Comments on: Demo-familism

By: Alex Robson

Alex Robson — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:18:46 +0000

Russell: my rights are mine - not yours.

If I am not allowed to make decisions as to what to do with my rights, then that means someone else (i.e. people like you?) must be making a decision about happens to them.

I know which world I would prefer to live in.

By: Sacha Blumen

Sacha Blumen — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:07:26 +0000

Andrew, while I can understand your point about “familist” policies having an even greater influence if parents were able to exercise votes on behalf of their kids, I think that this is really a surface issue. It is more interesting to consider the underlying issue of whom should be entitled to vote.

I am sympathetic with the view that many 16 year olds are mature and interested enough to vote in elections. Perhaps voluntary voting for 16 and 17 year olds could be instituted. Of course, some kids could be quite mature at earlier ages.

Should kids effectively have a direct voice through a vote (albeit exercised by their parents?) It’s an interesting abstract concept, but I’m not sure of a reasonable justification for it. Having votes exercised by kids’ parents is giving parents more formal electoral power, and it’s not clear to me why I, if I had a kid, should have twice as many votes (say) than a person without a kid. I don’t see the connection.

By: Russell

Russell — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:15:14 +0000

“you could simply purchase that right from someone else” - sort of like a used car?
I did restrain myself earlier when Terje wrote “consider making it possible for people to sell their vote”. But here’s Alex also thinking that rights are things you can buy and sell. This may be a fundamental difference between the left and the right - for the right, it seems, everything should be for sale.

By: Alex Robson

Alex Robson — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:55:49 +0000

Why not just make votes (or, more precisely, the right to vote) fully transferable? Then, if you decide to have children and believe (like Thornley) that they should get the franchise before they are 18, you could simply purchase that right from someone else.

The natural objection is that “the rich will have more votes” under such a system - but this confuses ability to pay with willingness to pay.

In any case, why is that outcome any less preferable to the likely outcome under Thornley’s system, in which “people who have more kids have more votes”?

By: Niall

Niall — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:58:43 +0000

Obviously it does take all kinds to make a world

By: Balneus Altered voting power: more for terminally ill, none for political donors? «

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:52:13 +0000

[...] Norton’s "Demo-familism" post (and set of comments) has a good discussion of the history of modified voting power and some [...]

By: Club Troppo » Missing Link - Saturday 28 July 2007

Club Troppo » Missing Link - Saturday 28 July 2007 — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:47:22 +0000

[...] Graham Young sledges an almost unbelievably idiotic idea by multimillionaire Labor MP Evan Thornley that parents should be able to vote on behalf of their under-18 children! LookSmart … ? Slattsnews thinks it’s silly too. Andrew Norton treats Thornley’s idea far more seriously than it deserves. [...]

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:09:30 +0000

Mark - In the 2005 AuSSA people who don’t live with a partner voted: Lib 35.6%, Nat 3.4%, ALP 35.9%, Green 9.5%, Family First 3.4%. A more left-leaning group than the overall sample (though some of these may have had kids). I’d hesitate to say that the difference is driven by family circumtances though, since people without partners are also likely to be younger and poorer than average, two other factors know to influence the vote.

By: Mark Richardson

Mark Richardson — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:20:21 +0000

I too wondered how you would decide which parent would cast the vote. I presume that the parents would have to nominate which one votes on behalf of the children.

BTW, there’s evidence that family situation does influence voting patterns in the US. In particular, single childless women are more likely to vote Democrat than their married with children counterparts.

By: CoreEcon » Blog Archive » Children and votes

CoreEcon » Blog Archive » Children and votes — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:12:47 +0000

[...] Andrew Norton wonders if families are really underestimated in voting. By sheer logic, under-representation must be true if children do not have explicit representation. But Norton concludes with a similar view to my own. [...]