152 million X 100. You do the math.
3. The person could just take the money say "Yes, I'll vote for you" and go vote for whoever they want to!:D

There are a few problems with your argument.

2. Do you relieze how many people is 51%?!?!? 152 million X 100. You do the math.


Where are you getting 152 million? George Bush carried 50.7% of the popular vote with 62 million votes in 2004.

Even if the Presidency were too expensive to buy (and I'm not conceding that), Congressional or Senate seats wouldn't be.


3. The person could just take the money say "Yes, I'll vote for you" and go vote for whoever they want to!:D

You're assuming a secret ballot. If vote buying were legalized, my guess is ballot secrecy would be eliminated quickly to allow the market to function.

There are a few problems with your argument.
1. The constitution sets limits some of which not even todays polititions can weasel out of.
2. Do you relieze how many people is 51%?!?!? 152 million X 100. You do the math.
3. The person could just take the money say "Yes, I'll vote for you" and go vote for whoever they want to!:D

1. We're talking about this in theory, not in practice. But even the constitution can be altered.
2. Again, talking about this in theory.
3. Once again, "in theory" - for the purpose of this hypothetical we assume that they are purchasing a vote for real although the secret ballot obviously protects this in practice.

I approve of this, it would remove all the ideological and political veils from bourgeois dictatorship and help to show the masses that the only alternative is proletarian dictatorship.

Who is to say that? People would buy votes from each other because they would think they would gain a greater future return, and the way to maximize future returns would be to enhance the capital stock which benefits everyone. No. I charge you to find actual evidence that supports such a ludicrous assumption.
There is, of course, the moral issue of the fact that the vote-buyers still do not have a title to the volitional actions of everyone else, which a monopoly on jurisdiction asserts for their own political class, but that is the problem of every state. If I have to have a ruler, I would prefer one whose self-interest is to leave me alone as much as possible.Now how exactly would selling your vote solve that? Someone wealthy enough to buy your vote is a lot less likely to leave you alone when they gain power than someone who's political agenda is to leave you alone. You're effectively ignoring what said politicians agenda is in favor of gaining something in return. For all you know, you could be voting for the next Hitler or Ghandi, but wouldn't care which one it was so long as they paid you.
I dispute the idea that capitalism is focused entirely upon short-term return. It isn't. There are professional managers that get paid to think of the long-term return. But the majority of economic actors (households and individuals) simply don't consider the long-term return.
While it is obvious that one desires an income of consumer goods, one would not want to receive consumer goods that result in a more than proportional decline in the present value that represents the future returns on an asset. So, while a person may desire some present income, he will sell the asset that has too distant future returns and transfer it to someone with a lower present-orientation rather than deplete it. It would be the same with a vote market.Your rose-colored fantasy runs counter to reality.
So? This is a good thing, as it means that they are transferring their vote to someone who sees that he can gain the most income and present value from investing in the vote market. Although some working class people may not know about economics, their actions made in their own self-interest serve a purpose.You need to prove that people that don't know about economics will actually make decisions that serve their own self-interest, both in the long- and short-term, and on a micro- and macro-economic level.
Because I don't want the politicians' bullshit, but the vote-buyer actually wants my vote. The difference is the mutual benefit.You automatically assume that politicians don't want your votes and that there will be mutual benefit if you sell your vote to someone. That's just fucking stupid.I approve of this, it would remove all the ideological and political veils from <snip> dictatorship and help to show the masses that the only alternative is proletarian dictatorship.Ah, man, and we'd gone so long without the b-word...

Hmm... but how could you enforce vote trading.

ie. I sell my vote to you and then go vote for someone else. You cannot prove that I didn't vote for you as voting is by secret ballot. Therefore it cannot be proven that the contract was broken. :)

... I can actually think of a couple of ways, but I don't fancy arguing with myself.

-----

But anyway, selling your vote is a silly idea. In the extreme case it would amount to selling yourself into slavery, whereby your property and capital is no longer your own.

Let's say you are an American citizen and you sell you votes for $100 each. One vote for the Senate, one for the HoR and one for your state legislature.

To pass an amendment you need 2/3 control of the Senate and HoR, and 3/4 of the State legislatures.

To take control of two thirds of the Senate a corporation would need about 45 million votes (half of the vote in the 33 least populous states). To similarly take control of the HoR about 100 million votes would be needed (average HoR ward has 639 residents -- again half the vote needed in 2/3s of all wards). And to be able take 3/4 of the state legislatures you would need 60 million votes (half of the vote in the 38 least populous states).

That's 205 million votes in total. Meaning that the richest country in the world could become enslaved to you for a mere $20.5 billion. Not bad I say. I believe Microsoft was willing to buy Yahoo for ~$45 billion.

However, these are over estimates as they do not take into account those ineligible to vote (such as children), and it also assumes 100% turnout. So in reality the cost would be even less.

Think about it.

Sell your vote a few hundred times over, and vote for whoever you want! It's a win/lose situation!

Also, think about how much each vote would be! MOST people won't sell their vote for any less then a few hundred!

Actually, all it would take is for someone to make it an IOU, or a cheque with a fixed date for withdrawal after elections. And maybe fudging the truth about knowing who votes for who.

So? This is a good thing, as it means that they are transferring their vote to someone who sees that he can gain the most income and present value from investing in the vote market. Although some working class people may not know about economics, their actions made in their own self-interest serve a purpose.



Hardly any different from the current regime. But the advantage is that the revenues of the vote-owner is, unlike modern politicians, his own, and he will want to maximize present value and income by adding to the capital stock of the nation, including the human capital stock, for his future benefit. This is in stark contrast from a system in which one is encouraged to steal as much as possible in their two, four, or six years in office due to the uncertainty of shifting particular interests.




Idiotic. Your proposed system would be the same as the quarterly profit crap that makes corporations do horrible things. On the contrary, the asshole who bought the most votes would probably try to rob as much as possible in their term in office for themselves and their buddies.

They wouldn't have to make policies beneficial to the working class. Instead, they'd merely need to insure that they profited enough to be the high bidder in the next "election," since poor people would likely be more poor and therefore more desperate to put food on the table.

Libertarians in "restricting themselves by only wanting to look at things on an individual level" shock

We can look at this, in a simplified way, game theory style:

A working class person (WCP) is offered $100 for his vote, as are all the other working class people (OWCP). 51% of votes are needed to win the election and we'll make the safe assume that the individual vote of the WCP won't be decisive.

Okay, so:

WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $0, repressive government
WCP doesn't sell vote, 51% of OWCP don't sell votes = $0, acceptable government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, repressive government
WCP does sell vote, 51% of OWCP sell votes = $100, acceptable government

On an individual level, it is clear what the best decision is but on a group level that decision is suicidal (and homicidal).

I challenge the assumption that if 51% of the people sell their vote it means there will be a repressive government; more likely, someone believes that they will maximize the capital stock of the nation and are willing to invest a large amount of money into vote buying just as one buys capital. This entrepeneur would, in the end, be helping (or at least doing as little damage as possible) through the fact that he is investing.

No. I charge you to find actual evidence that supports such a ludicrous assumption.

It is hardly a 'ludicrous assumption' that the vote buyer would want people to be as productive as possible so he could have a broader tax base from which to draw revenue. Doing such a thing would be human capital formation, and a benefit to everyone.

Now how exactly would selling your vote solve that? Someone wealthy enough to buy your vote is a lot less likely to leave you alone when they gain power than someone who's political agenda is to leave you alone. You're effectively ignoring what said politicians agenda is in favor of gaining something in return. For all you know, you could be voting for the next Hitler or Ghandi, but wouldn't care which one it was so long as they paid you.

Because people with a political agenda to leave people alone rarely, if ever, are elected, because the basis of politics is to redistribute wealth to particular interests and particular interests will only support candidates who will help them out. While the politician is almost entirely detached from the future returns that go beyond his term (barring such catastrophes as nuclear annihilation) and thus will exploit his office so as to extract as much as possible from the common pool while he still can, the vote-buyer who controls the votes far into the future will have a similarly higher time horizon, which would preclude consuming the wealth of the nation through taxation now if he can leave people alone to be productive and reap the benefits from greater capital accumulation later. And the entry costs of gaining office in such a system would preclude destructive people such as the Hitlers of the world because there would be far less return with their destructive policies than that of someone who is out for simple material gain.

It isn't. There are professional managers that get paid to think of the long-term return. But the majority of economic actors (households and individuals) simply don't consider the long-term return.

So what? It is not important that the households get involved in the exact calculations, merely that they sell their vote to the highest bidder who believes that his policies will get him a higher future return and thus will pay more than his competitors.

Your rose-colored fantasy runs counter to reality.

Your non-argument proves nothing. It would be ludicrous to take in a certain amount of income if it means a drop in present value because to do such a thing would be a loss of wealth. They will simply exchange an asset for its present value rather than deplete it and take a loss.

You need to prove that people that don't know about economics will actually make decisions that serve their own self-interest, both in the long- and short-term, and on a micro- and macro-economic level.

It doesn't matter whether or not the vote-seller knows about economics anymore than a farmer needs to know about economics to feed people. The one who will buy the votes at the highest price anticipates reaping the benefits of not just the income of taxation but the present value of the nation, i.e. its possibilities for future returns. By selling their vote to him, they choose someone who will maximize the capital stock and enrich the country out of his own self-interest for future return.

You automatically assume that politicians don't want your votes and that there will be mutual benefit if you sell your vote to someone. That's just fucking stupid.

There is mutual benefit if I sell my vote, because I get money and they get more control over national policy. The politician, however, simply expects me to give him my vote, one out of a sea of millions, and thus it matters very little to him whether or not I support him.

Idiotic. Your proposed system would be the same as the quarterly profit crap that makes corporations do horrible things. On the contrary, the asshole who bought the most votes would probably try to rob as much as possible in their term in office for themselves and their buddies.

Our politicians already try to rob as much as possible, so even if your assertion were true it wouldn't really make a difference. However, given that the vote-buyer's time horizon is not limited to arbitrary terms but his retention of votes and whatever contracts he can make he will be tied far more intimately to the present value of the assets of the common pool and will act in accordance with it. Hence why I can shop at stores and be satisfied with their offers, because they expect my continued business and will act in accordance with it.

They wouldn't have to make policies beneficial to the working class. Instead, they'd merely need to insure that they profited enough to be the high bidder in the next "election," since poor people would likely be more poor and therefore more desperate to put food on the table.

