What are some arguments for Universal Suffrage that don't rely on emotional appeals or ideology?

that's not democracy

Pretty much. You're basically just arguing if oligarchy is superior to democracy if you're a robot.

Never claimed it was or would be. Voting on issues isn't exclusive to democracies nor have the societies we think of democracies always had universal or even extensive sufferage.

Stop getting caught up on terminology.

Literally 100% of political arguments are based on ideology, so that is an impossible standard

It makes your people less likely to try to rise up and murder you.

Anecdotally - wide suffrage seems like it has gone hand in hand with a lot of innovation and technological progress. You could argue this isn't necessary but I think I could counter that people feeling as if they have agency or a stake in governance will contribute more to society.

But if you feel like a spook faggot you can always just keep parrying any thrust like, "but why is THAT good? its all a spook".

>Anecdotally - wide suffrage seems like it has gone hand in hand with a lot of innovation and technological progress

I think you could argue the opposite is true, actually. Industrialization specialized low class labour and gave unprecedented strength to unions who then leveraged democratic power away from elites. Late and post industrialism created a place in the working world for women who quickly capitalized on their new position of power by seizing the vote after WW1.

>, I believe anyone should vote if they pay taxes and have an ID
Should there be an age limit? Should criminals have the right to vote?

>or ideology?
>What are some arguments that don't rely on making an argument

Democracy.

Are you subject to our laws?

Then you have a right to representation.

...Now, if women didn't pay taxes, that might be another thing. But, as soon as you introduced sales tax and had them working, ya lost your last excuse to avoid their suffrage in a self-proclaimed democratic representative republic.

Granted, there's plenty of arguments against democracy.

All arguments about what should or should not be rely on emotional appeals or ideology.

Since in most "democracies" (ie. republics) you are (mostly) voting for representatives, and not laws (and even when you are voting for laws, it's generally only those your representatives choose to delegate to the public), I don't think it much matters how qualified your voters are.

Every citizen, as they are subject to those representative's whims, should have an equal say as to who said representatives are. Be said citizens retards or geniuses, they are equally subject to anything their representatives may choose to do.

So instead of impressing qualifications on your voters - it seems more just, and much more efficient, to impress qualifications on you representatives.

As the problem lies, in the end, not in the quality of the voter, but in the quality of the representative, it seems it'd would be much more sensible, to require incredibly strict testing to qualify for office, rather than even mild testing on the selector, who while subject to the nation's laws, can only be expected to be as reliable a citizen as that nation can produce on average. Additionally, since modern nations require specialized citizens, it is an undo burden to expect such specialists to be well versed in political discourse, beyond some lowest common denominator.

Politicians, on the other hand, are specialists in politics, so no such burden is in play for them.

So yeah, fuck testing citizens and giving them requirements. Just have rigorous requirements to be able to hold office. If your tests and requirements are strict enough, even if your voters are shit, they'll still be voting for the top 1% of their populous, those few deemed to be qualified to be capable leaders.

Granted, it is still potentially elitist, as qualification will no doubt require expensive education - but then you into the argument about education being a right, rather than a privilege.

that was democracy until about 150 years ago. The idea that "democracy" means "everyone should vote" is very new.

>All men are created equal.
>(Except blacks, which are 3/5ths)

If the decision is going to be made by an elected official, then that's the person that needs to be qualified - the guy making the decisions, not the guy casting one of millions of votes as to who makes the decisions.

There's no need to disenfranchise or even test your citizens, regardless of what idiots they maybe, if in order to hold office, you must meet stringent qualifications.

Plus, it's a lot easier to rigorously test the few hundred politicians you need to run a nation, than it is to test the multitude of millions of citizens affected by said's decisions.

None, only people with academic degrees or those in top 5% in terms of wealth should be allowed to vote.

>Implying the other 95% have no right to be angry when the top 5% are assholes who don't give a shit about peons like them.

Suffrage is given to promote political inclusiveness and give people a method of affecting policy (that can directly affect them) without resorting to violence or sabotage of the system.

