]> 2026-06-06T06:41:50+00:00 Voting Rights and Suffrage/History/Country sources/Modern Capitalism 0 en While there were many different views on voting rights in the context of capitalism, two main influences on this were Friedrich Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter. Hayek was in favor of the free-market system, a system by which the government does not intervene and the laws of supply and demand create the foundations for the economic system. Hayek was supportive of this system because he believed it allowed for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship (Kenton, 2022). In addition to this, Hayek’s later book, The Constitution of Liberty, expressed that “individuals should be left largely free to act on the basis of their own values and beliefs, rather than those of government regulators or planners” (Dombroski, 2019). In the frame of voting rights, most people have the freedom to choose who they want to be put in office — people have the right to vote for whoever they want without feeling pressure from other people to pick a specific candidate. Hayek emphasized that too much government intervention may lead to a decrease in the freedom that people experience, for example, the right to vote; a capitalist/free-market economy can boost people’s freedom because it limits government intervention. Another influential economist was Joseph Schumpeter. One of the more famous ideas he coined was an “elite democracy,” which is the idea that “individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter, p. 269). One of the consequences of this would be that if the people we’re putting in power are elite, or better than regular citizens, then they might not have our best interests in mind when making decisions. It could mean that in a capitalist society, winning an election would be about maintaining status, rather than safeguarding the rights of people. In an interview between Shawn Gude and John Medearis, Medearis explains that one of the main reasons why democracy it a “competition among elites” is because of the “will of the people.” Essentially this means that ordinary people have to “deliberate, to decide, to act reasonably in politics.” However, it appears that Schumpeter thinks that, in other scenarios, some people may not make the “right” decision (“Why Joseph Schumpeter..”) He believes that “there is more rationality in economic decisions than in public choices because the latter are detached from personal responsibility,” and continues by saying “the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field” (Lemieux, 2022). People may feel detached from public choices, like voting, for instance, because they may believe that it “doesn’t really matter” because they’re just one vote. On the other hand, people may be more affected by their economic decisions because it has more direct consequences — one example of this would be immediately seeing the money in your bank account lowering after buying something. Additionally, if people’s mental performance decreases when they enter the political field, then there should be more accountability in this area. Both Hayek and Schumpeter had interesting things to say about capitalist societies. While Hayek mainly talked about free-market economies, and his distaste for government intervention, Shumpeter was more interested in specific parts of capitalism. Kenton, Will. 2022. “Who Was Friedrich Hayek? What Was His Economic Theory?” n.d. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/friedrich-hayek.asp#toc-what-did-friedrich-hayek-win-the-nobel-prize-for. Dombroski, Kristie Eshelman. 2019. “Hayek, Republican Freedom, and the Universal Basic Income.” Niskanen Center. November 6, 2019. https://www.niskanencenter.org/hayek-republican-freedom-and-the-universal-basic-income/. Schumpeter, Joseph. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. “Why Joseph Schumpeter Hated Democracy.” n.d. Jacobin.com. https://jacobin.com/2020/04/joseph-schumpeter-john-medearis-democracy-elites. Lemieux, Pierre. “A Celebrated and Puzzling Book” Cato.org. 2024. https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2022/celebrated-puzzling-book#:~:text=Schumpeter%20remarked%20that%20there%20is. What have religious and philosophical traditions contributed to our understanding of this right? 2024-08-08T16:36:32Z 2460531.192037 Voting Rights and Suffrage/History/Country sources/Modern Capitalism Page name 102 en Page name