They wouldn't 'have' to make policies beneficial to the working class, but neither do the current politicians. But the vote-buyer would be inclined towards making the working class more productive and thus more capable of creating wealth now and in the future as well as wanting to act in that way, which would mean more goods and services for them and thus a greater number of tangible benefits. The vote-buyer would act in this way in order to secure a return on his investment in the future, rather than grab as much as possible while he is still enjoying his term and uncertain about his political future.

Must people see everything in terms of economics?

Why wouldn't you sell your vote?

Here are your two choices:

1) Elect a lying scum politician who will abuse his office to enrich himself and his cronies, while providing nothing in return.

or

2) Elect a lying scum politician who will abuse his office to enrich himself and his cronies, while providing at least a little something in return.

It's not hard to see that both options are abhorrent, but at least Option #2 offers something in return. Plus, as my property, my vote should be mine to do with as I please.

That completely destroys the entire idea of Democracy, and since Democracy and Consensus are the only two acceptable forms of government are the only acceptable kinds it must be prevented at all costs.

Not only is no form of government acceptable, but democracy is one of the worst kinds to begin with.

On the contrary, the asshole who bought the most votes would probably try to rob as much as possible in their term in office for themselves and their buddies.

And how is this different from politicians we have now?

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.

It's an interesting concept, since it places a burden on the politician to act in the best interests of the voter he paid to vote. I wouldn't vote Hillary or Obama, though, no matter what the offer. Or would I? Hmmmmm.....

Why wouldn't you sell your vote?

Here are your two choices:

1) Elect a lying scum politician who will abuse his office to enrich himself and his cronies, while providing nothing in return.

or

2) Elect a lying scum politician who will abuse his office to enrich himself and his cronies, while providing at least a little something in return.

It's not hard to see that both options are abhorrent, but at least Option #2 offers something in return. Plus, as my property, my vote should be mine to do with as I please.And how is this different from politicians we have now?A scandal can always get a normally elected politician run out of office. This will not be the case with bought votes. You're effectively giving your vote to whomever is able and willing to afford them, no matter whether he is kind old man or the next Hitler. Note that public outrage against mass murder would no longer prevent anyone from buying their way into office. The only limit is their budget.

In case it isn't clear, what you propose is to open up elections to give otherwise unelectable individuals the means to hold office, as the only important thing becomes how much they're willing to pay for your vote, not whether they'll make your life miserable.
I challenge the assumption that if 51% of the people sell their vote it means there will be a repressive government; more likely, someone believes that they will maximize the capital stock of the nation and are willing to invest a large amount of money into vote buying just as one buys capital. This entrepeneur would, in the end, be helping (or at least doing as little damage as possible) through the fact that he is investing.Ridiculous. You need to show that there will be no abuse of vote buying as opposed to the other way around.
It is hardly a 'ludicrous assumption' that the vote buyer would want people to be as productive as possible so he could have a broader tax base from which to draw revenue. Doing such a thing would be human capital formation, and a benefit to everyone.You're assuming that the person buying your votes:
1) is interested in making you as productive as possible as opposed to amassing as much wealth as they can or getting a return on their "investment".
2) knows what he's doing, as opposed to people like Stalin or Ulbricht that wanted to make people more productive as well, with catastrophic results.
3) will make you more productive without removing such things that limit your productivity, such as free time.

Note that you have no choice in the matter, since you're selling your vote to the highest bidder. Not the person that unites these unlikely qualities, but the one that spends more money.
Because people with a political agenda to leave people alone rarely, if ever, are elected, because the basis of politics is to redistribute wealth to particular interests and particular interests will only support candidates who will help them out. While the politician is almost entirely detached from the future returns that go beyond his term (barring such catastrophes as nuclear annihilation) and thus will exploit his office so as to extract as much as possible from the common pool while he still can, How will this be different from someone that spends money on being elected? I'll show you:
the vote-buyer who controls the votes far into the future will have a similarly higher time horizon, which would preclude consuming the wealth of the nation through taxation now if he can leave people alone to be productive and reap the benefits from greater capital accumulation later. And the entry costs of gaining office in such a system would preclude destructive people such as the Hitlers of the world because there would be far less return with their destructive policies than that of someone who is out for simple material gain.Bullshit. What's to keep a vote buyer from amassing the seats necessary to rewrite the constitution and remove all necessity for people to vote? In the case of the elected politician, it's people's opinion that this is not a good idea. In the case of the vote-buyer, it's whether he can afford it.
So what? It is not important that the households get involved in the exact calculations, merely that they sell their vote to the highest bidder who believes that his policies will get him a higher future return and thus will pay more than his competitors.Ah, so now it's selling your votes to "the highest bidder who believes that his policies will get him a higher future return"? This is no different from current politics, except you're not being paid to vote.
Your non-argument proves nothing. It would be ludicrous to take in a certain amount of income if it means a drop in present value because to do such a thing would be a loss of wealth. They will simply exchange an asset for its present value rather than deplete it and take a loss.Your argument proves nothing either, so that's not really a counter-point at all...
It doesn't matter whether or not the vote-seller knows about economics anymore than a farmer needs to know about economics to feed people. The one who will buy the votes at the highest price anticipates reaping the benefits of not just the income of taxation but the present value of the nation, i.e. its possibilities for future returns. By selling their vote to him, they choose someone who will maximize the capital stock and enrich the country out of his own self-interest for future return.Please refer to the assumptions above.
There is mutual benefit if I sell my vote, because I get money and they get more control over national policy. The politician, however, simply expects me to give him my vote, one out of a sea of millions, and thus it matters very little to him whether or not I support him.A person that buys your vote is going to give even less shit about your opinion, because he doesn't even need to change your mind. Just pay you.

If you havce to do something that's borderline antidemocratic, then instead of allowing vote buying you should require voters to be informed voters. That'll help prevent a repeat of this:

http://www.idrewthis.org/comics/idt20041026confusedvoters.gif

How about we just run the whole country like a large corperation and sell stocks?

@Venndee: Mate, ignoring an argument doesn't make it go away, so can you please explain to us why a vote-buyer with sufficient influence will choose to work for the good of the people and enriching them, when he can amend the constitution, change any law, legalize slavery and buy everyone, making himself more than a feudal lord, by law?

I mean sure, he can afterwards grow the economy so he gets richer and more influential globally but why on earth would he care about people before they are his property? Once he has bought enough power initially, why on earth would he keep investing in acquiring it when he has the power to seize it legally?

No thanks, I'll pass on being one of the Druuge.

Ridiculous. You need to show that there will be no abuse of vote buying as opposed to the other way around.

I've already told you repeatedly, they will want to make the country more productive over a broader period of time so they can receive future returns. This would entail, for instance, lower taxes because labor is a source of disutility and making it have fewer marginal benefits discourages it and makes leisure more beneficial (and increases the marginal benefit of tax evasion.) The more labor now means that more goods and services may be produced and, with a declining marginal utility of present goods versus future goods, more goods will be placed into the production of future goods (i.e. a lowering of interest rates) and thus future returns on the nation will be increased due to a much larger capital stock.

You're assuming that the person buying your votes:
1) is interested in making you as productive as possible as opposed to amassing as much wealth as they can or getting a return on their "investment".

If I am more productive, there is more to take. You certainly cannot make yourself more wealthy when there are smaller future returns.

2) knows what he's doing, as opposed to people like Stalin or Ulbricht that wanted to make people more productive as well, with catastrophic results.

Seeing as how he is investing the money he and others have made, he will be connected to those with financial know-how if not knowledgeable himself, as opposed to the idiotic demagogues that pop up and spew nonsense in order to get the votes of idiots and externalize the costs of his allies.

3) will make you more productive without removing such things that limit your productivity, such as free time.

First of all, there is the problem of legitimacy, which democracy enjoys an unfair amount because of the fantasy of 'we are the government' (which can never be true because of the iron rule of oligarchy.) One is far less likely to obey the orders of someone who bought their way into office than some idiot who filled your ear with silliness to appease your irrational sensibilities. Secondly, in a system of competing states, any expropriation on the part of one country gives an incentive to emigrate to a less repressive nation which would mean fewer goods to expropriate on the part of the first country. Thirdly, we have to recognize that leisure, too, is a consumer good, and we can give it in exchange in order to encourage more productive work. To bar this would be to encourage calculational chaos by barring a less marginally costly payment in exchange for goods and services.

Note that you have no choice in the matter, since you're selling your vote to the highest bidder. Not the person that unites these unlikely qualities, but the one that spends more money.

The person who spends the highest money would almost necessarily have these qualities because all of the above enhance present value and increase present value. The person who would put the most money into the system would be the one who anticipates the greatest future return on his investment and would act in accordance with it.

How will this be different from someone that spends money on being elected? I'll show you:

Because the person who buys votes instead of spends money on his election actually has to take into account the present value of the assets of the nation. While he may be willing to give some concession for $1000 in campaign money that reduces the present value of assets of the nation by $100,000,000, because the hundred-million is not and never will be his money, he would not do the same thing if he can own people's votes for long spans of time because he would want the returns from the hundred million instead of some measly $1000.

Bullshit. What's to keep a vote buyer from amassing the seats necessary to rewrite the constitution and remove all necessity for people to vote? In the case of the elected politician, it's people's opinion that this is not a good idea. In the case of the vote-buyer, it's whether he can afford it.

Yet people constantly vote destructive idiots into power, so public opinion is hardly any defense (look at the bloodthirsty vampires that have been voted into the office of the President of the United States for the last eighty years.) Plenty of autocrats have enjoyed popular support, as well. Whereas, if we were buying vote, people would invest these huge amounts of money because they would expect returns, like in any investment. Trying to get people to invest money into vote-buying in order to destroy the wealth of the nation is like trying to get a loan by telling the bank that you want to destroy all the assets that you would get with their loan money. The financial incentive is far stronger to prevent destruction than the fickleness and irrationality of public opinion.

Ah, so now it's selling your votes to "the highest bidder who believes that his policies will get him a higher future return"? This is no different from current politics, except you're not being paid to vote.

It is different, because it makes sense for one of our politicians to accept a campaign contribution for a few thousand dollars that will cause massive reductions in the present value of the nation, to the tune of millions and even billions of dollars. Whereas, the taxation from these assets goes directly to the vote-buyer, and thus he would want them to maintain their value so he can profit from it.

Your argument proves nothing either, so that's not really a counter-point at all...

Another non-argument. It makes no financial sense to take an amount of income if it means destroying the present value of an asset. You wouldn't very well smash a machine to sell it for scrap if you could A.) make a profit from utilizing it, or B.) sell it to someone else who will use it, because the income you would get from scrap metal would be counter-balanced by the reduction in the present value of the asset. Same thing with a vote-buying scheme to redistribute tax income.