Widening that base as far as possible lowers the amounts of civil strife, which is usually a good thing to reduce.

They can be angry, but who cares about angry losers?

95% of the population, apparently.

Plus, in a nation with a right to bear arms and sniper rifles that can hit targets over a mile away... Well, everyone who doesn't want to live their lives underground.

well, then take their bear arms they are obviously not responsible enough

Well that was short lived government.

Then you have one ruled by Jews, is that what you want?

Problem is then your voters have a very narrow view, blind to the subtleties of the problems in the lower echelons. Plus, you've got a nation where 95% of the populous is disenfranchised, presumably in a world where they can point to nations of similar culture that have universal suffrage, pretty much guaranteeing civil uprising just as soon as the leaders they had no say in start instituting policies that get their friends and family killed.

Plus it doesn't guarantee quality politicians. Even brilliant folks are often subject to cult of personality and emotionally charged issues. Plus, they all likely specialists, who cannot be well informed about every issue.

It's much simpler and more effective to put restrictions on those who can hold office - restrictions much more stringent than that, specialized for each office. You could easily wave the income requirement, and make it an education requirement, and then institute universally free education, to mitigate the last of the elitism effect.

You then have a democratic metrocity. People can vote among a pool of politicians with varying views, who are all systematically verified to be well qualified to lead. People can still have a say in who represents them, and won't need to be well-versed in subjects outside their expertise to make such decisions, able to rest on the fact that those who are in the candidate pool, have been verified to be so.

>democratic metrocity
*democratic meritocracy
(I am clearly not qualified for office.)

Tbh the right to vote should be a privileged earned not a right given.

>Doesn't realize Starship Troopers is satire.

Democracy seems to guarantee succession with as little conflict as possible, possibly because the electorate, while often disgruntled, tacitly accept that their leaders are chosen in as inclusive a way as possible.

> implying it's the right to vote that should be considered a privilege and not the right to rule.

Why should anyone ever accept the rule of others if they don't have a say in who that person is?

If it affects one's life the person should have a say in it.

Generally children and people who are mentally disabled to the point of needing a guardian can't vote. Because presumably they can't take care of themselves, and can't know what's best for them.

I think the introduction of a universal taxation system in which certain people "contribute more" to the whole also introduces an element of decision making by degrees

if political systems involved no investment whatsoever then it would be easier to say literally anyone with two functioning neurons under that government should have the same vote

but that not only implies that the extend of a person's contribution is measured solely by their monetary contribution, for which there is little proof, it also implies that decision making becomes better the more invested you are in the decision, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Yeah, but those with more resources have more power in every other aspect, despite still having only one vote a piece. In addition to the fact that, even without fiscal motivation, politicians will tend to favor the more productive citizens for the good of the nation, if not personal gain.

Especially in a nation that has mechanisms for civil suits, in which you can hire the best attorneys, essentially giving the individually rich more legal weight than their lessers (save when they gather together for a class action). And as they can do the same in criminal court, they are also much more resistant to legal persecution.

And the problem with that is that then the people who start out in power obviously will view themselves as being the most qualified regardless of whether it's true.

Beyond that, it's not even clear how you should define "most qualified to weigh in on an issue." Your argument is essentially that of Plato, who believed that society should simply be ruled by philosophers with no democracy at all, because they are the "most qualified" to make decisions. But this would mean that from the moment you were born your life would be determined by someone else who may be extremely wise, but doesn't have your perspective or understand your particular desires in life.

One person, one vote means that everyone's concerns are heard, so that even if they may not be the smartest or most educated people at least they have a way of letting society know what it is they care about.

"Better" no, but it implies a strong natural impetus to make what you consider the best decision, and also signifies a return on investment in that you are allowed to decide how your resources are allocated and spent.

>but that not only implies that the extend of a person's contribution is measured solely by their monetary contribution, for which there is little proof

There are some things you can dictate pretty easily with 99% certainty. Like "businessman X who pays $30,000 a year in taxes is worth more to the government than dependent Y who is brain dead and draws $30,000 in state welfare".

