Re: "GOVLOT", $100,000,000 Get Out the Vote Lottery

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

        Adam Stokes writes from Australia that very high
        voter turnout has not yet resulted in laws that raise
        the minimum standard of living to the comfort level
        appropriate to Australia's resources and skills.

        No doubt part of the problem is one of know-how.
        Do we know how to motivate all who work to
        improve output, the environment and distribution of
        economic output to achieve the above high minimum
        standard of living?

        And part of the problem would be one of national
        values. Do the great majority of a nation's people
        really want to raise the minimum standard of living?
        Or would they rather see both the very poor and the
        very rich continue to co-exist -- as in the past --
        when science, technology and business may not have
        had it within their power to make us all comfortable?

        I must agree with Adam that merely enticing people
        to vote will not provide either the know-how or the
        moral values to end poverty overnight.  But, within
        decades, say, will not the constitutencies that in
        America are ignored, come to have great influence
        on outcomes?

        The great lotteries the individual and consortiums of
        states have today, as well as the business rewards
        offered by intial public offerings, (which are more like
        a lottery than anything else), have wetted people's
        appetites for the possibility that nation's who know
        how to produce the goods will someday clean up
        their act.
                        They will spend on national needs all that
        is necessary to make the environment clean, the
        streets safe, the schools effective, and the health
        care system work for all of us.

        Possibilities are in the air.  If war can be avoided,
        and lotteries get out the vote, will not the whole
        system tilt in the direction of democracy?
                        After all, nobody questions the idea of
        equality in the voting booth.  They question equality
        in purchaisng power at the store.  If we have equality
        in voting power, how far behind can a decent life be
        for all who vote -- when technology cries out to be
        free to win in the race by nations to see whose
        got the better civilization?  -- when politicians know
        that the people we used to leave behind are eager
        to vote and anxious to get what Samuel Gompers,
        the great labor leader, called "more".


        John Gelles
         email    1944@xxxxxxxx
             url    http://www.1944.org
                     http://www.1944.org/lottery.htm


----- Original Message -----
From: <Adam.Stokes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>; <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 3:36 PM
Subject: RE: "GOVLOT", $100,000,000 Get Out the Vote Lottery


John.

No doubt that it is desirable for everyone to have
their say in terms of who should lead the country into
an unknown future (hopefully with a plan).

However, I doubt that compulsory voting has
compelled governments/polititians to heed the
identifiable social needs here in Australia.

Democracy is not a system of one man one vote,
per se, simply because powerful persons and groups
have a skewed influence on government policy
through [their influence on national] ideology.

Elections are merely a means to gain political office.
The influece of the majority is only indicative of $$
spent [to win ] a marginal seat.  Voting is rarely able
to influence [embedded] ideologies.

This is why Australian governments across the
political spectrum have pursued an economic
rationalist [in the US rather conservative] agenda
for the past two decades.

This said, I will admit that in the end ideology is
nothing more than the belief in different means to
reach known and agreed ends. However, I feel
that sometimes, even the ends are a matter of
dispute.

== end of Adam Stokes word from down under ==