Abstract
Political egalitarians tend to defend equal distributions of voting power at specific times, as in ‘one election, one vote’. Appealing as it is, the principle seems incompatible with distributing power proportionally to the stakes voters have at different elections, as in ‘one stake, one vote’. This article argues that the tension above stems from the temporal scope ascribed to political equality, as at specific moments of democratic decision-making instead of over entire lives. More specifically, ascribing a lifetime view to political equality renders equality compatible with proportionality at different elections. I first show that storable votes differ from standard votes in their distinctive commitment to lifetime political equality. I then argue that storable voting schemes are compatible with three key reasons to value political equality: equal consideration of interests, relational equality, and non-domination. Finally, storable votes are also consistent with proportionality at specific times. I conclude that the neglected idea of lifetime political equality can, through storable votes, deliver proportionality without inequality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See e.g. Mckerlie 1989, 2012, p. 22; Holtug and Lippert-Rasmussen 2007). This is expressed in Thomas Nagel’s claim that ‘the subject of an egalitarian principle is not the distribution of particular rewards to individuals at some time, but the prospective quality of their lives as a whole’ (1995, p. 69). In John Rawls’s view that ‘the claims of those in each phase [of life] derive from how we would reasonably balance those claims once we viewed ourselves as living through all phases of life…’ (2001, p. 174), or in Ronald Dworkin’s specification of equality of resources ‘as a matter of [equal] resources over an entire life’ (2002, pp. 94–95).
Even those claiming that relational equality must limit distributive inequality do not defend distributive equality at all times (e.g. Schemmel 2011).
That is not to say that all forms of age discrimination are all permissible, and equally so. For instance, differential longevity can be a reason to prefer biases favouring the young over those favouring the elderly (e.g. Lazenby 2011).
Freedom to distribute power unequally across life is compatible with removing the freedom to do so equally, as with age-weighted voting rights. At least, if we assume that one is free to do what one is forced do to (Cohen 2011, p. 147). But since the conception I defend strives for age-group equality, it must also comprise the freedom to spread votes uniformly across life.
I assume in this article that the currency of political equality is opportunity or access to political influence rather than political influence as such. Many egalitarians share this assumption (Cohen, 2001; Kolodny 2014, Scanlon, 2018; Swift, 2006, p. 298). Arguably, what I shall say holds for equality of political influence as well. Yet, one difference is that the latter would likely impose more restrictions on the extent to which voters may choose to allocate votes across life.
That is assuming, as we should, that the short-lived can also not be compensated ex post (afterwards). On this, see Fleurbaey et al. (2014).
I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for pointing this out. One solution is allowing voters to still cast their remaining votes after they die (e.g. Mulgan 2003), for instance, by bequeathing votes to others. Still, assuming it is better to cast votes alive rather than dead, the possibility of post-mortem voting should be seen as a complement to, rather than a substitute of, the initial storable voting grant.
The argument applies to all cases where the timing of resource distribution is at stake. For instance, it is why Van Parijs prefers a basic income to a lump-sum endowment of unconditional income early in life (1997, pp. 40–45).
As we shall see, it is possible to accommodate voting intensity within a single election. For instance, each voter can express the intensity of interests in different candidates within the same election, while all votes are equally important (e.g. Vargas 2016). My point is rather that expressing interests intensity for different elections contradicts electoral equality.
While I refer to interests throughout the article, the same can be said of preferences. Indeed, discussions of storable votes are often put in terms of preferences rather than interests. I only stick to ‘interests’ to avoid alienating those who consider it important to maintain the distinction, and because expressing ‘interests’ tends to, all else equal, have more normative weight than expressing ‘preferences’.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
One could indeed wonder whether relational egalitarians should (also) endorse a lifetime view. For a discussion and defence, see Lippert-Rasmussen (2018, pp. 130–135). I shall not assume that the lifetime view is included in the temporal scope of relational equality.
I assume that storable votes meet c); if people can choose whether to cast one vote or none and on which candidate to cast their single vote, they can also express their political interests more accurately, if they so wish.
The variant that I shall now explore might not fully coincide with the proposal by Polsner and Weyl (2015) because our focus is only on the quadratic aspect of the voting menu. Other elements of their proposal are more controversial. One is that voters may buy as many votes as they want (Polsner and Weyl 2015, pp. 30, 38), allowing the wealthy to buy more votes than the rest. The intuitive solution to this problem would be to assume that quadratic voting is instead attached to an artificial currency distributed equally to all (e.g. as considered in ibid., p. 45).