So in this case I would say you could clearly mark net dependents as non invested in government..

I still think it's a wrench in the argument of everyone in a modern government system inherently deserving an equal share of the decision making.

Personally, I think it should be something along the lines of either passing a certain income threshold, or passing a basic knowledge test, in order to be granted suffrage.

Both would indicate investment.

You are clearly confusing "having a stake in something" with "being informed about something".

The two are in know way guaranteed to overlap. A person of a certain degree of wealth may be worth a lot in monetary terms, but that is all he is guaranteed to be. It has no influence on his competence as a policy maker.

And something signifying a return on investment is only an argument if that is how you choose to live life and how you choose to view government. Plenty of people choose to live their lives in accordance with other principles and wind up contributing just as much, if not more, to the state, by other means. Money only equals money. Not virtue or intelligence.

the goal of any government system should be to ensure the most effective and satisfying system to all the people affected by it, not a return on investment for a few super rich.

>Competence

Now this is where you introduce a lot of sheer subjectiveness. Who is going to define what "competence" is? Impossible in a political system that guarantees partisan interpretation.

An objective quantifiable resource like money does not have a lot of room for this. I wasn't making the statement that it would be better, or not, for the direction of the country, just that people aren't necessarily fully entitled to the same say by simply existing under a government, since the government involves itself with people in different degrees one way or another.

Someone who pays significantly more into the government system absolutely has a claim that they "deserve" more say in turn.

What exactly would be satisfying about having your vote overruled by a large amount of people who only invest a fraction of their living into the government?

I never said "only the super rich"

I think a threshold could be found that balances the concerns of a "representative" portion of the population

Once upon a time it was landowners in the US but it doesn't necessarily have to be that rigid

>aaayyy we open minded n shieee luuk at uss aaayy

the easiest way of giving citizens a sense they have a stake in the state is to give every adult citizen the vote.

Or to dilute the value of it and encourage flippant decision making

>Someone who pays significantly more into the government system absolutely has a claim that they "deserve" more say in turn.
Why?

Why tie it to money paid rather than, say, hours spent doing political work, hours spent working or hours spent doing free community services?

> who is going to define what competence is

No one. That is why the system should be as inclusive as possible, to avoid even having to have that debate.

> someone who pays more deserves more in turn

But this implies that the goal of money is to distribute according to "what people deserve". Not only is that merely an opinion, it is also something that I would say is ultimately impossible.

Why do you think we need to limit the system beyond how it currently works?

> the goal of money.

The goal of government, that is.

>What exactly would be satisfying about having your vote overruled by a large amount of people who only invest a fraction of their living into the government?
Well poor people invest a larger portion of their living into the government, even with the "progressive" tax system in most developed nations, the poor lose a larger portion of their disposable income, simply because it is so much smaller, if it exists at all. Even in nations that don't levy income taxes against the poorest, varies fees and sales taxes and the like tend to add up to a threat for poor much more quickly, while for even the moderately rich, they rarely more than a nuisance (provided they aren't caught dodging them).

Thus, in terms of individual sacrifice, the poor have already made the greater commitment to the nation. The rich merely give more wealth to the government, as they have more to give. It is in the end, less of a burden. (Well, assuming they hire people to work on the details, given how increasingly nightmarish modern tax codes tend to be as your holdings increase and diversify.)

So in addition to the fact that the rich have greater protection from legal persecution, more power to persuade courts to use power among the populous at large, and much more power in the private marketplace, they risk little to none of their life blood to the government, only their excess.

Thus, if you want to get into 'justified', the rich shouldn't get to vote at all. But of course, they would rebel against that, and more effectively than the throngs of the destitute ever could.

In the end though, the vote only goes towards representation - thus I say again, it's not the voter who needs to be vetted for education or merit - but the representative.

>Now this is where you introduce a lot of sheer subjectiveness.
As opposed to deciding that wealth is the most important trait?

>An objective quantifiable resource like money does not have a lot of room for this.
Neither does age, how well you scored in a quantified test on facts or how money puddings you can eat.

