Tilting voting from the elite democracy for the few

Zimbabwean-born ex- Goldman Sachs economist, and a free market polemicist, Dambisa Moyo’s Edge of Chaos, reveals the economic failings of the west, as the advanced industrial economies are suffering from weak growth because their leaders so far have failed to take tough long-term policy decisions.

“Liberal democratic capitalism has become weak, corrupt and oblivious to its own failings.

The solution doctored by Moyo to fix this is simple “the corrosive short-termism that has beset the democratic process”, which includes campaign finance reforms, electoral cycles that last longer than five years and minimum voting requirements. But this reform could create “three tiers of voters” unqualified, and highly qualified which could result in a “fully informed and participating electorate” capable of taking the difficult long-term decisions needed to rekindle economic vitality.

George Orwell’s definition of democracy in “Animal Farm”, “All people are equal but some more equal than others”.

Moyo’s voting ideas including their heritage tools of racial and class discrimination although deployed and practised in the Centuriate Assembly of Roman Republic and by race in British Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), by weighted voting by wealth. Moyo’s voting policy might see older and younger voters given a boost, or those with higher educational or professional qualifications. Although Moyo insists hers would, in fact, be a “truly meritocratic” system in which all citizens have the chance to win enhanced status.

“Democracy dominated by the ill-informed many can also prove hazardous to growth”, yet tilting voting in favour of existing elites would actually see them support wise, long-term policies, rather than their own narrow short-term interests and the changes to electoral rules will reliably lead to an increase in long-run growth.

Global western liberal democracies, the history’s greatest engine of growth, are now struggling to overcome economic headwinds from ageing populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens, and fails to deliver long-term policies in areas such as infrastructure investment and public service reforms.

In a moment of despair and popular anger against elites, few proposals may seem more precisely targeted to bring about just the kind of popular revolt against democratic capitalism, when people are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and resorted to political extremism. Staggered by short-term thinking and democracies risk falling prey to nationalism and protectionism that will deliver declining living standards.

Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth – and How to Fix It by Dambisa Moyo, Little Brown £20, 320 pages