Amerika

Realists like to see things how they will be in reality, not how they are at the start or in an ideal laboratory test.

Consider the vote.

One person, one vote. This means that the individual decides how to vote and faces zero consequences for that choice.

What is to stop him from selling that vote? Nothing.

He can do this a number of ways. A candidate can promise something that the voter will get, like free benefits paid for by others. The voter can receive a direct benefit, like being part of a social group for voting with the good guys. Or he can receive a couple hundred dollars in advertising designed to sway his choice.

In every case, money has changed hands and the vote has changed as a result.

There is absolutely nothing to stop a candidate from saying that he will (if elected) borrow to the max and distribute the money to each citizen no strings attached.

In the past in America, we had political machines that gave out favors for votes, sometimes on the day of the election. Some parties set up beer barrels outside polling places and gave away free drinks with the wink-and-nod assumption that you voted for the party.

Power is a property. The vote is a power more than a tangible thing. Each vote makes an outcome more likely, and that power is entrusted in the voter. But nothing guarantees he will not sell it, and since we know that any power of consequence is worth money, it is inevitable that the vote will be sold.

Now consider another power: victimhood. Egalitarian societies are anti-realist because they are based on rationalizing individual desires as good for everyone (universal) instead of being mere subjective preferences. To make people equal, you take from the stronger and give to the weaker.

This means that whoever is designated weaker has a power.

This power is an entitlement. The designated weaker person deserves — in the language of politics — compensation for being weaker. All they have to do is come up with a convincing argument as to why they are weaker.

A woman may be a nobody until she claims to have been raped; a middle class person gets nothing from government until they find a plausible claim to poverty or disability; an ethnic group is powerless until it finds someone to blame for its weaker condition, which it will style as victimization or marginalization.

Nothing says that they cannot sell this entitlement, and in fact, since everything gets sold if it has value which includes power, it is guaranteed to be sold at some point. An accusation can be made to hurt the other side, to profit a group, or to make the victim into a celebrity.

Even welfare can be a sold power. It is an entitlement, and many people work under the table so that they can keep receiving welfare, which provides cheaper labor to their employers. Businesses count on their workers having a subsidy so that they can reduce their hours or pay them less.

The point is that all things convert to property at some point. A power enables you to have certain properties, so is effectively a property. Looking at it as anything else leads to the illusion of morality that says people will universally care about the consequences of their votes, claims, or welfare checks.

Tags: power, property, victimhood, voting, welfare