Because it's quantifiable. And essential for a government to operate. Moreso to my earlier point, it is essential to pay out state welfare, as well as provide infrastructure.

If governments didn't operate like this (as an administrative entity that receives and pays out money) my argument would be null and void as I stated earlier. But as it stands money is absolutely the most important element and you can track the dollar from point A to B.

Why would it make sense for someone who receives more of it to have the same say in where it should go than him/her who pays more?

Because as it stands (in a dependent welfare state), an increasing amount of people will fall back on government dependency out of convenience, and as their vote counts as much as the contributor, will vote for an increase of it, like a feedback loop, until the system is hemorrhaging resources and we lose the impetus for production as a nation.

That's a lot of mental gymnastics to say that "relative" sacrifice is more important than total, and that's not necessarily true. I'm not talking about how it affects your life, but the state. Those who pay more affect the state more. And in a lot of progressive systems the poor get all, and more, of their money back.

If you downscale your policy to something relative you will normalize to mediocrity as a whole.

Idk, why don't you ask Louis XVI?

>Because it's quantifiable.
A alot is quantifiable, and there are actually some problems with the quantification of wealth, as one can see when trying to define poverty or how wealthy the wealthy really are.

>And essential for a government to operate.
As are other things, like how competent the administrators are in administrating.

>Why would it make sense for someone who receives more of it to have the same say in where it should go than him/her who pays more?
Why wouldn't it? Why should someone have more of a say because he pays in more of a certain good, but less of other goods, into the collective resource pool?

The more people vote, the closer to public opinion the results of a vote should be.

The more representative a democracy is, the "purer" it can be argued to be. One could also argue that the ability to vote gives people the sense that they can influence their fate, and therefore reduces civil unrest as it legitimizes the elected government in their eyes.

> its quantifiable and essential

But your whole premise still rests on turning government into a vehicle for redistribution, according to some arbitrary measurement of who deserves what.

You still have yet to give any sort of argument as to why that should be the case.

> as it stands, and increasing amount of people will fall back on government dependency

Source?

Because not only do most of the sources I can find indicate that the dependency rate is declining or stagnant, they also seem to imply that nearly all of the most competitive economies in the world are welfare states in some form or another.

aspe.hhs.gov/report/indicators-welfare-dependence-annual-report-congress-2008/chapter-i-introduction-and-overview#Measuring

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Competitiveness_Report

GUILLOTIN'D

>Voting on issues isn't exclusive to democracies nor have the societies we think of democracies always had universal or even extensive sufferage.

Why bother with voting at all if you just want a board of technocrats to determine policy?

Because it affects their policy priorities.

>If you downscale your policy to something relative you will normalize to mediocrity as a whole.
Fair point... But you still have to give the lesser contributors some say, for they are equally, if not more, subject to the laws of land.

In the end, either way, even if you should say, for instance, start giving people a number of votes based on their income, the quality of the representatives is still more important than the quality of the voters, and weighing the ballot by wealth does little to nothing to ensure that.

Nor, given inheritance, does an income requirement on representatives do anything to ensure quality representatives.

So, I still think the most egregious hurdle should be focused on vetting representatives for their knowledge, understanding, and judgement, rather than focusing on the voter's end.

>is there an argument for a political system that isn't based on ideology?
The answer is no, of course not.

Women are manipulated by their feelings.

End of story

Don't obfuscate the argument. Money is our most tangible resource and method of commodification. If you do something valuable you will be compensated for it.

The government already is a vehicle for redistribution. That's why I mentioned that it isn't exactly a fair representative system of everyone being treated the same and therefore having the same say.

>Source?

Human nature? You ascribe to the fantasy that humans are just as motivated and productive when literally paid to sleep eat and exist? How is the dependency rate declining? Some states in Europe such as Spain or Italy have levels of employment hovering around 50% and Greece is virtually a dependent-state.

For more severe examples I point to countries like Venezuela, Argentina, or Brazil. Not devoid of resources or manpower but hopelessly sucked into a socialist or social democratic black hole.

