The head of politics at Cambridge University has called for children as young as six to be given the vote in an attempt to tackle the age bias in modern democracy.
Prof David Runciman said the ageing population meant young people were now “massively outnumbered”, creating a democratic crisis and an inbuilt bias against governments that plan for the future.
In the latest episode of his podcast, Talking Politics, he said lowering the voting age to 16 was not radical enough to address the problem.
But then again… maybe it is?
“What’s the worst that could happen? At least it would be exciting, it would make elections more fun. It is never going to happen in a million years but as a way of capturing just how structurally unbalanced our democracies have become, seriously, why not? Why not six-year-olds?
On the one hand, it seems like a terrible idea.
On the other hand, the rhetoric of campaigns like those from “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” wouldn’t need to be especially rewritten.
I don’t think younger voters would necessarily vote the way all these people who say younger people should vote would want them to. I think back to my high school, which held a mock election in 1992. Ross Perot won. I remember one teacher, who looked at the results and muttered how frightened she was by the results.
I for one look forward to the Department of Bright Shiny Objects and congressional hearings to finally determine whose got my nose.
The head of politics at Cambridge University has called for children as young as six to be given the vote in an attempt to tackle the age bias in modern democracy.
They are saying it without actually saying it. They are scared that the political landscape is permanantly shifting against them and this would be the only way for them to win elected office.
I for one look forward to the Department of Bright Shiny Objects
We have it already, its called the EPA.
The more I see of the results of adding more and more people to the voter rolls, the more the old system of limiting the vote to landowners makes sense to me. Limit the vote to people who have demonstrated an appreciation for delayed gratification.
The Baby Boomer demographic is moving through time like a pig swallowed by a python. In a few years, they’ll be retired and instead of paying Income Tax and Social Security/Medicaid Tax, they’ll expect to receive ever-increasing Social Security and medical payments made from taxes paid by Gen X and Millennials and Gen Z. But the taxes generated by the skinny part of the python following the pig won’t be enough to fund payments to Baby Boomers plus free college and universal gender change operations and all the other fun programs now under consideration. Who’s going to be short-changed?
Lowering the voting age shifts the electoral power from the Recipient Generation to the Paying Generation. Prepare to hear bright young things campaign on: “Old people have outlived their usefulness to society so they ought to have the dignity to die to free up resources for future generations. And if they don’t, we should assist them.”
I can hardly wait.
Six-year-olds can choose their gender, why not their representatives?
Now, if we can just extend the vote to the unborn…..
I remember in elementary school we had a mock election in 1976 for president. Carter won in our school. Of course being a 3rd grader I had no understanding of anything presidential other than I liked Ford cars so Ford must be a good guy and Carter had a foreign accent.
The Baby Boomer demographic is moving through time like a pig swallowed by a python
That’s pretty much completely not true. And it’s a much bigger problem that 85% of Boomers have less than $500k saved up (in 2016).
Of course. Two links and it’s moderation.
Eh, you do see a bulge concentrated around age 55-60, which takes you back to 1960 or so (from the survey date of 2016), which is the tail end of the baby boom, and you see another at the right time to be most of the kids of the boomers. Yes, you don’t see the whole pig because a portion of it has been “digested” (died) already, but that doesn’t mean that the python doesn’t look a lot different than it would have without the Depression and World War Two changing birth rates.
Agreed, though, that the median retirement savings among boomers–about $50k or so–does mean that any attempt to fix things by adjusting COLAs is going to meet fierce resistance, which only pushes out the reckoning until it’s too late to fix without drastic changes.
BB, more explicitly, I see a bigger bulge around the age groups 20 – 34 in 2016 which can in no way that I understand be considered Boomers. So what if it’s the kids of Boomers unless we’re moving goalposts? I’ve been tracking this since the 90s (when I was arguing on Usenet) and there was no “bulge in the python” then either. If someone has better/different/alternative info, I’d be interested to see it, but my impression is that this is a myth.
The saving rate is behind the other myth, that of market doom as the Boomers remove their savings. They haven’t saved enough to affect the market to that degree.
I should add that I know how lack of funds is going to be fixed: people like me who saved are going to lose our SS and possibly our Medicare. We’ll be means tested. As to whether we get a thank-you note because we did save is yet to be seen.
I remember in elementary school we had a mock election in 1976 for president. Carter won in our school. Of course being a 3rd grader I had no understanding of anything presidential other than I liked Ford cars so Ford must be a good guy and Carter had a foreign accent.
I remember thinking in 1980 (5th grade) that Reagan was cool and Carter was a loser. I don’t really remember why I thought that way. My parents never really talked to me about politics or economics at that age. I just knew we had less money than some of my other classmates because my dad was a car salesman in a time no one was buying cars and my mom was a half real-estate agent/ half secretary not selling houses because no one was buying houses. I certainly knew nothing of Carter’s “malaise” speech.