Someone put it to me recently that the right to vote ought not be automatic but that it should be earned. As to how it should be earned, he was less sure, but he was adamant about the principle that the right to vote - suffrage - should not be bestowed without some measure of qualification and in that it should not be too easy. "People don't value the right to vote," he said, and noted the way young people often deliberately contrived to stay off the electoral roll as if it was a chore. The best way to restore value to the democratic system, he thought, was to impose limitations upon suffrage. It is a controversial notion, he admits, and he complained that people often misunderstood him on this, but he sincerely considered it important to restore the value of voting. Pressed on this, he didn't think that voting and citizenship should be necessarily linked. Citizenship, he thought, should only bestow the right to qualify for voting but the right to vote should be earned. In part, the context of this conversation was a brief chat about the proposal in Scotland to give 16 year olds the vote. My acquaintance regarded this as the maddest thing since haggis. The idea of extending franchise to 16yos is, he insists, utterly crazy. If he had his way, the opposite would be happening; only mature, responsible (and preferably educated) citizens would get the vote. He felt that a high proportion of voters were dim wits with no qualification to cast a sane judgment upon something as important as government.
I raised the historical objection to this: No taxation without representation. Even if a man is a brainless twit, and a thoroughly unwholesome character, surely the state cannot demand taxation from him without him having some say in how the state is to spend that money? Historically, it was once the case that good and hardworking citizens were being taxed by the state but were not entitled to vote. Only "decent", well-bred and "educated" people - the upper class - enjoyed the franchise. Democracy advocates argued - with some force, I feel - that if someone is paying tax then they ought to have the vote. Taxation without representation is unjust. So, if nothing else, I argued, the very act of paying tax ought to be qualification enough. And everyone pays tax. There's a goods and services (consumption) tax on everything. Everyone pays tax.
Since that conversation, these points have been stewing, along with a string of related ideas and questions. In particular, I was struck recently by an article proposing that at the current time only about 51% of Australian citizens actually pay net tax. It is an alarming figure. It means that some 49% of Australians collect more from the government than they contribute. As the article pointed out, it is much the same figure quoted - infamously - by Mitt Romney in his failed presidential campaign against Barack Obama. Nevertheless, it is true. What Mr Romney was alluding to is a simple economic fact. The conglomeration of government pensions, subsidies, incentives assistance schemes is so pervasive that combined with other factors such as an ageing population, nearly one in two people is a net burden upon society. I can verify this just by flicking through my list of phone contacts. I know a high proportion of people on welfare, or student loans, old age pension, disability payment, or in part-time employment, sickness benefits, and so on. I am not saying any of them are undeserving, but it is a conspicuous fact that our lifestyle has been increasingly unproductive and sheltered.
Romney's comments were especially controversial because he added that this 49% were never going to vote for him. Also true. And it exposes what I (given my Platonic credentials) sometimes characterize as the Democracy Disease. Democracy is such a sacred cow in our era that very few people stop to ask about its shortcomings. There is an obvious problem with democracy. It is this: in a democracy there is nothing to stop a certain class of people ( a very large class) from voting themselves a pension and then opposing any candidate or law that might deprive them of it. Or, to put it another way: in a democracy politicians invariable have recourse to electoral bribes. Welfare expands as politicians buy votes. There is no real mechanism in a democracy to prevent this. It is what has happened to liberal democracies everywhere. Eventually they face bankruptcy. The only way to prevent it is imposed "austerity". Eventually, it requires the force of a tyrant.
This is precisely why Plato warned that democracy is a prelude to tyranny. The demos sends the polis broke. The problem is in the extension of franchise. In the Republic, franchise is extended further and further as the State moves through a succession of constitutions. Eventually, just being a citizen is enough, and then citizenship is broadened as well. Soon, not only natural born citizens but recently arrived immigrant citizens are collecting a pension and living in a council flat. No politician dare touch them.
In the Australian experience, both sides of politics have been complicit in this process. Labor is always guilty of reckless largesse - because it has an ideological preference for big government - but one of the biggest vote buyers in our history was John Howard under whom there was a huge growth of useless middle class welfare. Never mind about small government rhetoric - government and the welfare culture have expanded under governments of all persuasions. At the same time, the revenue base has continued to shrink. Clearly, expanding welfare (if only because of an ageing population) with contracting revenue is unsustainable. The recent Labor governments stretched this to a diabolical extent. They introduced huge welfare schemes (Disability Insurance, Gonski School funding etc.) but, remarkably, their mining tax (designed to fund it all via the mining boom) was a complete fizzer. This was leading the country into severe debt. The Abbott government, on the other hand, is probably the first government I can remember with a genuine ideological commitment to smaller government. We'll see.
In any case, in the long run voters will always vote for a pension. (Even Socrates wanted a pension.) They'll support cuts to programs as long as they are other people's programs and not their own. Plainly, the entire democratic process and the general extension of franchise is not well-equipped for austerity. Ultimately, the only way to break the cycle is by coercion - austerity is imposed. As we have seen in Greece (home of democracy.)
Perhaps, I was thinking, the problem is that we have broken the nexus between taxation and representation. Perhaps the one requirement for voting should simply be that you pay income tax. If the old slogan was 'No taxation without representation' then perhaps the opposite should apply as well: no representation without taxation. Only those who contribute to the common weal have a say in how it is managed. If you want to vote, become a taxpayer. This would disenfranchise a lot of people, admittedly, but it is still a sound basis for a viable state while representation without taxation is not. Workers would be the main bloc of voters. It was workers who led the historical reforms under the slogan No taxation without representation. They appreciate the nexus between taxation and voting. Voting is their chance to have a say about how their tax dollars are spent.
What is the proper basis for voting? Once, it was gender. Or colour. Or race. And wealth. Now it is only restricted to adult citizens - or not even adult ones in Scotland. Inclusiveness is the catch-cry of our age. But inclusiveness does not necessarily craft good governance. A country can be as inclusive as it likes and still go broke. There are some these days - God help us - who want to obliterate all distinct identities so that the only quality that matters is mere humanness. This is implicit in many of the "ethics" sported by Human Rights ideologues. A person is a person is a person. As if people are just undifferentiated sludge. Some people want open borders, or no borders. Some people object to the concept of citizen per se. Why not let everyone vote who wants to vote, without distinction? If you can breathe, you can vote. Open slather democracy. When you go that far you reach the situation where you might as well have government by lot (sortition) as the ancient Athenian's did in the end.
Personally, being a landowner, I am rather nostalgic for the good old days when, at least, there was an upper house for the determination of landholders only. And why not? Why not invest an extra responsibility in people who actually own the soil of a country? I see nothing wrong with that, especially if it was coupled with the Australian dream of home-owning so that a vote in the upper house elections was within the grasp of most working people in their lifetime. Like my friend, I am not sold on the inviable sanctity of universal suffrage. But what criteria do we use to draw distinctions? Julia Gillard wanted 40% of Australian adults to have university degrees. Perhaps this could form the basis of an electoral college? Now, there's a truly terrifying vision!
Harper McAlpine Black
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