I mean, it would be very difficult for me to find a study that incontrovertibly proved my statement I'm just operating off of what should be apparent, if you don't agree that humans become lazier without impetus idk

Poor representatives are a product of a poor constituency, no? The people enable their leaders.

The balance has to be struck nation by nation, for the United States I would put the threshold for a voting requirement somewhere around $30,000/year so it would be virtually attainable for everyone, and still have an option to pass a knowledge test similar to a watered down GRE if you aren't in a position to make any money.

I don't think this would limit representation to the elite at all, just to people who are even modestly active in their society.

So, I'm a useless retard and my rich daddy gives me a position in his firm paying a sizable sum, allowing me to vote.

Meanwhile, the average worker and people on welfare like single moms or the elderly can't vote. In fact, by simply closing down some factories, population groups that aren't voting in your favour could easily be derived of their ability to impact policies, whenever the wealthy want.
Because of the wealthy's monopoly on voting, the poor will not be able to affect policies in their favour, leading to a worsening of their situation, which keeps spiraling down. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, but this time there's absolutely nothing they can do.

The West already went through limited suffrage. I'm sure it's gone for a good reason.

You act like the rich don't already lobby and manipulate politics like hell. And it is very easy to do, since your average dependent is easily meme'd into one camp or another thanks to a pet issue they can peddle while selling out the country on the other hand. Universal suffrage is endlessly prone to manipulation in that regard. In fact, I see wealth stratification still continuing to occur across the developed world, predictably. It is the middle, productive class that is getting reamed by our present system. Poor, uneducated, and/or dependent voters are turning into an asset for the rich and capable.

According to a population distribution those on the lower and middle earning portions of the spectrum will still highly outnumber the "super rich" and control the majority of the voting market share.

I've never advocated limiting it to the elite alone. If you are indeed a total or virtually total dependent on the state or another you have sacrificed your independence and in that process your agency. You should not feel entitled to an equal share of the say along with that check you get from someone else's pocket.

No, men are manipulated by women. Women are actually all extremely rational in their actions, it's just that most of their actions are malevolent.

This would be a funny plot twist for my life if true

I couldn't believe it though considering how small minded they are

>You act like
I don't.

See:
>The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, but this time there's absolutely nothing they can do.
Note the "this time".

>Poor, uneducated, and/or dependent voters are turning into an asset for the rich and capable.
They are just as susceptible to manipulation from someone from the middle class.

>I've never advocated limiting it to the elite alone.
Even if you include the middle class, too, you are fucking over large chunks of the population.

>If you are indeed a total or virtually total dependent on the state or another you have sacrificed your independence and in that process your agency.
Everyone is dependent on the state by virtue of being part of society. Your right to property, your bodily integrity, your right to life - all of those are guaranteed and thereby dependent on the mercy of the state.
You are dependent on the state and thereby a lesser agent, whether you earn much or not. The only difference is the degree, and I find that the degree of dependence in the cases you mentioned is acceptable.

>They are just as susceptible to manipulation from someone from the middle class.

I don't believe so. They are fundamentally more insecure due to their dependence. If the government is your primary provider every vote you cast will operate from the premise as the government being your benefactor rather than your servant. This is dangerous.

>Even if you include the middle class, too, you are fucking over large chunks of the population.

Someone gets fucked in every model. I would start with the least involved and essential. But I don't really believe dependents would be fucked. People aren't generally immoral and the introduction of the welfare state itself was voluntary and made sense to an extent. Would you be given baby gloves as a dependent? Probably. But then again the gloves would probably fit in this case.

I don't think any system is perfect I'm basically defining damage control in a situation where someone is going to end up getting at least a little screwed.

Women are net negatives when it comes to taxes (ie they enjoy more than they ever pay).
They could pay no taxes it would not change much.

