Equity and Compulsory Voting: a Framework

I live in a safe ALP seat in inner Melbourne, which means that once every three years I am overwhelmed by the sense that nobody loves me and the world is unfair. Sort of. Here’s an attempt to qualify my sense of disenfranchisement:

The Framework:

Assume for a moment that wealth has a certain ‘natural’ utility. That is to say, assume that we live in a ‘perfect’ free market economy, where you get to keep everything you earn (ie, there are no taxes) and the market includes perfectly fair pricing for all goods and services (ie, perfect competition). We assume that the only value of wealth in this economy is the goods and services that wealth it can be used to purchase. In the first instance, we assume there is no inherent social or political advantage conferred to those who are wealthy that could act to increase their utility. The utility of wealth is only influenced by consumption. In this respect, we can say that the advantage of wealth is “politically neutral”, that is, in case (1):

Actual utility = politically neutral utility

Assume that there are three levels* of wealth within this society, called A B and C, where A has the least wealth and C has the most. The utility associated with each level is standardised; that is, the score reflects what portion of politically neutral utility A, B and C can each capture. In case (1) we assume that everyone has a utility score of 1. Graphically, this looks like this:
Now we can start to overlay political assumptions. We will assume that political power has no potential to create or destroy wealth, only power to redistribute it.

Assume that under the current system, everyone at level A cannot afford to eat, everyone at level B eats and owns a car and everyone at level C eats, owns a car and a big yacht. Most poeple would share the view that we can make this system ‘fairer’ by redistributing some of the utility of the Cs to the As. This forms Case (2): fair redistribution.
Note that this does not mean A has more actual wealth that C, just that A has more actual wealth than they would in the "politically neutral" world, and C has less.

The extent to which you think redistribution (ie, tax) should take place is likely to depend on your political persuasion. Some people would argue that C should own a small yacht instead of a big one in order to give A enough money to eat. Others may argue that C should give up the yacht altogether and give A enough money so that everyone has enough actual wealth to own a car. However, the principle that some level of redistribution is "fair" is broadly accepted.

I would argue that case (2) effectively represents what governments want to achieve; though their precise starting point, methods and the extent of the redistribution may vary.

The Equity:

So, what’s the beef with compulsory voting?

The problem is that of the 150 seats in Australia’s lower house of parliament, only 20-25% are really in for a contest. These are the “marginal” seats – generally defined as those that would require a swing of less than 6% of the vote to change the sitting member

Marginal electorate politics wouldn’t be such a problem if the group of 20-25% marginal seats were randomly distributed. The problem is that they’re not. Marginal seats form a biased cross-section of the population. A quick look at the current map of national electoral zones (http://www.aec.gov.au/profiles/maps/national/aec-boundary-map-june-2010.pdf) shows that the vast majority of marginal seats are in the outer suburbs of major cities – basically, the people deciding the outcome of the election all sit within level B in our model.

Marginal seat politics means that there’s an incentive for politicians to stray from a political model of “fair redistribution”. The result is that in order to get elected you need to pork‑barrel marginal electorates. Under the assumption that political decisions don’t create wealth, just redistribute it, this means a political subsidy for level B at the expense of A and C. Perhaps due to the fact that the political class and their supporters typically come from level C, the bulk of the burden will usually fall on level A. Hence, we have case (3): the pork-barrel:

Based on our model, we're saying level A can go without food so level B can keep there car and afford to pay for the occasional rental of a big yacht.

This is an issue that’s intrinsically caught up with having a compulsory voting system. If voting was optional, politicians would have to campaign in all seats or face the risk of voters (like me) becoming so disenfranchised that they don’t bother showing up to vote.

PS – the PLNC is dead. My brain couldn’t cope with any more Murdoch papers and I figured I would invariably descend into election dross, anyway.

*I avoid using the word “class” because, as Australians, it makes us uncomfortable. I can only assume this comes from a national tendency to associate social classes with classes of wool, where being of a higher class is necessarily better. This is distinctly opposed to the British understanding, where being middle class is normalised and anything else has the connotation that you come from a dysfunctional family and you don’t work for a living.