[yieldcrv]

> Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction

The City of London and Hong Kong have half of the voting power held by corporations and City of London is older than any US state, and colony. And so are some of the guilds

Universal suffrage at all, and exclusive to natural persons, is more science fiction than corporations voting

[turbonaut]

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/voting-elections/bu...

Gives more details on the ability of companies to vote in City of London elections.

[josefritzishere]

This seems disingenuous. The City of London and Hong Kong being "corporations". They're still nations. It's like Pennsylvania arguing that it's a Commonwealth and not a state. When people do not have equal representation under the law the people are not free. We call it authoritarianism.

[yieldcrv]

Fascinating news for you is that nobody is saying any of those things.

I said, and factually, that voting power is held by corporations within those states, just like within this town in Delaware. Nothing to do with what you wrote about semantics of the state’s own incorporation reality or fiction

[tialaramex]

One of the interesting patterns for suffrage has been that it doesn't matter.

Before Great Reform the vast majority of British people can't vote, after it all the moderately wealthy men can now vote. So did that result in massive political change, reflecting the newly enfranchised people's preferences? Nope. Subsequent tinkering expanded suffrage slightly but again, the results were the same. Then last century they did several things in quick succession (often portrayed as "universal suffrage" but as we'll see that's just what people always call any expansion, the "universe" of one's imagination grows). First they gave all men (including poor men), and older women suffrage. This made no appreciable difference except that, having now entertained the idea that women should vote (it wasn't technically illegal before Great Reform it just didn't happen enough to matter) the women realised hey, maybe women should be politicians and that did cause some modest changes. Then they equalised voting age for men and women, so now a 21 year old can vote regardless of gender.

Later in that century the UK gave almost† all 18 year olds the vote too, and again the worry was maybe a 19 year old will vote differently? Nope. More or less the same results.

So, maybe giving corporations the vote changes nothing, but I'm less hopeful than I was for giving Sarah, an 18 year living with her parents on benefits the vote knowing that for some insane reason she's not actually much more likely to vote against a "Fuck Sarah, take her money away" policy than everybody else is because apparently all people are morons so giving more of them suffrage changed nothing. I think corporations are psychopaths not morons...

† Although most crooks in the UK aren't magically stopped from voting, they can't vote in prison and in practice it's very hard to vote from prison even if it would be legal for you because you're held there prior to a trial or whatever. So that's not ideal. It is controversial whether specific electoral interference crimes should result in withdrawal of suffrage, as is the practice today or whether that's just petty and ultimately futile.

[[ I still support universal suffrage, but because now it's everybody's fault. You're not going to get a good government, but now the terrible government is your fault too. ]]