Please refer to the assumptions above.

Already did.

A person that buys your vote is going to give even less shit about your opinion, because he doesn't even need to change your mind. Just pay you.

Actually, the politician is less likely to give a shit about me, because he suffers from the delusion that, since he is elected and re-elected, his constituents adore or at like his evil policies and thus affirms his future evildoing. He also has to resort to deceit and deception and appeal to fear, hatred, and envy as well as give out favors to cronies and supporters in order to gain his office, which provides an incentive for those most skilled in manipulating people and selling out in order to maintain their political support. Whereas, the vote-buyer realizes that people gave him their votes not because they like him but because he paid more than the other guy, which is a sobering realization, and he gained his votes through his acumen of finance and industry rather than demagoguery.


I would much rather have the person who realizes that his acts are business, and acts like it, than the narcissist that believes he is a representative of some fictitious 'will of the people' that excuses the harm he does.

@Venndee: Mate, ignoring an argument doesn't make it go away, so can you please explain to us why a vote-buyer with sufficient influence will choose to work for the good of the people and enriching them, when he can amend the constitution, change any law, legalize slavery and buy everyone, making himself more than a feudal lord, by law?

I mean sure, he can afterwards grow the economy so he gets richer and more influential globally but why on earth would he care about people before they are his property? Once he has bought enough power initially, why on earth would he keep investing in acquiring it when he has the power to seize it legally?

His incentive is to maximize the income from and present value of the nation, in order to receive future returns. Being that labor is a source of disutility, and that ergo incentives must be provided in order to encourage it and productivity, and that leisure is a consumer good that may be exchanged in order to encourage productivity, he would act in accordance with this instead of engaging in inefficiencies like slavery.

And as for him just changing the laws and keeping the votes for himself in all perpetuity, I frankly don't care. He would be better than our politicians since he is more intimately tied to the future wealth of the nation than politicians who are mere caretakers of the common pool and do not suffer declines in present values out of their own pocket, and who are limited by term limits and will act short-sightedly. His exploitation would be far more mild on me because he would realize that his present consumption necessarily interferes with greater future consumption, and so rather than taxing me to the hilt now and making me less productive he will tax mildly so that I am encouraged to work and will produce a greater sum over time that will increase his tax base for future returns.

(snip)

Doesn't this largely rely on the assumption that the purpose of government is to maximise future revenues?

Well, why shouldn't poor people be able to sell their votes? They obviously need the money from the proceeds, hence why they are foregoing keeping their vote in favor of alienating it. Plus in order to gain the maximum future returns the vote-buyers would want to maximize the capital stock, which would include encouraging human capital formation, which would mean that poor people would be helped out.It's the exact opposite - there would be a need to maintain a permanent underclass (an even greater permanent underclass than capitalism usually requires) of vote buyers. In order to do this, people will need to be kept near starving, to sell their votes for a pittance.

Doesn't this largely rely on the assumption that the purpose of government is to maximise future revenues?

I never said that government exists to maximize future revenues; our politicians are quite keen on exploiting the economy while they can regardless of the effect on future goods. However, with a more far-sighted system of governance in which one can gain the benefits of future taxation, the capital stock would increase and with it the stock of present goods that people can work for.

It's the exact opposite - there would be a need to maintain a permanent underclass (an even greater permanent underclass than capitalism usually requires) of vote buyers. In order to do this, people will need to be kept near starving, to sell their votes for a pittance.

First of all, being that labor is a source of disutility, there is no reason to spend one's time learning how to be more productive if one gains no more utility for it; leisure is far more attractive. As such, the vote-buyer would want to make it worth the nation's while to increase their productivity so that he can have a broader tax base to utilize, and that would mean avoiding taking away present goods.

Secondly, the idea that they would act to minimize the price of votes implies a monopsonistic cartel, which is unsustainable because certain people, such as those entering the vote market, will 'cheat' by offering a higher price in order to gain a competitive advantage over others and thus gain more votes that they can use to gain a greater part of the tax revenue, as well as the fact that this would bar speculative profits for vote-buyers since, with a fixed price, there would be no chance to buy votes cheaply now and sell them dearly later when there is a far higher level of future returns that makes a vote more valuable relative to other goods and services, and thus both parties that would have been made better off with the transaction would be worse-off.

the mafia in italy pretty much does alot of vote shopping and vote extortion, and just look at the corruption in italy

and vote buying is not a good thing, think about the legal problems about who has the rights for someones vote, or vote forgery by claiming to have bought a vote from a recently diseased.

imagine buying votes of ebay, not good

Surely any system of vote buying would require the elimination of the secret ballot to ensure that voters would be held accountable to whoever paid them - otherwise, people could (and most likely would) sell their vote to multiple candidates and then vote for whoever they feel like anyway as the candidate knows no better.

Which then raises the possibility of the use of extortion or coercion to secure votes - 'vote for me, or my gang will beat you up', 'vote for my preferred candiate, or I'll make you redundant' etc.

His incentive is to maximize the income from and present value of the nation, in order to receive future returns. Being that labor is a source of disutility, and that ergo incentives must be provided in order to encourage it and productivity, and that leisure is a consumer good that may be exchanged in order to encourage productivity, he would act in accordance with this instead of engaging in inefficiencies like slavery.

And as for him just changing the laws and keeping the votes for himself in all perpetuity, I frankly don't care. He would be better than our politicians since he is more intimately tied to the future wealth of the nation than politicians who are mere caretakers of the common pool and do not suffer declines in present values out of their own pocket, and who are limited by term limits and will act short-sightedly. His exploitation would be far more mild on me because he would realize that his present consumption necessarily interferes with greater future consumption, and so rather than taxing me to the hilt now and making me less productive he will tax mildly so that I am encouraged to work and will produce a greater sum over time that will increase his tax base for future returns.

You could've just say from the beginning that this debate is about turning the country into one vote-buyer's plantation, rather than vote-buying :rolleyes:

And no, I personally quite dislike the idea of selling myself into serfdom thank you very much.

First of all, being that labor is a source of disutility, there is no reason to spend one's time learning how to be more productive if one gains no more utility for it; leisure is far more attractive. As such, the vote-buyer would want to make it worth the nation's while to increase their productivity so that he can have a broader tax base to utilize, and that would mean avoiding taking away present goods.The vote-buyer won't want a broader tax base to utilize, the vote-buyer will want as few voters to buy as possible.

Secondly, the idea that they would act to minimize the price of votes implies a monopsonistic cartel, which is unsustainable because certain people, such as those entering the vote market, will 'cheat' by offering a higher price in order to gain a competitive advantage over others and thus gain more votes that they can use to gain a greater part of the tax revenue, as well as the fact that this would bar speculative profits for vote-buyers since, with a fixed price, there would be no chance to buy votes cheaply now and sell them dearly later when there is a far higher level of future returns that makes a vote more valuable relative to other goods and services, and thus both parties that would have been made better off with the transaction would be worse-off.Given that tax revenue doesn't go to politicians, this is a non sequitur.

Perhaps there is a need to contribute a different viewpoint from a different situation.

I live in a poor developing country, as some of you may know. Yes, my beloved country is a badly run country. Just ask any citizen on the street, on the farms, or anywhere and they'll tell you that the government sucks. Ask the same person, if s/he is a voter and if ever s/he had been offered money for his/her vote. Chances are, s/he'll say yes.

Vote-buying is rife in the country. Last election, two of the three candidates for the mayoralty of my rotten hometown gave money in envelopes to all of the voters in our household (~4 voters), and indeed, the entire neighborhood. During every election, money pours forth from candidates like manna from heaven. In short, this is a country where politicians routinely buy votes.

Did it improve our welfare just a bit? Hell no. First of all, let's talk about the poor. 43% of our population lives on <$2 per day. Of course, during election time, it will be very easy to rake in votes by just buying the votes of the starving poor who will be more than happy to accept $4 for their vote. Of course, some may give $10, but that's rare. Now, let me tell you what's happening: of course these corrupt politicians will also be more than happy to neglect these poor people so they already have a reliable constituency when elections come. Toss a bit of money to voters there and you get votes. Did selling their vote lift the poor from poverty? No. Can it bring them up from their plight? I think not.

Second. Let's think about where this money is coming from. Of course you are talking about high-fallutin' economics, let me tell you what is happening and what will happen in simpler terms. Of course, you, the corrupt politician, bought a lot of votes to win the election. That's an investment. In this country, that investment is big (that's why only the rich run for elections). How will you get your investment back? By increasing productivity? Preposterous. Nobody does that. The returns are very slow and not guaranteed. By improving the status of the poor? Nah, the more for you, the less for me. I would have fewer poor people to employ like slave labor to keep me rich and out of the red. So, how do they get their money back? One word: CORRUPTION. Embezzlement, graft, whatever. It is the easiest way of getting your money back. Never mind that you are stealing from the public, after all, they benefited from the pocket change you used to buy their votes with. Provided done intelligently, corruption can make the rich vote-buyers richer. When you get caught, why you can just run again, buy votes, and win again! My country ranks up there in corruption (Though not all public officials are corrupt. Just most.) Now, ever wondered why public offices are so in-demand and why they spend so much trying to acquire it?

Third, as for the "the more productive, there is more to take", well, you do not need to be more productive so that more can be taken. You can simply borrow money from rich countries or the IMF. You enrich yourself some more with the country and your country(wo)men taking up the tabs.

the mafia in italy pretty much does alot of vote shopping and vote extortion, and just look at the corruption in italy

and vote buying is not a good thing, think about the legal problems about who has the rights for someones vote, or vote forgery by claiming to have bought a vote from a recently diseased.

imagine buying votes of ebay, not good

The reason why vote-buying and corruption in Italy seem to correlate is because it is illegal to sell one's vote, and thus a black market is created; same thing with illegal drugs. If they brought vote-buying aboveground where the vote-buying would be taken out of the hands of those most skilled in criminal activity into the hands of legitimate financiers, we would see an improvement. (For instance, instead of a politician hiring some thugs secretly to get him some votes, he could pay a vote agency which, operating under the rule of law, would have to behave concerning their acquisitions.) While what the mafia does is tragic, their activities speak more about the evils of prohibition than buying and selling votes.

You could've just say from the beginning that this debate is about turning the country into one vote-buyer's plantation, rather than vote-buying :rolleyes:

And no, I personally quite dislike the idea of selling myself into serfdom thank you very much.

You don't have to worry about selling yourself into serfdom; under our system, you get to do that for free!

