Concurrent Majority, the Proven Solution for Property Rights
Image the following scenario:
You and a friend put in $10 each and order a large pizza. You decide against a medium because it is too small, even though the large is too much food. Just as the pizza delivery arrives, two neighbors unexpectedly stop by your place. You invite them to hang out and share some pizza.
When you divide pizza, however, there is a conflict. You and your friend take 3 slices, just like you planned prior to neighbors’ arrival. Unfortunately, this leaves only 1 slice each for the neighbors. Your neighbors are outraged at the unfair distribution. You and your friend are shocked that the neighbors are upset at your generous offer of free pizza.
What is the best, moral way to resolve this issue? The neighbors would like an equal distribution of pizza. They say that there are 8 slices and want a vote to split into equal parts. However, you and your friend purchased the pizza. The neighbors have no legal or moral claim to the pizza. Instead, you and your friend decide how to split the pizza as you originally intended, and the neighbors can have the left-over slices.
This contrived scenario illustrates the difference between a concurrent majority and a simple majority. In this case, the simple majority is a vote of all four people, while a concurrent majority is a vote of the two property owners (you and your friend). The concurrent majority is the moral way to resolve this conflict since the pizza is your collective property. If instead, they vote using a simple majority, then inherently your neighbors involuntarily take, aka steal, your property.
Concurrent Majority
Most people can figure out how to split a pizza without too much conflict. Scale this example to millions of people, however, and similar conflicts become real. When considering a system of government, the simple majority always results in the majority taking the stuff of the minority. John C. Calhoun knew this all too well. In his political essay, A Disquisition on Government, Calhoun proposes the usage of concurrent majority and nullification to protect the southern states. Northern states had larger populations and continued to grow in influence as more anti-slave states joined the Union.
But Calhoun isn’t the originator of this concept. The US Senate is an example of concurrent majority in action or at least it was until the 17th Amendment, which introduced popular elections for senators. For a bill to become law, a concurrent majority of state representatives (the Senate) must approve the bill. The Senate shows that concurrent majority isn’t some hypothetical or impractical conceptualization. For all its flaws, the Senate has impeded the power of the majority rule (the House of Representative), as designed.
The power of the concurrent majority to protected property rights is massively underappreciated and underutilized. I will review some ideas about how to use it to restore the rights of those pillaged by the simple majority (aka mob rule).
Property Rights
Property rights are the foundation of a free society. In any form of government, taxes on property are inevitable. When combined with simple majority voting, however, it is deeply unfair and immoral to fund government with property taxes against the consent of property owners. Regardless of where you live, property owners are a minority of the people. Forcing the minority to fund government is unfair, and when done without consent, is immoral. In the US, city, state, and local governments rely heavily on property taxes for funding and all of them use simple majority voting.
Concurrent majority voting vastly improves the morality of property taxes, especially when combined with weighted voting. Under this system, the government can’t increase taxes without the approval of most property owners. By weighting votes based on property value, the results of a current majority represent the proportional rights of property owners. Since the taxes are born by the property owners, it is a significantly more fair when imposing taxes.
There is no reason why a similar strategy couldn’t be used for income taxes. With modern technology, a concurrent majority of taxes payers could approved or rejected every bill that affects taxes. Not only would this system be more fair and less immoral, but it also gives control of policy to those that bear the burden of paying for it.
Concordia
In the book, Concordia There Must be Better Way, property rights are protected by concurrent majority voting. But even that system has moral side effects, where the minority of property owners yield control to the majority. To minimize conflicts, the fictional nation, Concordia, also uses super majorities. The combination of these safeguards isn’t perfect, but it is a significant improvement compared democratic, simple-majority governments.
In the book, a resolution to fund national parks comes up. An attempt to fund the parks using strictly property taxes fails when property owners veto it. Then a similar resolution to fund the parks using strictly tariffs fails when the general public vetoes it. Finally a combination of tariffs and property taxes, with an expiration dates, passes. This example shows how voters and property owners can and should be involved in public policy decision making. It also illustrates how unfair most governments operate where bills pass with no recourse for those paying the bill.
