A modest proposal for electoral reform

It seems to me that the current electoral system, whether it be in the UK, US, Ireland, Germany, France or Spain, has become outmoded and outdated. It should be obvious to all and sundry that governments incline disproportionately towards certain groups in society at the expense of others. Those groups tend to have a greater sway over the politicians than others. In most modern democracies, those groups are pretty much the same. For the most part, they consist of the wealthy, business lobbying groups, the financial sector and the military-industrial complex. I hope I am not being too presumptious when I suggest it might be fairer on us all if the governments of our modern democracies introduced a voting system which more accurately reflected this state of affairs. In a modern capitalist society, we can all see the value of “shareholder democracy” where those who hold the most shares are, quite rightly if one believes in capitalism, given a greater say and influence over the decisions affecting a business.

I propose that we merely extend this principle to the electoral system. Business leaders should be entitled to more votes than, say, a dustbin collector or street sweeper and CEOs of financial powerhouses should have even more, irrespective of whether they actually live here or not, given the power they have over our politicians. The main reason I think this would be worthwhile pursuing is that it would enable all of us to more accurately gauge the power certain people have over the political process compared to others. It would make things more transparent to us all. As a result, we could also do away with the messy and grubby world of behind the scenes lobbying because politicians would, under my proposal, be far more open about who they were talking to and the decisions they were making on their behalf if it was glaringly apparent to all of us that the individuals they were talking to represented, say, the equivalent of 50,000 votes from nurses or teachers.

There are some, I’m sure, who would be inclined to dismiss my proposal because of the upheaval it could cause. In addition to the process involved in calculating the voting values of particular individuals and their positions, we would also have to introduce a very clear, consistent and transparent system for those who might find themselves moving up and down the voting value table. And I agree there would be some work involved in putting this system in place. You could also argue this is a waste of time because it’s the way the system works already.

But think of the value to everyone of finally having an open, transparent political process which so demonstrably succeeded in showing people the true value of their vote. Isn’t that a price worth paying?