The vote-buyer won't want a broader tax base to utilize, the vote-buyer will want as few voters to buy as possible.

He would want a broader tax-base, because that means more funds for him to exploit. When he buys a vote, he expects a return, and a broader tax base is basically the only thing that provides that.

Given that tax revenue doesn't go to politicians, this is a non sequitur.

But in a vote-buying system where the vote-buyers allocate the funds, i.e. to themselves, it is not. They will have an intimate connection to the present value of the nation.

-snip-

I think I will make some general points about your post. Now, I can see that you are attached to your country (which one, BTW?), and likely something I say may very well offend you inadvertently, but I do not intend this as you are indicating to me that you want a response. (In actual fact, I lived in Paraguay for a few months, which is a country in which the ruling party regularly engages in similar activities as your nation.)

Now, what I theorize as the problem in your nation through your anecdotal evidence is not so much vote-buying but that the political sphere is, like most of the others in the world, a common pool of resources that doesn't really belong to anyone. This is why your politicians engage in corruption, since they can effectively externalize the nation-wide costs that result from their abuses of power. This also explains their reliance on IMF loans, since while a company or private individual would be hesitant to take on such liabilities due to the fact that it would reduce their equity, since it is not their own personal equity that is reduced the politicians of your nation engage in it despite the reduction of the nation's equity and the burden it places on everyone else.

What also seems to be indicated is that A.) Vote-buying is illegal de jure, and B.) The votes are allocated on a very short-term basis, i.e. every election cycle. Hence why your politicians rush out to steal as much as possible during their term so they have the chance to beat the other guy when the next election comes. This creates a very brief time-horizon for their policies; they either have to take as much as possible in the present to win their election or lose because they did not consume as quickly as possible (which also means that they forego the opportunity to enjoy personal income for absolutely nothing.) This is actually similar to the governments of other nations, who try to engage in as much fiscal and monetary irresponsibility for their allies in order to gain as much support as possible regardless of the deleterious future effects like debt, devaluation of money, etc. (The difference in the status of the citizens of the Western country and that of other countries is that of legitimacy, where we would not tolerate too much abuse due to custom, though with counter-terrorism this seems to be changing.)

What I believe would work would improve the time horizon of your public figures would be long-term above-ground voting contracts. By making the voting contracts enforceable, you also make a chance to extend this enforcement to other contracts which would improve the status of property rights and rule of law. Also, by making voting contracts long-term (i.e. you vote for me or for whoever I favor for the next X years), the politician's choices are not between exploiting as much as possible now in order to get a new term or not exploiting and not getting a future term or the benefits of this term, it would be a question of if one wants to expropriate now and prevent development or allowing development in order to take advantage of it later. In effect, this would internalize the costs of misbehavior as it would mean foregoing future revenues from a broader, more developed tax base.

In the end, I believe that your nation's political troubles in the regard of sales of votes are not so much related to vote-buying as much as they have to do with externalizing long-term costs, which it is impossible for leaders to account for so long as they are competing on a very short-term basis. Rather than eliminating vote-buying and transferring to a less-direct system of externalization of costs that also fails to account for long-term costs like Western democracy, it would be better to expand the time horizon of political action through long-term control of votes so that there is less incentive to take now rather than taking a proportionately larger sum from a bigger pool later.

A scandal can always get a normally elected politician run out of office. This will not be the case with bought votes. You're effectively giving your vote to whomever is able and willing to afford them, no matter whether he is kind old man or the next Hitler. Note that public outrage against mass murder would no longer prevent anyone from buying their way into office. The only limit is their budget.

And how does the current system prevent the next Hitler from getting power? Answer: It doesn't.

In case it isn't clear, what you propose is to open up elections to give otherwise unelectable individuals the means to hold office, as the only important thing becomes how much they're willing to pay for your vote, not whether they'll make your life miserable.

What's stopping unelectable individuals from being elected now?

I think I will make some general points about your post. Now, I can see that you are attached to your country (which one, BTW?), and likely something I say may very well offend you inadvertently, but I do not intend this as you are indicating to me that you want a response. (In actual fact, I lived in Paraguay for a few months, which is a country in which the ruling party regularly engages in similar activities as your nation.)

Now, what I theorize as the problem in your nation through your anecdotal evidence is not so much vote-buying but that the political sphere is, like most of the others in the world, a common pool of resources that doesn't really belong to anyone. This is why your politicians engage in corruption, since they can effectively externalize the nation-wide costs that result from their abuses of power. This also explains their reliance on IMF loans, since while a company or private individual would be hesitant to take on such liabilities due to the fact that it would reduce their equity, since it is not their own personal equity that is reduced the politicians of your nation engage in it despite the reduction of the nation's equity and the burden it places on everyone else.

What also seems to be indicated is that A.) Vote-buying is illegal de jure, and B.) The votes are allocated on a very short-term basis, i.e. every election cycle. Hence why your politicians rush out to steal as much as possible during their term so they have the chance to beat the other guy when the next election comes. This creates a very brief time-horizon for their policies; they either have to take as much as possible in the present to win their election or lose because they did not consume as quickly as possible (which also means that they forego the opportunity to enjoy personal income for absolutely nothing.) This is actually similar to the governments of other nations, who try to engage in as much fiscal and monetary irresponsibility for their allies in order to gain as much support as possible regardless of the deleterious future effects like debt, devaluation of money, etc. (The difference in the status of the citizens of the Western country and that of other countries is that of legitimacy, where we would not tolerate too much abuse due to custom, though with counter-terrorism this seems to be changing.)

What I believe would work would improve the time horizon of your public figures would be long-term above-ground voting contracts. By making the voting contracts enforceable, you also make a chance to extend this enforcement to other contracts which would improve the status of property rights and rule of law. Also, by making voting contracts long-term (i.e. you vote for me or for whoever I favor for the next X years), the politician's choices are not between exploiting as much as possible now in order to get a new term or not exploiting and not getting a future term or the benefits of this term, it would be a question of if one wants to expropriate now and prevent development or allowing development in order to take advantage of it later. In effect, this would internalize the costs of misbehavior as it would mean foregoing future revenues from a broader, more developed tax base.

In the end, I believe that your nation's political troubles in the regard of sales of votes are not so much related to vote-buying as much as they have to do with externalizing long-term costs, which it is impossible for leaders to account for so long as they are competing on a very short-term basis. Rather than eliminating vote-buying and transferring to a less-direct system of externalization of costs that also fails to account for long-term costs like Western democracy, it would be better to expand the time horizon of political action through long-term control of votes so that there is less incentive to take now rather than taking a proportionately larger sum from a bigger pool later.
No, our congresspeople have longer terms (3 years) than in the US and our presidents also have longer terms (6 years). And no, the more probable proximate cause is not their rush to profit, but rather, the vote-buying in the first place. If vote-buying does not happen, then there is less incentive to corrupt as there is little initial investment put in. If they do corrupt, they can be voted out as there are honest elections without the influence of money. And still some more no, I don't see how would blatant vote-buying and vote-selling will solve our nation's problems. Other countries did not have to resort to vote-buying to achieve progress and provide for the well-being of their citizens... most countries that belong in this category do not have vote buying.

You don't have to worry about selling yourself into serfdom; under our system, you get to do that for free!


:rolleyes: von Hayek is dead.

You don't have to worry about selling yourself into serfdom; under our system, you get to do that for free!

So what you seek to do is rationalise this situation?

I'm starting to get really confused. You admit the current situation is regrettable but your solution is to rationalise/legitimise it and furthermore to undermine the last possible legal solution, by destroying civil society through merger of economics and state/politics?:confused:

He would want a broader tax-base, because that means more funds for him to exploit. When he buys a vote, he expects a return, and a broader tax base is basically the only thing that provides that.It wouldn't be necessary to have a broader tax-base specifically; having criminals provide slave labor would work well.
It might mean an increase in the stock of capital, but this doesn't mean the permanent underclass need have access to it. It would be counterproductive for them to have access to it unless they're working at the moment.

But in a vote-buying system where the vote-buyers allocate the funds, i.e. to themselves, it is not. They will have an intimate connection to the present value of the nation.So then they can do the economic equivalent of clearcutting?

I've already told you repeatedly, they will want to make the country more productive over a broader period of time so they can receive future returns. This is ridiculous. If you lack the intelligence necessary to deduce why this isn't true, we're done here.

And how does the current system prevent the next Hitler from getting power? Answer: It doesn't.The current system does it by people not voting for someone they don't like on grounds of totalitarianism, as opposed to voting for someone they don't like on grounds of totalitarianism that can afford their vote.
What's stopping unelectable individuals from being elected now?Public opinion and smear campaigns.

As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.
No, because there is no 'loss' involved - unless you consider the tremendous effort of having to get off your chair and go to a polling station. Even then, through postal voting and the oft-mooted idea of Internet voting, the Government is doing all it can to make the act of voting less significant (and presumably therefore, make us less likely to notice when it's finally taken away).

At worst, if the ability to cast your vote in a (supposedly) democratic nation does not quantify in your mind as a gain, then you are no worse off from having the right and the power to do so.

If, however, your only measure of whether anything is a gain is whether or not it brings you personal wealth, then a) I can see why you would consider the act of voting to be more effort than it's worth, and b) could I please ask you not to vote. Money-centric individuals and organisations already have an unhealthy amount of power in western society.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting
It would ensure that all those who see the immediate gain of a few pounds/dollars/whatever as a greater benefit than the right to have their say in government remove themselves from the electorate and therefore relinquish their right to representation. And I suspect that would be a very large number of people. Some might argue it'd be a good thing (see above). But who'd end up with the power? Those who were willing to look beyond immediate financial gain and play the long game, and who have the financial means to purchase votes from others in sufficient quantities to make their voices heard. And who knows what ultimate ambitions they might have? Once the company that's bulk-bought the nation's votes gets into power, who's to say what purpose money would serve? What would stop government-owned corporations from executing mass vote buyouts?

Some will no doubt point out that that the rich already have more control. Perhaps that's true. This is thanks partly to the corruption of democracy and partly to the existing apathy of the people, who can't be bothered to do anything about it. As in Venndee's case here, well, it's already broke, and it'd be an effort to fix it, so we might as well just take whatever we can grab and jump ship - leave the others to fend for themselves. It's the motto of the 20/21 Century west: Frak you, Jack, I'm all right.

The position Venndee suggests would be the death knell for ailing democracy. It would legitimise those who corrupt the existing democracies, and explicitly authorise that corruption of the system to continue. At least at the moment, corrupt democracy is wrong, and criticising it is therefore valid. But the voter who sells his vote takes the payoff and releases the government from any expectation of accountability.

