Voting for philosophers

The possibility that Karl Marx will be voted Britain’s favourite philosopher by middle class dickheads Radio 4 listeners is prompting much angst. For me, it merely shows the folly of first past the post voting.

The problem, I suspect, is that the anti-Marx vote is split among Hobbes, Hume, Mill and Popper. With a simple FPTP vote, this split allows Marx to win. But if we had (say) an alternative voting system, he might not.

Imagine people ranked (say) five preferences in order, and that when the votes were counted the candidate with the fewest first preferences got eliminated, with those second preferences being distributed to other candidates, and so on.

Then, I suspect that as, say, Hobbes, Popper and Mill (who's read A System of Logic?) got eliminated, enough second preferences would go to Hume that we’d get the right result.

The “nation’s favourite philosopher” under one voting system, therefore, would be very different from the “nation’s favourite” under another system.

The lesson is that we should not trust the notion of a single collective preference.

Of course, it’s possible that Marx gets over 50 per cent of the vote (even without the standard Marxist practice of ballot-stuffing) in which case this argument doesn’t apply.

Would that be a disaster? It wouldn't be, if it means that 50 per cent of the British people have read John Roemer’s General Theory of Exploitation and Class. But the contingency, sir, is a remote one.

Comments

[dearieme]

If Marx wins, it argues that the relentless political indoctrination by Radio 4 has worked:- agitprop funded by a poll tax.

[Angry Economist]

I'm disagree - Homer Simpson is my favourite philosopher.

[Paddy Carter]

middle classes eh?

wankers

have a heart Chris, its tough being middle class you know, trapped between snobbery and inverse snobbery in a well of self-hatred.

[Blimpish]

Is it just me, or is there something slightly absurd about judging the greatest philosopher according to popularity? By which, I mean even more absurd than judging any idea of excellence by popularity?

Let's face it, part of Socrates' claim to fame is that the mob voted to execute him.

[Jarndyce]

Actually, I think the French-style two-round runoff would be a better system....

In fact, I voted for Marx, precisely because I knew it would annoy All The Right People if he won. Gove will do for starters, especially because he thinks Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il are Marxists and implies that Marx was more evil than Hitler, which is frankly bizarre. The fact that it has also annoyed you is an unfortunate, though tolerable, externality.

[Shuggy]

Interesting the short-list is all political philosophers - or at least those who wrote about politics. I doubt Popper's in there because people have read his philosophy of science.

[Snafu]

Maybe the current position just reflects a greater motivation amongst a small group of Marxists to win by voting multiple times!!

[Monjo]

Karl Marx was a philosopher?

[Phil]

Marx, then Kant and Wittgenstein tied for second place, then Nietzsche and Kierkegaard tied for fourth. (It's a bit of a peculiar shortlist - Heidegger and no Husserl? Come to think of it, where's Hegel?)

Your anti-Marx slate puzzles me. Mill was a great writer - he'd be one of my all-time top five Public Intellectuals - but scarcely a philosopher; and Popper was basically a twit. (Er, IMHO.)