Many, many things are economic in nature or related to economics. Vote buying is not one of them. The fundamental reason why it's a tremendously bad idea is simply because vote buying, in any reasonable scheme that would actually result in sales, is cheaper than war or other coercive government takeover schemes like coups. Opening up vote buying means that you've created a market for coercive powers to take away your freedom. Once you've swallowed the tragic falsehood that only commercial interests would be interested in buying your vote, it's off to the races.
Not everything is about economics, not remotely.
Posted by TMLutas at November 4, 2004 09:19 AM