Quadratic Voting (2014)
ericposner.com
Quadratic Voting (2014)
1–10 of 156 posts
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#2If this is really a good thing (tm) then perhaps the best incubator to test the theory in a 'crucible of experiment' would be in corporate governance. As more corporations move towards QV (with, hopefully, good results) it may find its way into political public policy.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#3Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It seems like this would change tyranny of the majority into tyranny of the wealthy.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#4I suppose it seems cool, since the fund pays back to the voters -- so it's effectively a tax on political influence against those who would spend a lot on a campaign. But I have to naively ask if this will really change anything. How will this divert money in politics away from directly buying off people in power. It seems like a new, parallel avenue to assault with big bucks.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#5I suppose it seems cool, since the fund pays back to the voters -- so it's effectively a tax on political influence against those who would spend a lot on a campaign. But I have to naively ask if this will really change anything. How will this divert money in politics away from directly buying off people in power. It seems like a new, parallel avenue to assault with big bucks.
Read to the bottom -- it looks like the general idea here is to empower direct democracy. Less institutional power in the form of representational voting and beauraucratic/constitutional checks on each other means less attack surface for corruption.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#6Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…
Right, but the money paid into the system gets redistributed equally. So the poor get paid for their troubles, and under some probably hefty assumptions they show this leading to equilibrium.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#7Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…
That's why the cost is the square of the number of votes. Then someone with 100x the wealth would be able to only buy 10x the votes. If you consider the act of lobbying for policy to be equivalent to purchasing votes then currently the cost is linear. Of course by that analogy there's no real way to enforce quadratic cost on lobbyists, but perhaps if there was an alternate "legitimate" means for individuals to purchase voting power then they might follow such a scheme if the alternative were illegal and strictly policed.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#8Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…
Theoretically, this could be fixed by making the cost of votes expressed as a percentage of your income and/or wealth.
Some european countries like Switzerland are applying this principle to traffic tickets. It's not uncommon for rich people in fast cars paying few hundred thousand dollars for a speeding ticket.
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#9Just reading the linked summary (and not the paper itself), it seems like this doesn't take wealth disparity into account. If the cost for your votes is the square of the votes you want to cast, then that means people with a lot of money can trivially buy significantly more votes than people with very little money, even if they don't necessarily care more about the issue than the people with very little money. It see…
[deleted]
Re: Quadratic Voting (2014)
#10I feel like this could potentially work with "voting tokens" or something else that's not money. Maybe with some sort of crypto verification. You'd still have the scarcity that the system demands, but without the "inequality baggage" you'd start out with if the system were implemented with actual money.
If you implemented this system using money to buy votes, then you'd end up... well probably with something like the inequality situation we have today.