Alexander Fraser Tytler famously said:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
This warning is echoed by Robert Michels
"Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy." Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.
If representative democracy is doomed either by collapse, or by rule of the bureaucracy, what benefits/drawbacks of embracing a plutocracy with each person's vote weighted by how much taxes an individual pays into the federal governments treasury. Using 2009 statistics for example, and ignoring all federal taxes other than income tax (you get slightly different numbers when you consider all federal taxes), the Top 1% would have a 36.73% controlling interest in the federal government and the Bottom 50% would have a 2.25% controlling interest. The average Top 1%er's vote would be weighted to be worth 18 times the average Bottom %50er's vote.
Top 0.1%| Top 1%| Top 5%| Top 10%|Top 25%|Top 50%|Bottom 50%|
----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------+----------+
Min AGI to fall $1,432,890|$343,927|$154,643|$112,124|$66,193|$32,396| $0|
into percentile
Total Income 17.11%| 36.73%| 58.66%| 70.47%| 87.30%| 97.75%| 2.25%|
Tax Shares
This would be very similar to the way that publicly held company stock gives weighted voting to shareholders. The difference being that the shareholders (tax payers) votes would be weighted by how many shares (tax dollars) they paid into the company (federal government).
In all elections of directors, each shareholder shall have the right to vote the number of shares owned by him for as many persons as there are directors to be elected [...] and in deciding all other questions at meetings of shareholders, each shareholder shall be entitled to one vote on each share of stock held by him; [...]
What are the benefits/drawbacks of a weighted vote based upon federal taxes paid?