Standard rationales for the illegality of markets in votes are based on concerns over the undue influence of wealth and the erosion of civic responsibility that would result from the commodification of votes. I present an alternative rationale based on how the mere alienability of votes alters the strategic setting faced by political actors. The inalienability of votes ensure the strict secrecy of voting, that is, the inability of voters to communicate credibly to others the content of their votes. In (...) doing so, it diminishes the credibility of all political actors’ clientelistic promises to reciprocate. By drastically reducing the transaction costs of vote exchanges, the legality of markets in votes would thus exacerbate the detrimental effects of political clientelism on the quality of democratic governments. (shrink)

What limits should there be on the areas of life that are governed by market forces? For many years, no one seriously defended the buying and selling votes for political elections. In recent years, however, this situation has changed, with a number of authors defending the permissibility of vote markets. One popular objection to such markets is that they would lead to a tyranny of wealth, where the poor are politically dominated by the rich. In a recent paper, Taylor :313–328, (...) 2017. doi: 10.1007/s11158-016-9327-0) has argued that this objection can be avoided if certain restrictions are placed on vote markets. In this paper we will argue that this attempt to rebut an argument against vote markets is unsuccessful. Either vote markets secure their purported benefits but then they inevitably lead to a tyranny of wealth, or they are restricted so heavily that they lack the features that have been claimed to make vote markets attractive in the first place. Using Taylor’s proposal as a test case, we make the more general claim that vote markets cannot avoid the tyranny of wealth objection and bring about their supposed benefits at the same time. (shrink)