>Poor representatives are a product of a poor constituency, no? The people enable their leaders.
Rich people, who inherit their money, are rarely as capable as the folks before them who actually made it. Indeed, more often than not, a rich individuals next of kin squanders their resources (perhaps as part of a rebellion cycle). Even if they don't, if they've only maintained that fortune adequately, rather than built upon it, they've proven no personal merit to match their parent's, and indeed, if they started with a greater advantage, have demonstrated themselves less capable.

Thus, requiring simply cash to qualify for office has the same risks as a family monarchy.

Granted, as the rest of the proposed requirements I set out would require an extensive battery of higher education, even if you had universally free education, the rich would be at an advantage, as they'd have more ways to enhance their education, and likely not be crippled by childhood malnutrition or any major inheritable behavior defects.

Which makes it *slightly* elite, bit mitigates it quite a bit, and still leaves the retards with some say in who they get to pick from among that intellectually elite pool.

>$30,000/year
Well, that would be poverty level for a family in the US... Hell that gets you on medicare in the blue states, for now. Seems pointless, if you can gather the educational titles, degrees, and pass the tests to qualify for the office. All you're doing is deliberately overlooking diamonds in the dust and reducing your pool.

>sourceless graph
I seriously doubt that the middle to upper income women are using more government money than they pay.

The lower class women maybe weighing on that graph, if it's legit, even then, probably only the ones that breed.

They are nonetheless, like any non-producer, subject to the nation's laws, and thus require at least some say in them, and of course, are entirely capable of recruiting men to civil unrest on their behalf.

Basically the advent of widening voting rights was with the introduction of draft and modern army. The rationale was that if you're risking your life for your country, you should be able to decide its policies as well.

Then this rationale was extended over to other contributions to the state's wealth and safety, either by producing goods, paying taxes or whatever. Now we're in the era of professional armies not relying on draft, so the original reason fell away.

>being THIS US-centric

I literally had no idea that this was the stated reason for Americans. Neither am I an American, nor have an interest in American politics.

its like you read Starship Troopers, but forgot to take notes.
I can't even think of a nation where recruitment/draft and voting was ever tied together.

>Even if they don't, if they've only maintained that fortune adequately, rather than built upon it, they've proven no personal merit to match their parent's, and indeed, if they started with a greater advantage, have demonstrated themselves less capable.

There are so many stories of sport personnalities and lotery winners making fortune who come back to poverty or see their children dilapidate their heritage in just few years that it is enough to refute this point.
Maintaining and managing wealth is nowhere "easy", effortless or without merit, that's a pseudo argument with no real rationnal basis than jealousy behind.

Some families can live over the heritage of their ancestors during multiple generations without doing anything, but that's a microscopic minority of people, your "median" rich people (doctors, middle sized companies, skilled engineers, all working class) would see their wealth vanish in few decades of management by the average pleb.

I often see this argument that social reproduction is something unfair or immoral but it just isn't, smart people amass wealth by skill/good decision making and produce smart children who inherit the genetic pool of their parents and then are educated by them to apply the same successful recipe.

That does not mean the poors deserve to live like shit or that we should not strive for social mobility but the thesis of the "meritless bourgeois family" is laughable.

>but the thesis of the "meritless bourgeois family" is laughable.
And what did you do to disprove it? Show that you can lose wealth? Yes you can but it's only when you grab a specific mindset and start doing absolutely retarded things with it. Most of those fortunes could last a lifetime if people would just spend about as much as the median person makes per month.

It's easier to get rich with more money, because you can invest it and don't need to take credits. That's why banks exist and upstart businesses borrow money even though they have to return more. If your family is rich if you try even a bit you will get higher education, even if you have some really shitty diploma they can put you in important places thanks to connections.

Source:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2375926

>I seriously doubt that the middle to upper income women are using more government money than they pay.
Irrelevant observation.
Also welfare toward women is extremely generous in the West, especially a wide array of benefits if the woman decides to dump the father and divorce (80% of divorces in USA are initiated by the wife).

>The lower class women maybe weighing on that graph, if it's legit, even then, probably only the ones that breed.
That's the problem, they don't even do their basic and vital duty anymore for our nations, fertility rate is crashing in the West and that's why we are actively replacing the native population with cultural aliens at insane rates because our deluded leaders and the boomers voting for them somewhat think they will pay their retirement despite everything indicating the opposite.