No, our congresspeople have longer terms (3 years) than in the US and our presidents also have longer terms (6 years). And no, the more probable proximate cause is not their rush to profit, but rather, the vote-buying in the first place. If vote-buying does not happen, then there is less incentive to corrupt as there is little initial investment put in. If they do corrupt, they can be voted out as there are honest elections without the influence of money. And still some more no, I don't see how would blatant vote-buying and vote-selling will solve our nation's problems. Other countries did not have to resort to vote-buying to achieve progress and provide for the well-being of their citizens... most countries that belong in this category do not have vote buying.

Three and six years are not very long in the human life cycle; US senators get six years, for instance, and they are the ones (partly) responsible for our enormous debt, deficits, wasteful spending, stupid wars, etc. etc. etc. because they have to whore themselves out to get enough support from cronies to be re-elected.

There is really no such thing as an 'honest election'; while this principle is more pronounced in your country and others that have been historically abused by imperialist powers, politicians have to whore themselves out as much as possible to particular interests in order to accrue the support that is gained from externalizing others' costs, even if there is a disproportionate drop in the value of the nation's wealth due to their actions (for instance, receiving $1000 in campaign contributions to support a war that costs billions upon billions of dollars to the benefit of certain particular interests, because without that money there will be no opportunity to gain a new term and continue exploiting.) The only difference between the Western political system and those of the periphery are the perceived legitimacy of acts of corruption and that Westerners tend to be more coy in their acts instead of being blatant. The only reasonable thing to do is to expand the time horizon of the politicians' exploitation such that they will bear the costs of present-consumption as they effect present values rather than needing to consume as much as possible in the present or never be re-elected to continue their exploitation.

:rolleyes: von Hayek is dead.

Unfortunately.

So what you seek to do is rationalise this situation?

I'm starting to get really confused. You admit the current situation is regrettable but your solution is to rationalise/legitimise it and furthermore to undermine the last possible legal solution, by destroying civil society through merger of economics and state/politics?:confused:

Think of it like this; would you rather be beaten with a whiffle bat or a sledgehammer? Honestly, most people would prefer neither, but given a choice between a political system in which exploitation is very short-sighted in order to take enough money to get a new term or else fail to gain a new term, or in which the politician to weigh the benefits of exploiting now versus the costs of having less to exploit later, I will take the latter for my own future well-being.

It wouldn't be necessary to have a broader tax-base specifically; having criminals provide slave labor would work well.
It might mean an increase in the stock of capital, but this doesn't mean the permanent underclass need have access to it. It would be counterproductive for them to have access to it unless they're working at the moment.

Slave-labor is necessarily inefficient, because labor is a source of disutility and the promise of force only makes people work enough to avoid being beaten or abused, and does not encourage them to become more productive because the time they spend doing so will not mean more benefits for them. Also, it means that the labor in question cannot switch from job to job according to higher wages and salaries and thus act in accordance with it, meaning that labor is allocated inefficiently. Thus, the vote-buyer must provide incentives to work and become a better worker that outweigh the disutility of labor so as to increase his capital stock, which means that the rest of the people in the nation will improve their material position.

So then they can do the economic equivalent of clearcutting?

Just like one wouldn't kill the golden goose that lays the egg, they would be more interested in preserving the capital stock of the nation so that they can reap future benefits from it or sell the present value to another person rather than destroy it, because the future enjoyment of these items outweighs that of any present enjoyment now (hence why investing exists.) This is in stark contrast to a political system in which one must steal as much as possible in order to have a chance to continue to exploit in the next term.

This is ridiculous. If you lack the intelligence necessary to deduce why this isn't true, we're done here.

If you cannot bring yourself above flaming and non-sequiturs to actually engage in intelligent discussion, then we most certainly are 'done here.'

Think of it like this; would you rather be beaten with a whiffle bat or a sledgehammer? Honestly, most people would prefer neither, but given a choice between a political system in which exploitation is very short-sighted in order to take enough money to get a new term or else fail to gain a new term, or in which the politician to weigh the benefits of exploiting now versus the costs of having less to exploit later, I will take the latter for my own future well-being.

Since we are having an intellectually honest exercise of imagination why limit the options? Why do you refuse to admit other solutions to a problem, and blindly debate away an over-simplistic purely economic argument, when you yourself admit that it isn't entirely satisfactory, just a sort of "lesser evil"?

And furthermore, as stated above, it's not all about economics and game theory, which has already proven disastrous in politics as per Reagan and Thatcher. People are not entirely rational, independent, economic calculators - there are such things as ideals, values, religion, civil society etc, which hold more freedom in themselves than a mathematical game theory could ever dream to provide. And to come back to your argument, given the already demonstrated (by people's responses) resistance to buying votes, what if people refuse to receive $100 for a vote and vote for a party on principle/platform of it resisting your proposed system? Thought of that?

If you cannot bring yourself above flaming and non-sequiturs to actually engage in intelligent discussion, then we most certainly are 'done here.'Pretending a fantasy is fact and repeating it ad nauseum as though it were proof is not a debate.

You keep saying that the person who buys your votes will be the person best suited to run the country, as opposed to someone who wants the power enough to spend the money necessary or a puppet candidate paid for by Arab sheiks or the Chinese. That is stupid, and continuing to hold on to said fantasy when its been repeatedly pointed out that selling your vote will not guarantee the best choice is either an act of trolling or based on poor cognitive reasoning.

Pretending a fantasy is fact and repeating it ad nauseum as though it were proof is not a debate.

Unfortunately, the one billion muslims and two billion christians disagree. :(

Unfortunately, the one billion muslims and two billion christians disagree. :(Not all of them.

Slave-labor is necessarily inefficient, because labor is a source of disutility and the promise of force only makes people work enough to avoid being beaten or abused, and does not encourage them to become more productive because the time they spend doing so will not mean more benefits for them. Also, it means that the labor in question cannot switch from job to job according to higher wages and salaries and thus act in accordance with it, meaning that labor is allocated inefficiently. Thus, the vote-buyer must provide incentives to work and become a better worker that outweigh the disutility of labor so as to increase his capital stock, which means that the rest of the people in the nation will improve their material position.The incentive might be different food, or perhaps access to a luxury - but never to the point where people aren't kept desperate.

Just like one wouldn't kill the golden goose that lays the egg, they would be more interested in preserving the capital stock of the nation so that they can reap future benefits from it or sell the present value to another person rather than destroy it, because the future enjoyment of these items outweighs that of any present enjoyment now (hence why investing exists.) This is in stark contrast to a political system in which one must steal as much as possible in order to have a chance to continue to exploit in the next term.Since most of the people who have enough money to buy votes are older anyway, they will be more concerned with exploiting present benefits before they die as opposed to leaving something for another person to exploit after the next election.

Though I enjoy politics as an academic pursuit, I realize that voting has little to no practical purpose. This is because A.) My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things has absolutely no noticeable effect on the political system, and B.) It is in the self-interest of politicians to abuse the powers of the state to spend tax money and accrue debt, which is not part of their estate but rather publicly owned and thus imposes no actual cost on them, to their allies to be re-elected (meaning that they have no interest in what I have to say.) As such, coupled with my general dislike for politicians, the act of voting for me would be a net loss.

However, this disutility might be overcome if I were permitted to sell my vote to the highest bidder, being that I would actually receive some tangible benefits from voting; namely, the cash proceeds of the sale. Additionally, being able to possess a great many votes as a certainty instead of having to depend upon the loyalties of the political machine's shifting particular interests would mean a far broader time horizon with which to plan, as well as the fact that the vote-buyers would be able to capitalize on the common pool of the nation by allocating taxation and spending as they wish and thus would want to maximize present value for the sake of future returns and enhance the capital stock of the country as a whole.

As such, I see no reason why someone should not be able to alienate their vote in order to receive greater benefits than they would by being forced to keep it. While the alienation of one's vote still does not solve serious issues concerning legislative power, my gains from a sale would be far superior than the alleged benefits of voting for someone who will ignore me and exploit his office.Blech!!

My vote is one of millions that in the grand scheme of things

It's a single vote of millions of other single votes, each one of them a single vote out of millions of single votes.

But being on topic, hell no should people ever be able to buy votes. This country is already biased in favor of the rich too much as it is, we need less of that crap not more of it. It's always been one person one vote because that's the most fair and balanced way to handle voting and therefor it should continue to be that way.

Selling votes is, symbolically, selling your democracy for a few dimes and giving power to the richest and most power-hungry person of the country.
Did we fight Hitler, communism, Saddam, the Taliban and Milosevic to eventually sell and barter away our democracy for a couple of bucks ???

The only ones who really profit from selling votes are corrupt politicians who believe they can buy their power.

Vote or don't. But don't sell it.

:upyours: Is your head in your ass I mean we all agree Hitler/ the Taliban/ and many others are evil but isn't America? You've been wagging war, supplying arms or other equally insane things for decades. The US collectively voted for than revoted for an Idiot with an IQ of about the sqaure root of a retard. He did "BUY" the Vote in Florida If as another posting sited Bill Gates would be the leader if the vote went to the richest at least you'd have a brilliant and compationet President who would try to rebuilt and fix the country and world. As it is the motto of the US governmet seems to be kill it, rape it, eat it, rape it again, and then burn it to the ground. So why not sell your vote you don't have much more say than a Monarchy at leats you'd have that cash in hand. The US government is Not a Democracy it's a Farcical Dictatorship that just has the elusion of freedom run by the mentaly challenged and the Senate it would appear is filled with Pedophiles!

Since we are having an intellectually honest exercise of imagination why limit the options? Why do you refuse to admit other solutions to a problem, and blindly debate away an over-simplistic purely economic argument, when you yourself admit that it isn't entirely satisfactory, just a sort of "lesser evil"?

Because the other actual solutions are probably more odious to people's sensitivities than the idea of vote-buying. Most 'reforms' that people like would just make the situation worse.

And furthermore, as stated above, it's not all about economics and game theory, which has already proven disastrous in politics as per Reagan and Thatcher. People are not entirely rational, independent, economic calculators - there are such things as ideals, values, religion, civil society etc, which hold more freedom in themselves than a mathematical game theory could ever dream to provide. And to come back to your argument, given the already demonstrated (by people's responses) resistance to buying votes, what if people refuse to receive $100 for a vote and vote for a party on principle/platform of it resisting your proposed system? Thought of that?

