Horrific idea. Those paying into the system should have the strongest stake, not those with elementary ideas and no stake at all (or worse, those dependent upon the system's rewards).
(For the record: Devil's advocate take. I think this whole idea of voting in proportion to your monetary value is ridiculous.)
I was more thinking however that their average life expectency doesn't allow for long-term consequences of elections to affect them.
In a very important sense, 16 year old has a much bigger stake in the future of their country than a 70 year old.
Not quite, because that would grant power and influence to the rich that is already quite heavy on account of their wealth and ability to employ constituents. Qualifying voting power by way of being an active payer is, however, absolutely sensible.
>A 16 year old has a much bigger stake in the future of their country than a 70 year old.
They also have nothing to lose. With the least invested in a system's continuation, history is rich with young teenage raiders, conquerors, mutineers, revolutionaries, and rioters. They are the primary demographic with the lowest stake, and have the least concern for any Chesterton's fences. They are also the poorest equipped to make decisions concerning material resources, since utopian idealism is common at that age. They haven't yet suffered or built much at all, and it's easy for them to dismiss the sheer volume of accumulated knowledge, material, and labor that sustains civilization.
Those paying the most already are more invested in the outcomes of the country, do you mean their vote should count for more or less based on how much they pay in taxes?
Youth and parents get an extra vote on school stuff. Those whose education or career are related to a field get an extra vote. In some cases, you may hold 5x the voting power of someone who is removed and unfamiliar with a topic.
No idea if anything like that has been explored.
Allowing people to have more or less say based on stake would lead to a spiral. Those in charge take care of the people they care about, those people would continue to elect the same politicians, and everyone else would be left aside while power (and stake) consolidates.
Why should someone who knows nothing of field have a say in laws that over represents their knowledge and stake?
I don't think my vote for what you feed your kids should count the same as your vote on what you feed your kids.
The worry about votes and power collecting is sane. It happens already through propaganda and ill informed (usually due to low perceived stakes) voters. We need a system that counters the negative effects if low informed masses.
Well we definitely disagree there, but that's probably a deeper rabbit hole than is worth diving down here.
> Why should someone who knows nothing of field have a say in laws that over represents their knowledge and stake?
I don't think voting rights should be gated on education, experience, or opinions. I already hesitate with age, but saying a child shouldn't vote feels much less offensive than saying a person with money or education should get more votes.
> I don't think my vote for what you feed your kids should count the same as your vote on what you feed your kids.
I don't think either of us should have any say in what the other feeds their kids, the law should definitely not have a say in that either.
> We need a system that counters the negative effects if low informed masses.
I think we pretty well agree here, except for maybe the angle of a solution. I'm of the opinion that we can't force people to be better educated, nor should we prevent them from voting. In my opinion the government should only have as much authority as we are willing to hand over to an official elected by today's voting population. If we fear the mob or the uneducated voter than the issue is with how much power our government has rather than who does the voting.
Children voting will ruin the grift.