>They are nonetheless, like any non-producer, subject to the nation's laws, and thus require at least some say in them, and of course, are entirely capable of recruiting men to civil unrest on their behalf.
You don't respect the law because you have a vote in exchange (or the foreigners and children old enough to read should have it too by this logic, so much for the concept of self determination), you respect the laws because it is guarantees you security and a set amount of rights.
By the way the argument that women did not have a say into the country government before is retarded, like if the West wahabbi tier before WW2.
A vote before universal suffrage was not considered as of one man's will but as one of a family home, which is the fundamental brick of society and not the individual, that's one of the biggest problem today in our democracy, politics play women against men and elders vs youth just like they play whites vs minorities and poor vs rich.
"Family policies" is just old-world term that they only use to pander to the last traditionnal part of socieites today.

>And what did you do to disprove it? Show that you can lose wealth? Yes you can but it's only when you grab a specific mindset and start doing absolutely retarded things with it. Most of those fortunes could last a lifetime if people would just spend about as much as the median person makes per month.
>retarded things

"Retarded things" are the exact reasons poor people are not rich or at least financially comfortable today, it includes:
- bad decision-making
- lack of planification
- overall pure stupidity

You know those dynasties of doctors, industrials and lawyers ? That's not a mere coincidence, they still keep the same relative standards of living as their ancestors by hard earned maintenance through education and work.

>You know those dynasties of doctors, industrials and lawyers ?
Do you have any idea how often those dynasties fall apart? The percentage of their children that sink rather than swim? Or how much more skilled and a proficient a person needs to be to go from the bottom to the top, rather than just stay at the top?

Depending on money alone to qualify for office is just begging for Caligula-tier shit to happen. There's plenty of well funded idiots and psychopaths out there, and the last thing you want to do is ignore their lack of qualifications, just cuz they are rich.

No, if you want competent politicians, your litmus test for qualifying for leadership has to be something more than being born with a silver spoon in your ass. There should be some serious academic standards and psychological profiling involved, as well as additional specialist qualifications for the particular office involved.

But where are the stats. Yes you can lose a fortune but that requires you being retarded. In fact for you to stay poor even if you're in the middle of doing your engineering degree and soon landing all you need is health trouble in a country with bad social health care or shitty economic situation in the country making it harder to land a job while you also got worse grades in college because you had to spend much more time working rather than just learning.

Given how most older democracies have problems getting people to go out and vote in elections I would say that there are probably plenty of people that will not give fuck about who rules them and wouldn't even notice if they'ren't allowed to vote

>dynasties
Nearly every mad king was a direct descendant of a great one. Nearly every slithering creature like Paris Hilton is a direct descendant of an entrepreneur like Henry Ford. Ambition may make for success, but it doesn't always make for great parenting skills, and even if you're lucky enough to get both paired between two generations, circumstances change and suppressed behavioral defects skip, so it doesn't necessarily mean the third or fourth will be so lucky.

Granted, I maybe a bit bias, having personally witnessed such falls so many times, including that of a young lady who grew up on a $20 million dollar property, with two poneys, and today is in prison, serving a 15 year sentence, because she decided becoming a major drug dealer and holding up two random couples at gun point would be fun.

Guess what? Democracy in Athens had only Greek male citizens voting. Women and helots were shit out of luck.

>The village drunkard has the same political power as an enlightened scholar
How the fuck can anyone think this makes sense

Universal Democracy is a flawed ideology, so sufferage for the masses in general is a stupid idea.

It's called republicanism not technocracy

Notice that none of them are working.

Correct if I'm wrong, but don't all the most powerful nations in the world, with exception of China and the Muslim states, at least claim to have universal suffrage? ...and have nearly all claimed to do so for 50 years or more since they've been on top?

So, apparently, it's working...

Neither has the power of the representative they vote for, so just do a breathalyzer test on said representative, problem solved.