Reagan did not have anything to do with free markets; rather, he whored himself out to the military-industrial complex, greatly expanded the size of government and pretended that he was liberalizing the economy in order to defuse anti-government sentiment. His faults are the same as most any other politician in that they are due not to economic allocation through free markets and individual economic decisions as they did with the flaws of the state. While psychic income is important, money as a medium of exchange almost always gives utility and thus provides incentives in and of itself. Hence, the incentives that vote-buying provide towards seeking future returns necessarily is a push towards better possibilities of government that preserves the wealth of the nation for future consumption.

And as for people refusing to sell their vote and believing in the current system, they are simply weakening the incentives towards lower exploitation by supporting more externalization of costs and narrower time horizons of exploitation, which is no good for my well-being, and as such I oppose it. However, the $100 being offered is a good counter-incentive to push people towards more future-oriented government.

-snip-

You still have not done anything other than begging the question, making non-sequiturs, flaming, and believing that the basic concept of present value is a 'fantasy.'

Anyway, I thought you said we were done here?

The incentive might be different food, or perhaps access to a luxury - but never to the point where people aren't kept desperate.

But one would have an incentive to end desperateness, since one is providing greater psychic income to laborers and thus giving oneself a competitive advantage versus other employers.

Since most of the people who have enough money to buy votes are older anyway, they will be more concerned with exploiting present benefits before they die as opposed to leaving something for another person to exploit after the next election.

They can hand on their votes to the next generation through inheritance, which would mean that one could expand one's time horizon beyond one's life. Hence, the idea of family businesses (which make up a large portion of Fortune 500 companies due to their inter-generational success.)

It's a single vote of millions of other single votes, each one of them a single vote out of millions of single votes.

But what I mean is that my vote is of astoundingly low marginal benefit, since it has so little effect. As such, I have little reason to participate.

But being on topic, hell no should people ever be able to buy votes. This country is already biased in favor of the rich too much as it is, we need less of that crap not more of it. It's always been one person one vote because that's the most fair and balanced way to handle voting and therefor it should continue to be that way.

Politics will always be biased towards elites (who may not necessarily be rich) due to the iron law of oligarchy; there is no getting around that. What can be done is to make the elites exploitation less burdensome, rather than more. And as for one person one vote being the most fair and balanced way, I think it is important to keep in mind that World War I was fought between countries with universal or near universal male suffrage (even Russia had the zemstvos and Duma), and the explosion in state power since the pre-World War I era has followed in its heels.

How about this idea:
1) people are permitted to sell votes
2) revenue from vote sales will be subject to an income tax of 500%

People can sell their votes, but no one would ever want to! Everybody wins!

But one would have an incentive to end desperateness, since one is providing greater psychic income to laborers and thus giving oneself a competitive advantage versus other employers.Only if there is a risk of losing a competitive advantage would there be an incentive to end desperateness. Since desperateness would pretty much exist across the board (due to the race-to-the-bottom aspect that typically occurs in open markets), a single "employer" would have no need to provide a reasonable standard of living.

They can hand on their votes to the next generation through inheritance, which would mean that one could expand one's time horizon beyond one's life. Hence, the idea of family businesses (which make up a large portion of Fortune 500 companies due to their inter-generational success.)And if they somehow lose the election? Wouldn't they plunder the resources between the end of the election and the beginning of the new person's term?

This idea would accomplish three things if implemented.

The first would be direct rule by corporations. They have the most money, they will put their puppets up and have them be voted for. Likely, they will arrange themselves in larger organizations in order to best take advantage of this. The presidential election is between General Electric and Microsoft.

The second would be the expansion of the poor. Poor people can be depended on to sell their votes to the highest bidder, and after this becomes a practice for some time, most will actually grow to depend on that revenue for survival. tax and wage laws will be managed in order to keep this group of the most advantageous size and desperation for the new ruling corporate class.

The third will be the buying of votes by foreign governments, in order to elect local puppets who will do their bidding. This will most likely be done primarily by china.

You need to study collective action ethics if you want to understand the value your vote has. You cannot always make your decisions as an individual, but should make them as a group. Your choice to abstain from voting may have little effect, but if a thousand more like you abstain, it can have a profound effect.

Only if there is a risk of losing a competitive advantage would there be an incentive to end desperateness. Since desperateness would pretty much exist across the board (due to the race-to-the-bottom aspect that typically occurs in open markets), a single "employer" would have no need to provide a reasonable standard of living.

The idea of a race-to-the-bottom begs the question as to why people are paid different wages from one another. If one employer thinks that he can profit by bidding another employee away from another firm using the promise of higher wages, he will do so, as will any employer until the returns from the employee reach the natural economy-wide interest rate. And seeing as how the rate of return is based upon the productivity, of cost of inputs versus outputs, wages will tend to rise with the productivity of workers as indicated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' empirical study. Hence, it is in the interest of the employer to end desperateness out of his own self-interest.

And if they somehow lose the election? Wouldn't they plunder the resources between the end of the election and the beginning of the new person's term?

This actually happens already in democratic governments through presidents pushing through a number of edicts before they lose their office, such as through mass pardonings of political allies. But as for plundering post-election, the vote-buyer most likely would not do such a thing because there is always a chance of winning the next election, with end-term plundering being avoided so as not to destroy future returns, and he could give votes elsewhere in order to control policy, meaning that his votes would continue to hold present value that he could seize and would not want to destroy. As well, the present value of the assets of the nation means that there would be an aversion to depletion that does not raise income sufficiently to make up for present value, but rather there would be sales of the assets to other parties and thus no actual destruction.

This idea would accomplish three things if implemented.

Let's hear them.

The first would be direct rule by corporations. They have the most money, they will put their puppets up and have them be voted for. Likely, they will arrange themselves in larger organizations in order to best take advantage of this. The presidential election is between General Electric and Microsoft.

*Shrugs* Elites will always dominate the political system; the trick is getting them to behave in such a way that minimizes their exploitation. While a big company may benefit from receiving a subsidy in our present political system, in a system where they have access to tax revenue as a whole they will have to weigh the present benefits of receiving money now versus foregoing future money that would result from allowing people to keep their money and thus providing an offset to the disutility of labor.

The second would be the expansion of the poor. Poor people can be depended on to sell their votes to the highest bidder, and after this becomes a practice for some time, most will actually grow to depend on that revenue for survival. tax and wage laws will be managed in order to keep this group of the most advantageous size and desperation for the new ruling corporate class.

Democratic governments already keep people miserable so as to make them a particular interest that will support their messianic message; we can see this in the United States, for instance, with Great Society urban renewal to 'help' the poor destroying their homes and making them cry out for more help. But the idea that the vote-buyer would engage in the same is dubious indeed; labor is a source of disutility, and any expropriation makes leisure increasingly more and more attractive and labor less so, which means that there will be fewer future goods to take advantage of. Also, the incentives for performing labor outside of the legal sphere increases, meaning that there must be more effort put into expropriating black market goods that could be spent elsewhere or saved, not to mention increases in criminal propensity that accompanies illicit activity (such as the establishing of paths for bribery for other crimes that are not so victimless.) Additionally, the existence of competing states would mean that there would be an incentive for emigration and capital flight that would deplete the wealth of the nation for the vote-buyers who impose restrictive policy. Finally, it is questionable as to whether the vote-buyers would have the legitimacy to impose this policy, even if they wanted to, because they would be identified as an entirely different class and would be more vehemently resisted as opposed to the current state where we erroneously believe that "we are the government."

What the vote-buyers would do, instead, is to impose modest taxation, so that the rest of the nation has the incentive to be productive and increase the size of the common pool that the vote-buyers can draw upon in the future.

The third will be the buying of votes by foreign governments, in order to elect local puppets who will do their bidding. This will most likely be done primarily by china.

Interesting that you say this, seeing as how Federal policy is already indentured to foreign lobbyists and debt-holders due to their profligate and thieving policies. So long as foreign governments are in the business of increasing future returns, I have no problem with it, especially considering that their infusions of cash for votes (capital) would mean we would have the right to buy their goods, services, and capital in exchange. If, however, they had malicious intent, there would be a treasury of votes so as to avoid a hostile takeover, and any large deals would charge the foreigners a premium as their acts would destroy present value and thus the value of the votes that are derived from future returns; those with intent to increase the present value of the nation would thus have an advantage in that the seller of votes would not have to offset the potential loss of present value by raising the price of votes.

You need to study collective action ethics if you want to understand the value your vote has. You cannot always make your decisions as an individual, but should make them as a group. Your choice to abstain from voting may have little effect, but if a thousand more like you abstain, it can have a profound effect.

Actually, I really have no interest in voting at all, and probably would not even engage in it in a vote-buying scheme, as I feel that politicians are entirely antagonistic to my interests and do not want to give them any legitimacy. If a thousand other people chose to do the same, I would actually like that.

Three and six years are not very long in the human life cycle; US senators get six years, for instance, and they are the ones (partly) responsible for our enormous debt, deficits, wasteful spending, stupid wars, etc. etc. etc. because they have to whore themselves out to get enough support from cronies to be re-elected.

There is really no such thing as an 'honest election'; while this principle is more pronounced in your country and others that have been historically abused by imperialist powers, politicians have to whore themselves out as much as possible to particular interests in order to accrue the support that is gained from externalizing others' costs, even if there is a disproportionate drop in the value of the nation's wealth due to their actions (for instance, receiving $1000 in campaign contributions to support a war that costs billions upon billions of dollars to the benefit of certain particular interests, because without that money there will be no opportunity to gain a new term and continue exploiting.) The only difference between the Western political system and those of the periphery are the perceived legitimacy of acts of corruption and that Westerners tend to be more coy in their acts instead of being blatant. The only reasonable thing to do is to expand the time horizon of the politicians' exploitation such that they will bear the costs of present-consumption as they effect present values rather than needing to consume as much as possible in the present or never be re-elected to continue their exploitation.
Really? No such thing? :rolleyes: Have some faith in humanity, dear.

Ever heard of public financing of campaigns? That can lessen the need to get money from special interest groups and can allow for anyone capable/eligible to run. Your solution is not THE solution, IMHO, it is one of the worst things that one can do - legitimizing an already abhorrent practice.

*Shrugs* Elites will always dominate the political system; the trick is getting them to behave in such a way that minimizes their exploitation. While a big company may benefit from receiving a subsidy in our present political system, in a system where they have access to tax revenue as a whole they will have to weigh the present benefits of receiving money now versus foregoing future money that would result from allowing people to keep their money and thus providing an offset to the disutility of labor.

American lending systems and petrochemical firms are proof that at least some of the largest corporations there lack any ability to plan for the future.