The distribution incentivises voting inequality on Election Day when 0 < x < 1, and the opposite is true when x is either zero or > 1.
I consider the proportionality version of the famous ‘all-affected principle’, where ‘power in any decision-making process should be proportional to individual stakes’ (Brighouse and Fleurbaey 2010, p. 138). As Angell and Huseby (2020, p. 378) note, proponents of the all-affected principle have not yet refuted this version. For a seminal discussion of the principle, see Goodin (2007).
Note that storable votes do not also have to reward those who abstain from voting. For instance, voters can be deducted one storable vote per election in which they abstain, possibly stimulating turnout more than standard ‘one person, one vote’ schemes.
Posner and Weyl (2017, p. 12) consider a different version of voting discounts to counter the inegalitarian effects of quadratic voting between the wealthy and the poor by making votes more expensive for the former than for the latter. On this, see also Laurence and Sher (2017). However, the voting discounts I consider here are more general and are supposed to attach to groups with higher electoral stakes, whoever they may be.
One of the anonymous reviewers points out that prices might turn out to be too high (or too low) for the number of votes circulating in society at a given time. Discounts can regulate these cases of voting inflation by changing the cost of each vote. It would ensure the stability of a political system, such that the number of votes circulating at a given point in time does not distort future democratic decisions.
For the distinction between good specific and all-things-considered perspective, see Brighouse and Swift (2006).
References
Anderson, E. 1999. What is the point of equality? Ethics 109: 287–337.
Angell, K., and R. Huseby. 2020. The all affected principle, and the weighting of votes. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 19: 366–381.
Bartels, L. 2009. Economic inequality and political representation. In The unsustainable American state, ed. L. Jacobs and D. King, 167–196. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bengtson, A. 2020. Differential voting weights and relational egalitarianism. Political Studies 68: 1054–1070.
Ben-Shahar, T. 2017. Positional goods and the size of inequality. The Journal of Political Philosophy.
Bidadanure, J. 2016. Making sense of age-group justice: A time for relational equality? Politics, Philosophy and Economics 15: 234–260.
Bidadanure, J. 2017. Discrimination and age. In The Routledge handbook of the ethics of discrimination, ed. K. Lippert-Rasmussen, 243–253. New York: Routledge Handbooks.
Bidadanure, J. 2021. Justice across ages: Treating young and old as equals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bou-Habib, P. 2011. Distributive justice, dignity, and the lifetime view. Social Theory and Practice 37: 285–310.
Brighouse, H., and A. Swift. 2006. Equality, priority, and positional goods. Ethics 116 (3): 471–497.
Brighouse, H., and M. Fleurbaey. 2010. Democracy and proportionality. Journal of Political Philosophy 18: 137–155.
Casella, A. 2005. Storable votes. Games and Economic Behavior 51: 391–419.
Casella, A. 2012. Storable votes: Protecting the minority voice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Casella, A., T. Palfrey, and R. Riezman. 2013. Minorities and storable votes. In International trade agreements and political economy, ed. R. Riezman, 247–282. World Scientific Publishing.
Casella, A., Sanchez, L. 2019. Democracy and intensity of preferences. A test of storable votes and quadratic voting on four California propositions. The Journal of Politics.
Cohen, J. 2001. Money, politics, political equality Joshua Cohen. In Fact and value: Essays on ethics and metaphysics for Judith Jarvis Thomson, ed. R. Stalnaker, R. Wedgood, and A. Byrne, 47–80. MIT Press.
Cohen, G. A. 2011. On the currency of egalitarian justice, and other essays in political philosophy, 147–165. England: Princeton University Press.
Dahl, R. A. 1956. A preface to democratic theory, vol. 10. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dahl, R. A. 2006. On political equality. London: Yale University Press.
Dworkin, R. 1987. What is equality-Part 4: Political equality. USFL Rev 22: 1–30.
Dworkin, R. 2002. Sovereign virtue: The theory and practice of equality. USA: Harvard University Press.
Fleurbaey, M., M. L. Leroux, and G. Ponthiere. 2014. Compensating the dead. Journal of Mathematical Economics 51: 28–41.
Fleurbaey, M. 2008. One stake one vote. Manuscript, Univ. Paris-Descartes.
Gilens, M. 2012. Affluence and influence: Economic inequality and political power in America. USA: Princeton University Press.
