Consider Not Voting

The recent municipal elections in Bombay made news because of low turnout of voters, about 60 percent of the electorate, if not more, did not came out to vote prompting reactions from the commentariat ranging from "they are the reason why our politicians suck to begin with" to "they don't deserve to demand anything from the political establishment" or words to that effect. US also doesn't see a lot of people coming out to vote in their elections despite which it remains a vibrant democracy that sees frequent changes in terms of fresh thinking & leadership at pretty regular interval, but that is besides the point.


US and the much of west grew economically to it's present position on the principles of free market economy, where the market forces drove the decisions of firms, governments and also individuals resulting in massive industrialization and capturing of global markets due to the competitive advantages of industrialization, scale and labour migration. But the present western world is a shadow of it's former self. Welfare systems have taken the place of free market system. The west is reeling under massive burden of social security, healthcare, and need to keep poorly performing factories running just to keep people employed.


Others are no better either, India's love with it's welfare systems can not be over stated, it seems to be waiting for some growth in it's treasury before another, even more massive round of welfare schemes can be unleashed on the crippling economy. That west can afford it to some extent, India can't, doesn't seem to deter the establishment Robin Hoods. China on the other hand, till recently, was making news for it's "state capitalism", but it too has lined up it's own massive welfare schemes of enormous proportions.


The dismantling of the socialist block of Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, increasing isolation of communist North Korea and trail blazing growth of China riding on economic reforms and state capitalism should have resulted in vindication of free market system as the solution to economic problems but reverse seems to be happening defying all conventional knowledge.


One of the reason why free market capitalism proved itself to be a better economic system than communism and socialism was the minimal political interference. Politics was considered to be not more than a necessary evil reflected in no. of people voting in elections, but these days it has taken center stage in all our discourses and all aspects of our lives and work, the increasing no. of people voting in elections also suggests how much people desire political interference in largely economic affairs.


Traditionally the poor of developing countries and the old people of the developed ones were the ones who voted in large numbers and consequently the reason for increasing welfare systems in both may be due to the ageing of the west and continued destitution of the east, which also explains why cities like Bombay has so little turn out for polls. If that is indeed the case, it's natural for the middle class and the young to be apathetic to political processes as IMO it should naturally be. All politicians do everywhere is just feign attempts at solving economic problems and take their cuts in the process, whereas the market dynamics takes care of economic problems as is expected.


I am not resorting to "all politicians are bad" line that we are familiar with, I am not making value judgments, just that politics is just a necessary evil, nothing more, nothing less, voting for them to solve our economic problems is like paying woodoo doctors to give us placebos to cure our ailments. So the bottom line is "consider not voting" lest it inflates their sense of self importance and the false belief in their own abilities to solve economic problems.


Picture from here.