And given how the American economy works, wherein the nation as a whole owes more than it can make, is very telling in how "future sighted" it really is. It's not. Sooner or later, a resource crunch will catch up with it, and it will end up bankrupt.

Who would be dumb enough to buy a vote anyway? How do the people you're paying prove that they've voted the proper way anyway.

Really? No such thing? :rolleyes: Have some faith in humanity, dear.

Ever heard of public financing of campaigns? That can lessen the need to get money from special interest groups and can allow for anyone capable/eligible to run. Your solution is not THE solution, IMHO, it is one of the worst things that one can do - legitimizing an already abhorrent practice.

While intuitively it may seem like a good idea, public financing of campaigns will not change anything, and may actually make things worse. Being that we live in a world of scarcity, we cannot dole out campaign finance to every single person who wants to run for political office. Instead, someone will have to decide who will get the cash and who will not. And that someone will be the same politicians, bureaucrats, and private parties who make all of the other horrible laws and will make campaign finance reform just as crooked (like what McCain and Feingold did.) As such, we can expect a high level of incumbency, since if two or more candidates are each given the same amount of money the incumbent will have an advantage, especially considering that politicians have a common interest with other incumbents to guard themselves, and outsiders will not enjoy the possibility of being able to raise private money in order to oust the incumbent.

Particular interests will still exert control indirectly in caucuses, by using loopholes in the legislation, by forming political associations, etc., and since parties are formed by a coalition of interests the incumbent will again be favored since he has the pre-existing supporters. Loyal politicians will still be able to receive benefits and the like after leaving office or through other opportunities that will benefit them, so long as they continue to take as much as possible to benefit particular interests now and maintain their good will. Rather than making a change, this would simply calcify party-dominance in government.

American lending systems and petrochemical firms are proof that at least some of the largest corporations there lack any ability to plan for the future.

They also happen to be some of the most tied to the political system, what with all their benefits such as subsidies, regulations, etc. that tie their activities more to the political means of gaining wealth than the economic. Since these activities reduce actual productive activities by giving from people who produce goods and services to those who lobby and thus weakens the incentive to continue producing, thus lowering the number of future goods to take, we can expect there to be a decline in such activities.

And given how the American economy works, wherein the nation as a whole owes more than it can make, is very telling in how "future sighted" it really is. It's not. Sooner or later, a resource crunch will catch up with it, and it will end up bankrupt.

This is also due to state manipulations, such as lowering the interest rate artificially and promoting home ownership through organs such as Fannie Mae, that alter the rate at which Americans save. Given that this encourages profligacy over productivity, we can expect this to at least be reduced.

Selling your vote just furthers yourself into the category of the moron; the type of person I wouldn't want voting in the first place.

This idea would accomplish three things if implemented. <snip>

The second would be the expansion of the poor. Poor people can be depended on to sell their votes to the highest bidder, and after this becomes a practice for some time, most will actually grow to depend on that revenue for survival. tax and wage laws will be managed in order to keep this group of the most advantageous size and desperation for the new ruling corporate class. <snip>

that already happens with the welfare state.

While intuitively it may seem like a good idea, public financing of campaigns will not change anything, and may actually make things worse. Being that we live in a world of scarcity, we cannot dole out campaign finance to every single person who wants to run for political office. Instead, someone will have to decide who will get the cash and who will not. And that someone will be the same politicians, bureaucrats, and private parties who make all of the other horrible laws and will make campaign finance reform just as crooked (like what McCain and Feingold did.) As such, we can expect a high level of incumbency, since if two or more candidates are each given the same amount of money the incumbent will have an advantage, especially considering that politicians have a common interest with other incumbents to guard themselves, and outsiders will not enjoy the possibility of being able to raise private money in order to oust the incumbent.

Particular interests will still exert control indirectly in caucuses, by using loopholes in the legislation, by forming political associations, etc., and since parties are formed by a coalition of interests the incumbent will again be favored since he has the pre-existing supporters. Loyal politicians will still be able to receive benefits and the like after leaving office or through other opportunities that will benefit them, so long as they continue to take as much as possible to benefit particular interests now and maintain their good will. Rather than making a change, this would simply calcify party-dominance in government.
One, you have the assumptions that (1) incumbents will cling to power as much as possible; (2) there are loopholes in the legislation; (3) them incumbents have a common interest to protect each other; (4) MORE MONEY = WIN; and (5) all politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt. Not necessarily, you know, these may not exist anyway in honest elections. In fact, these five assumptions will most likely exist when there is legal (or illegal) vote buying as you are advocating. It is not that hard to think why, especially numbers four and five.

that already happens with the welfare state.

QFT

You still have not done anything other than begging the question, making non-sequiturs, flaming, and believing that the basic concept of present value is a 'fantasy.'

Anyway, I thought you said we were done here?Might want to reread what I've posted in the thread. Your assumption that selling your votes to the highest bidder will result in the highest bidder being the best suited to run the country from an economic viewpoint. That is fantasy.

You've responded to arguments that someone wealthy (or in fact, someone backed by wealthy interest groups) will not necessarily have your best interests at heart with a repetition that someone wealthy enough to buy enough votes to be elected will have gained said money because they are good at economics, as opposed to having inherited it or being funded by someone else.

You fail to consider very simple arguments that make your theoretical construct implausible, and upon being informed of them, you use your theoretical construct as proof of your statements.

To be clear: You simply can't use a basic concept as proof for anything, because they prove nothing. They're basic, and only work in clearly defined frameworks. Don't believe me? Try and explain why water prices in East Germany increase if the demand decreases with the simple Supply and Demand curve. It won't work. Reality doesn't work well with basic concepts.

As to why I've said I was done here: Arguing against you is like arguing against a prerecorded tape. The arguments don't change and you don't take criticism into consideration. After telling you what was wrong with your assumptions about three times, I've come to the conclusion that you're either not capable or not willing to acknowledge that your basic assumptions could possibly be flawed. Though I may have overstepped my limits in pointing out that I do not consider that kind of dogmatism intelligent, and for that I apologize.

They also happen to be some of the most tied to the political system, what with all their benefits such as subsidies, regulations, etc. that tie their activities more to the political means of gaining wealth than the economic.

And somehow, by directly controlling it through vote buying, as opposed to special interest groups, yet remaining separate entities from the government, they won't abuse it even further than before?

Are you familiar with the term cash cow? This is an economic term for a company that has a product with limited lifespan, and is only good for milking to the point where it dries up, which it is then discarded.

Why should corporations who control a nation via vote buying act any differently? If the nation collapses, they can simply relocate to another country. You make the fundamental mistake of thinking that the corporation is inextricably tied to national borders, or even has to be permanently attached to one.

So what if they move off, you could argue, then clearly it would represent investment lost. But the investment has already provided dividends, which is in the form of stripping the country of every possible resource. And if they lose it, so long as vote buying remains, they can always come back once the local populace has managed to rebuild the country with the populace bearing that cost and snap it up for a pittance.

This could be likened to pirate activity, or bandits. Steal everything, for minimal expenditure, come back when the victims have replenished their stores, and steal it again for a pittance.


Since these activities reduce actual productive activities by giving from people who produce goods and services to those who lobby and thus weakens the incentive to continue producing, thus lowering the number of future goods to take, we can expect there to be a decline in such activities.


How is what you describe any different than vote buying? The resources of the lobby groups would merely go to the vote buying, who ironically, are most likely paying for those bought votes out of their pockets in the form of taxes which are then awarded as subsidies to controlling firms.

Very well done, you've made people pay for the privilege of voting to remain in serfdom.


This is also due to state manipulations, such as lowering the interest rate artificially and promoting home ownership through organs such as Fannie Mae, that alter the rate at which Americans save.


Again. How would the corporation be inextricably tied to the government? It controls it with vote buying, certainly, but it has none of the responsibility. There is nothing to stop them from pillaging the populace for every cent, and then abandoning the country until a time which it is prosperous again, wherein they simply step in, or with a puppet organization, and buy out the votes to restart the pillaging.


Given that this encourages profligacy over productivity, we can expect this to at least be reduced.

And why do you think that any firm with a monopoly on the government would encourage productivity over profligacy? Take Microsoft as an example. In the world of commercial private use operating systems, it is nearly unchallenged, with a dominant market share unrivaled by other industries. Yet it's products are bloated, inefficient, poorly made, and would fail any normal quality control system. One could expect this from cheap, backstreet developers. But Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar firm. How can this be?

Because it's a monopoly. It has no incentive to compete, and can produce the worst materials available while charging exorbitant prices.

that already happens with the welfare state.Not in the direct sense as would be under a vote buying system. Unless you consider that to be a good thing, that is a rather silly argument in favor of vote buying.

The idea of a race-to-the-bottom begs the question as to why people are paid different wages from one another. If one employer thinks that he can profit by bidding another employee away from another firm using the promise of higher wages, he will do so, as will any employer until the returns from the employee reach the natural economy-wide interest rate. And seeing as how the rate of return is based upon the productivity, of cost of inputs versus outputs, wages will tend to rise with the productivity of workers as indicated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' empirical study. Hence, it is in the interest of the employer to end desperateness out of his own self-interest.The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers labor in one country, with mostly the same labor laws and practices. Since districts would become more splintered and fractionalized (to provide the greatest return on an investment) labor laws would vary considerably.
A better way of looking at it is looking at the example of the WTO, and how companies move their businesses out of "Western" nations into the Third World, looking for ever-cheaper labor, thus causing a net decline in the overall reward for labor.

This actually happens already in democratic governments through presidents pushing through a number of edicts before they lose their office, such as through mass pardonings of political allies.Certainly, but the power of a president to do harmful things in a vote-buying scenario is vastly greater, as plundering the resources of a place would have become legalized (as you stated).

But as for plundering post-election, the vote-buyer most likely would not do such a thing because there is always a chance of winning the next election, with end-term plundering being avoided so as not to destroy future returns, and he could give votes elsewhere in order to control policy, meaning that his votes would continue to hold present value that he could seize and would not want to destroy.That's like saying a Mom-and-Pop store put out of business by Wal-Mart would want to remain in operation just in case Wal-Mart goes out of business or leaves the area. No, they'd get out of the business completely.

As well, the present value of the assets of the nation means that there would be an aversion to depletion that does not raise income sufficiently to make up for present value, but rather there would be sales of the assets to other parties and thus no actual destruction.Since the person depleting has no reason to be concerned with future value, present value will be sufficient.
You're overstating the ability and willingness to sacrifice present value for future value.