Goodin, R. E. 2007. Enfranchising all affected interests, and its alternatives. Philosophy and Public Affairs 35: 40–68.
Goodin, R. E., and A. Tanasoca. 2014. Double voting. Australas. The Journal of Philosophy 92: 743–758.
Gosseries, A. 2003. Intergenerational justice. In The Oxford handbook of practical ethics, ed. H. LaFollette, 459–484. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gosseries, A. 2011. Qu’est-ce que le suffisantisme? Philosophiques 38: 465–491.
Gosseries, A. 2014. What makes age discrimination special: A philosophical look at the ECJ case law. Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 43: 59–80.
Holtug, N., and K. Lippert-Rasmussen. 2007. An introduction to contemporary egalitarianism. In Egalitarianism: New essays on the nature and value of equality, ed. N. Holtug and K. Lippert-Rasmussen, 1–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kolodny, N. 2014. Rule over none II: Social equality and the justification of democracy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 42: 287–336.
Laurence, B., and I. Sher. 2017. Ethical considerations on quadratic voting. Public Choice 172 (1): 195–222.
Lazenby, H. 2011. Is age special? Justice, complete lives and the prudential lifespan account. Journal of Applied Philosophy 28 (4): 327–340.
Lippert-Rasmussen, K. 2018. Relational egalitarianism: Living as equals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lippert-Rasmussen, K. 2019. Is it unjust that elderly people suffer from poorer health than young people? Distributive and relational egalitarianism on age-based health inequalities. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 18: 145–164.
Lovett, F. 2018. Republicanism. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu. Accessed 5 January 2022.
McKerlie, D. 1989. Equality and time. Ethics 99: 475–491.
McKerlie, D. 2012. Justice between the young and the old. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mulgan, T. 2003. La démocratie post mortem. Revue Philosophique De Louvai 101: 123–137.
Nagel, T. 1995. Equality and partiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism: A theory of freedom and government. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pettit, P. 2012. On the people’s terms: A republican theory and model of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Posner, E.A., and E. G. Weyl. 2015. Voting squared: Quadratic voting in democratic politics. Vand. L. Rev. 68: 441–500.
Posner, E.A., and E. G. Weyl. 2017. Quadratic voting and the public good: Introduction. Public Choice 172 (1): 1–22.
Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as fairness: A restatement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. 1999 [1971]. A theory of justice, rev. edn. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Scanlon, T. 2018. Why does inequality matter? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schemmel, C. 2011. Why relational egalitarians should care about distributions. Social Theory and Practice 37 (3): 365–390.
Swift, A. 2006. Political philosophy: A beginners’ guide for students and politicians. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Umbers, L. 2020. Enfranchising the youth. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23: 732–755.
Van Parijs, P. 1998. The disfranchisement of the elderly, and other attempts to secure intergenerational justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 27: 292–333.
Vargas, L. G. 2016. Voting with intensity of preferences. International Journal of Information Technology and Decision Making 15 (04): 839–859.
Verba, S. 2001. Political equality: What is it? Why do we want it. Review Paper for Russell Sage Foundation 1–92.
Viehoff, D. 2014. Democratic equality and political authority. Philosophy and Public Affairs 42: 337–375.
Waldron, J. 2012. Democracy. In The Oxford handbook of political philosophy, ed. D. Estlund, 187–204. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, J. L. 2019. Democratic equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to Axel Gosseries for his continuous support and crucial comments on successive drafts of this paper. For helpful written comments and discussion, I am also very thankful to two anonymous reviewers, Anca Gheaus, Kevin Hartmann, Refia Kaya, Louis Larue, Tim Meijers, Catarina Neves, Kieran Oberman, Serena Olsaretti, Hervé Pourtois, Hugo Rajão, Riccardo Spotorno, Pierre-Etienne Vandamme, Yannick Vanderborght, Philippe Van Parijs, and Andrew Williams. Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the University of Minho, University of Bucharest, Pompeu Fabra University and at the University of Louvain. I acknowledge the financial support of the ARC research project ‘SAS’ Pensions research project (ARC No. 18-23-088, UCLouvain).
Funding
This research was financially supported by the convention ARC No 18-23-088 (‘SAS’ Pensions research project, UCLouvain).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Consent for Publication
The author consents to the publication of the article.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Valente, M.S. Proportionality without Inequality: Defending Lifetime Political Equality through Storable Votes. Res Publica 28, 715–732 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-022-09547-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-022-09547-2