How would it work out if your voting power was decided by how much taxes you pay?

I don’t think that would work so well. The rich people would get more votes out.

@kritiper Then how does it work out in corporations? The rich get more votes. Is that wrong?

I don’t follow. People vote, corporations don’t.

@kritiper voting for the corporation is decided by the shareholders. Corporations can be considered a mini form of government. Some are worth more than some countries.

Who are rich people, just like the board of directors, who also vote. The peons who work there don’t vote.

@kritiper So the proxy by shareholders is wrong? Has a company ever been Democratic? How did it work out?

You probably should have mentioned corporations in your question.

Corporations can do whatever they want, be it right or wrong. Net profit will be the judge.

@kritiper im making it up on the fly.

@kritiper Can we have an experiment on running a government centered on profit? Has it been done before?

That’s how it used to work historically, in the US. In 1789 the constitution granted the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population). No one else had a say.

That remained the law until 1828, at which time all white males could vote regardless of whether they owned property.

We already have corporatocracy and oligarchy. It’s just a little bit less overt and official than your idea.

It’s not a good idea, because the people (and corporations) who dedicate their lives to amassing crazy amounts of wealth and power, tend to be the richest people and corporations, and also the most unbalanced self-centered decision-makers, and their behavior and thought patterns are responsible for industry driving species to extinction and ecosystems to collapse, and for terrible poverty conditions and wars for resources.

Actually this might be incentive for wealthy individuals to pay taxes! . People with write-offs from losses for years (like our Tweeter in Chief) pay virtually nothing in taxes so they would not be able to vote..
They would still be able to influence the system through lobbyist and other payments, however. .

The top 1% in charge of government would spend tax money mostly on themselves. With fewer people to be given benefits, tax rates and tax revenue would go down. No more public schools or hospitals, except maybe in the wealthiest areas. No more Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. If you are born poor or have a disability, too bad. Areas where the rich live would be well maintained from public spending. Other areas would fall apart. The military would pay good salaries so that the poor and middle class could defend the wealthy. Police would also be paid well, but there would be a much higher crime rate. People would emigrate in droves to other countries.

On one hand it would eliminate the idea that the masses would vote for whomever they felt could give them the most stuff. On the other hand it would mean that the wealthy would fully control everything and we all decisions in government would be to benefit them. We would literally have the haves and the have-nots. Even if you ran a scam like proxy voting where someone pulled together all the poor people to use their combined voting power, you are doing nothing but putting that voting power into the hands of one rich person.

@all What about a progressive voting method. Where each 1% of your taxes equals one vote. A $1000 for a $10,000 income would be the same voting power as a $100,000 paying $10,000. Which works out to 10% for each. Equalling 10 votes.

This would work out the same as your original idea. Richer people pay higher tax rates where there are progressive taxes, so they would end up with more votes.

Your corporation analogy does not hold. It makes sense for stockholders to have voting power proportional to the number of shares they own. They are impacted more by any decisions that are made.

Citizens do not own the country the way investors own a corporation..Each person should count equally. The government provides shared benefits. You don’t, for example, pay school taxes to pay for just your own children. Everyone benefits from having an educated workforce, just as everyone benefits from having clean air and water, and having highways that can be used to go to work and to distribute products.

If you have a government centered on profit, then the rich will control the government to the benefit of themselves and the poor will suffer in squalor. There will be no middle class. A revolution, like the French revolution, could be the outcome.

@kritiper We now know Trump paid only $750 in taxes and paid nothing for many years before that. He paid less in taxes than a person working minimum wage at McDonalds.
The tax paying middle class would have the most votes. That might not be a bad thing.