And somehow, by directly controlling it through vote buying, as opposed to special interest groups, yet remaining separate entities from the government, they won't abuse it even further than before?

Yes, because while the politician's power is limited to his term and is thus encouraged to exploit as much as possible so as to get another, and since the special interest group has to exploit their 'man' now while he is still in office and prevent him from drifting to their enemies, by contrast the vote-buyer, who holds a large number of long-term votes, is certain of the possibility of future returns and thus has to weigh his present income versus his future income.

Are you familiar with the term cash cow? This is an economic term for a company that has a product with limited lifespan, and is only good for milking to the point where it dries up, which it is then discarded.

As someone who took marketing, I am inclined to think that you mean 'dog' instead of cash cow, since a cash cow is something that has low costs and low growth but high returns, and as such you would not want this to 'dry up' but would want to remain the price leader and make improvements. Whereas, a dog is something with high costs and low growth potential and low revenues that should be harvested or divested (discarded in one way or another.)

Why should corporations who control a nation via vote buying act any differently? If the nation collapses, they can simply relocate to another country. You make the fundamental mistake of thinking that the corporation is inextricably tied to national borders, or even has to be permanently attached to one.

I do not think that a corporation is any more tied to a single nation anymore than they are tied to any single store (for the most part.) However, just as they would not want a big market to collapse, neither would they want an economically strong nation with high future returns to collapse either because that would mean losses for them.

So what if they move off, you could argue, then clearly it would represent investment lost. But the investment has already provided dividends, which is in the form of stripping the country of every possible resource. And if they lose it, so long as vote buying remains, they can always come back once the local populace has managed to rebuild the country with the populace bearing that cost and snap it up for a pittance.

But why would the greatest benefit be realized by immediately grabbing a hold of every asset? Just like a company would not overstress a machine and break it to have a minor increase in income for day when they could keep the machine operating for years and giving them even greater future returns, neither would they impose policies that would give present gratification at the expense of even more valuable future income.

This could be likened to pirate activity, or bandits. Steal everything, for minimal expenditure, come back when the victims have replenished their stores, and steal it again for a pittance.

But even the mafia realizes that if their extortion is too great they will drive out business and end up shooting themselves in the foot by depriving themselves of future wealth. Same thing with the even bigger gang of the state, though to varying degrees depending on its time horizon.

How is what you describe any different than vote buying? The resources of the lobby groups would merely go to the vote buying, who ironically, are most likely paying for those bought votes out of their pockets in the form of taxes which are then awarded as subsidies to controlling firms.

The difference is the time horizon and ability to exclude others from the common pool. While the politician is inclined to take as much money as he can from various parties, secretly if necessary, in order to get another term and to maximize the benefits of his current one, future returns are far less applicable since if he fails to whore himself out he forfeits any chance at a future term and the opportunity costs of not exploiting. Likewise, the particular interests are encouraged to take as much as they can before another party can take from the common pool and before their man's term comes to an end.

Very well done, you've made people pay for the privilege of voting to remain in serfdom.

If we have to be in serfdom, it may as well be one where there are incentives to be far-sighted.

Again. How would the corporation be inextricably tied to the government? It controls it with vote buying, certainly, but it has none of the responsibility. There is nothing to stop them from pillaging the populace for every cent, and then abandoning the country until a time which it is prosperous again, wherein they simply step in, or with a puppet organization, and buy out the votes to restart the pillaging.

You assume that our governments are responsible, when in actual fact they too are exploiters, albeit short-sighted ones. The ability to exclude and (partially) account for future costs make a vote-buying regime better than the current system.

And why do you think that any firm with a monopoly on the government would encourage productivity over profligacy? Take Microsoft as an example. In the world of commercial private use operating systems, it is nearly unchallenged, with a dominant market share unrivaled by other industries. Yet it's products are bloated, inefficient, poorly made, and would fail any normal quality control system. One could expect this from cheap, backstreet developers. But Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar firm. How can this be?

Actually, I use Windows XP, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Word and Excel and am quite satisfied with their performance and Microsoft's integration of applications. And the reason why the government monopolist (redundant, really) would want to encourage productivity in others is because that means they have more to take later.

Because it's a monopoly. It has no incentive to compete, and can produce the worst materials available while charging exorbitant prices.

But the vote-buyers would tend towards removing legal barriers to entry so as to encourage entrepeneurship and more goods and services to expropriate. Sure, their jurisdiction would suck in that it taxes for its own particular interest, but that is a given with any state.

One, you have the assumptions that (1) incumbents will cling to power as much as possible; (2) there are loopholes in the legislation; (3) them incumbents have a common interest to protect each other; (4) MORE MONEY = WIN; and (5) all politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt. Not necessarily, you know, these may not exist anyway in honest elections. In fact, these five assumptions will most likely exist when there is legal (or illegal) vote buying as you are advocating. It is not that hard to think why, especially numbers four and five.

Self-interest gives strong incentives to 1, 2, 3, and 5, as 1.) Incumbents have demonstrated that they are interested in political office, and most likely would want to continue reaping the benefits that result from it, 2.) the incentive would be to place loopholes so as to please the political interests that put them into power and so as to place them in a better position to reap the benefits of the support, 3.) the incumbents most likely do not want to lose their seats, as they have demonstrated by pursuing office, and thus will act to protect their interests (hence the McCain-Feingold attacks on free speech that could endanger incumbents), and 4.) The incentive is to be corrupt, as they must distribute from a common pool out of self-interest, and since greatly dispersed benefits are far less likely to get support versus highly concentrated benefits with dispersed costs, due to rational ignorance, they will tend towards helping out their particular interests. As for your number four, if an outsider has a larger amount of money than the incumbent it lessens his disadvantage against the established incumbent, with his allies and support groups. Quite frankly, there really is no such thing as an honest election because it is not in the self-interest of the government to have them, and trying to get politicians to regulate themselves is like trying to get thieves to police property crimes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers labor in one country, with mostly the same labor laws and practices. Since districts would become more splintered and fractionalized (to provide the greatest return on an investment) labor laws would vary considerably.
A better way of looking at it is looking at the example of the WTO, and how companies move their businesses out of "Western" nations into the Third World, looking for ever-cheaper labor, thus causing a net decline in the overall reward for labor.

I do not see why there would be an increase in confusing labor laws, seeing as how these would be an impediment to productivity and thus against greater returns on investment. Labor unions and employers may do this in order to bar marginal producers (other workers for the former, smaller employers for the latter), but they are not out to maximize total returns from the economy.

Also, they do not go looking after labor because it is 'cheaper'; they go after it because the rate of return is higher. For instance, if I had to choose between paying someone $300,000 to make a good worth $400,000, and paying someone $350 to make $400, I would choose the former, and since others would do the same the former's wages would be pushed up despite the absolute level of cheapness of the latter's labor. What is happening is not a race to the bottom but a shift to account for the undervalued level of third world labor so as to establish a broader division of labor.

Certainly, but the power of a president to do harmful things in a vote-buying scenario is vastly greater, as plundering the resources of a place would have become legalized (as you stated).

But the President would have to take into account the effects for the long-term, whereas in our current system the President only has to think about the few remaining days he has left in office where he is able to seize benefits from other people.

That's like saying a Mom-and-Pop store put out of business by Wal-Mart would want to remain in operation just in case Wal-Mart goes out of business or leaves the area. No, they'd get out of the business completely.

But we were not talking about a Mom-and-Pop store, we were talking about someone who was going to win the next election somehow not being able to. Thus, we are speaking more of, say, Best Buy waiting to see if the local Wal-Mart will go out of business before they invest any more money in the community. Even if they do go out of business temporarily, they would likely want to hold onto the building or land or inventory to sell it instead of destroying it. Likewise, the vote buyer would want to hold onto his votes as a claim against the future wealth of the nation so that anyone who wants to take over might buy them, or his defeater who wants to solidify his power. Or hold onto them since they may appreciate in value.

Since the person depleting has no reason to be concerned with future value, present value will be sufficient.
You're overstating the ability and willingness to sacrifice present value for future value.

Plenty of people hold stock that they have no controlling power over, because the value is derived from those who wish to gain control or want to maintain it. Thus, while the loser of the election may not be able to exert complete control, they will still have to cost account for future returns since people will be willing to invest in purchasing their shares due to wanting to benefit from future value, which clearcutting the nation would destroy due to a less than proportional increase from current income relative to future income.

I do not see why there would be an increase in confusing labor laws, seeing as how these would be an impediment to productivity and thus against greater returns on investment. Labor unions and employers may do this in order to bar marginal producers (other workers for the former, smaller employers for the latter), but they are not out to maximize total returns from the economy.Not an increase in confusing labor laws, an increase in laws hostile to labor, and an increase in the removal of labor protections.

Also, they do not go looking after labor because it is 'cheaper'; they go after it because the rate of return is higher. For instance, if I had to choose between paying someone $300,000 to make a good worth $400,000, and paying someone $350 to make $400, I would choose the former, and since others would do the same the former's wages would be pushed up despite the absolute level of cheapness of the latter's labor. What is happening is not a race to the bottom but a shift to account for the undervalued level of third world labor so as to establish a broader division of labor.In the case of outsourcing, the rate of return is higher because the labor is cheaper.

But the President would have to take into account the effects for the long-term, whereas in our current system the President only has to think about the few remaining days he has left in office where he is able to seize benefits from other people.An outgoing president doesn't need to take the effects of the long term into account.
A president who isn't outgoing doesn't need to either, but there's at least some possibility that he would.

But we were not talking about a Mom-and-Pop store, we were talking about someone who was going to win the next election somehow not being able to. Thus, we are speaking more of, say, Best Buy waiting to see if the local Wal-Mart will go out of business before they invest any more money in the community. Even if they do go out of business temporarily, they would likely want to hold onto the building or land or inventory to sell it instead of destroying it.You're erroneously drawing a distinction between selling resources and plundering them.
Vote-buying politicians will be plundering the resources of a nation by selling them off unscrupulously.

Likewise, the vote buyer would want to hold onto his votes as a claim against the future wealth of the nation so that anyone who wants to take over might buy them, or his defeater who wants to solidify his power. Or hold onto them since they may appreciate in value.Once an election is over, votes are worthless. That's kind of how an election works.

Plenty of people hold stock that they have no controlling power over, because the value is derived from those who wish to gain control or want to maintain it. Thus, while the loser of the election may not be able to exert complete control, they will still have to cost account for future returns since people will be willing to invest in purchasing their shares due to wanting to benefit from future value, which clearcutting the nation would destroy due to a less than proportional increase from current income relative to future income.Votes aren't stock.