[EM] Quotas

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Greg Nisbet wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 11:46 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
>> I'll reply to this quickly as I'm about to leave this computer for a while.
>> I think that such quotas may be of use in the short term, to get the system
>> on the right track, but ideally, the election method should be based just on
>> the voters. Thus it would be a way of jumping from a local optimum to a
>> better local optimum, if you see it in system terms, or of incorporating
>> groups so that they can lift themselves up afterwards. Of course, this
>> relies on very powerful checks so that those who get superproportional voice
>> don't decide they like it that way and stop the quota from being phased out
>> later. Also, the maintainers would be sufficiently wise to know when to
>> phase it out - not too early and not too late.
> 
> To what extent is this the right track if the voters are not doing it
> themselves? If it requires so much good judgment on behalf of the
> government to phase it in and phase it out correctly then is it really
> right to trust them with this power. I mean even if the goals are
> egalitarian and such does it actually catalyze representativeness and
> is this actually useful. Look for instance at regional quotas for
> Congress (not usually defined as such but that IS what they are), has
> this made politics more inclusive... uh no... it has in fact divided
> the country further. Notice, for instance, red state blue state
> politics. It has at least preserved excessive regionalism and probably
> exacerbated it. It would be much worse if politics between members of
> different races, sexes, religions, income whatever became so
> formalized.

The parallel to voting systems would be this: if society's way of 
expressing itself is somehow limited, then it might be on the right 
track, since it would shortcut through the slow evolution to the less 
limited state. For voting systems, that shortcut is to implement a good 
voting system, something which may take a very long time if the 
society's limited to a bad voting system - because those who profit from 
the voting method's inaccuracies are those who are in power.

For quotas, then, if there's a consistent majority that wants to deprive 
the minority of its voice, it may take a long time (possibly with 
unfortunate events as the minority gets tired of being "kept down") for 
the minority to be included. Quotas would skip ahead, and when used 
correctly, they should be in place no longer than is required for the 
system to end up where it would have gone after a longer time anyway.

There's a problem with this, though. Who decides what corrections to 
make and when? You hint about this when you say that it requires so much 
good judgement on behalf of the government. One possible way to do it 
would be to have a consensus method for such changes, but that's 
basically what supermajority criteria on altering the constitution, 
well, constitutes, and that doesn't work, since if the minority can 
block the consensus, the majority surely can, and the members of the 
majority are the ones who benefit from the status quo.

If we had an authority who could be trusted, then there would be no 
problem, except for that unconstrained authority degrades both those 
with that authority as well as those without - the rulers and the ruled. 
So within a democratic perspective, we should look at the parallel to 
voting systems again. In other words, if quotas would improve things, 
then tell the voters so; as long as the majority isn't determined to 
exclude the minority, at least some should consider the idea and its 
validity, and thus there might be a majority (of those of the old 
majority that think skipping ahead might be of use, as well as most of 
the old minority) in favor of implementing the quota.

Thus quotas can be advantageous, though they either require very good 
judgement on behalf of the government, or the majority to consist of at 
least some who agree that the temporary unbalancing would improve the 
long term situation.

If there's a subgroup of the majority that means that minority 
representation is a good thing, you may say "why not just have them do 
it through the election methods, in that case?". The answer would be 
that they could guard against future conditions if they're no longer a 
majority then. They'd also not need to consciously compensate 
(strategize) each time to keep the minority (superproportional) 
representation going.

As for the United States regional quotas, I think some of the blame 
there must be laid on Plurality, and for electoral votes, its 
winner-takes-all nature. At least the red-state/blue-state designation 
is a consequence of "a majority grants all electors". Simply weighting 
ballots would give a better result, and the EV weights may be too large 
anyway.