Wait… how’s that even possible in theory?

You might be asking yourself: won't workers become lazy since the profit is shared with their colleagues, which means they only get a small proportion of the fruits of their individual labor? According to the free-rider hypothesis, rational and self-interested agents will always have an incentive to put in less effort and be a parasite to the efforts of others. That’s literally the first lesson of game-theory 101.

Yes, but this is solved by the second lesson of game-theory 101: repeated interactions. Once you can build up relationships with people, you get a chance to punish free-riders while rewarding the helpful. Not to mention, we’re not the self-interested rational agents of game-theory 101. We’re complex, we care about cooperation and kindness and all that other icky stuff.

It’s not just the behavior of humans that’s wrong in the game-theory 101 model. These simple economic models assume perfect information which, in reality-land, managers of traditional firms do not have access to. According to economist Friedrich Hayek, top-down organizers have difficulty harnessing and coordinating around local knowledge, and the policies they write that are the same across a wide range of circumstances don't account for the "particular circumstances of time and place".

One study, that looked at real firms with high levels of worker ownership, found that workers there start checking each other’s work more, which makes those workers more productive than those with low- or no worker ownership. This knowledge of what everyone is doing is also not going to waste, since the workers can steer the direction of the company bottom-up through their votes.

Those who make the top-down policies in a traditional company are different from those who have to follow them. In addition, those who manage the company are most often different from those who own the company. These groups have different incentives and accumulate different knowledge. This means that coops have two main advantages:

1. Workers can harness their collective knowledge to make running the firm more effective.

2. Workers can use their voting power to ensure the organization is more aligned with their values.

  
…But also… these game-theoretic arguments strike me as putting the cart before the horse. We observe that people work harder in coops. I agree that the math of the economics-101 model is very pretty, but that shouldn’t be a reason to disregard our observations. If the model contradicts the data, we throw out the model.

Could this be selection bias?

Could it be that workers who are more motivated to work harder for a coop, are also more likely to start or join a coop? This would mean that we can’t use them as a measurement of how ‘normal people’ would perform in a coop.

If we only had observational studies this would indeed be a concern, but we’ve also tested this experimentally and found the same increase.

Okay, but what about firm productivity? You can’t easily test that in a lab, and it’s possible that while the workers are more productive, the firm itself isn’t.

That would be strange, but yes, it’s possible. Studies show that the cooperative firms themselves are also more productive, but these studies are indeed not done in a lab so could be subject to selection bias. Plus the effects are small and there are some studies that don’t show this increase. However, even if we revert to the null-hypothesis that they’re about equally as productive as traditional firms, the question would remain… where are they?

Why aren’t there more worker coops?

Here’s an old economics joke you might have heard before: Two economists are walking along the sidewalk. One sees a five-dollar bill and bows to pick it up. The other says, “Don’t bother, if that was a real five dollar bill someone else would’ve picked it up already”.

This joke is making fun of the assumption of perfect information. Unlike in the simplistic models, in the real world, market participants do not have all the necessary information. If you were to ask a random American what a coop was and how it worked, do you think they’d be able to answer that accurately? It takes time for innovations to spread. And we do observe that the number of coops are increasing rapidly, e.g., the number of worker coops in the US has tripled in the last decade.

So maybe a better question is: why did it take so long?

It could be that legislation constrained coops. Or maybe it’s because traditional firms have had more time to improve. There are, according to my research, approximately 4.7 bazillion books on how to run and manage your firm effectively while there’s less than 0.001 bazillion books on how to do the same for coops.1
It could also simply be good old-fashioned propaganda that made people wary of collectivization.

I think all of these play a role, but I also think there’s another, more straightforward answer.

Return on investment

Capitalists tend to not like coops. You might object that capitalists only care about efficiency, so they would embrace coops if they were indeed more productive, but that’s not actually the case. Capitalists care about profits, which is not always aligned with productivity.

Say there’s a startup coop that can turn $10 of investment into $100, but will split that $50 with the workers and $50 with investors. Meanwhile there’s also a traditional capitalist startup that can turn $10 into $90 which goes purely to the investors. In this case the coop is more productive, but the capitalist firm gives the capitalists a higher return on investment, meaning the investors will invest in the capitalist startup even though it's less productive.
On top of that capitalists have less power over coops. Since workers have more protections/decision-power, capitalists aren’t micro-kings and have to actually work together with the workers, which is annoying.

The return on investment for society may be larger (especially if we take into account all the costs traditional firms externalize to society at large that cooperative firms internalize) but that doesn’t mean they have a higher return on investment for investors.

Studies show that capitalist firms do better with more capitalist firms around, while coops do better with more coops around. So we have a bit of a lock-in effect. It may be that to get to a place of greater long-term productivity we first need to give coop firms some time to find their footing.

This post is partially based on an earlier post of mine, published on the EA Forum, which was in turn based on the work of economist Cahal Moran.

Reparations

Many critics of global inequality argue that our current system isn’t just broken, it’s historically unjust. Decolonial thinkers say that combating this inequality isn’t just about helping the poor; it’s about repairing centuries of exploitation. They argue that reparations, not just aid, should be at the heart of our response.

Why? Because Western nations built vast amounts of wealth through colonial slavery and the exploitation of Sub-Saharan Africa. And the legacy of that exploitation hasn’t disappeared. It lives on today through unfair trade deals, crushing debt burdens, and subsidies that distort global markets to the disadvantage of African farmers.

In this view, justice is about paying back what was taken, and thus reparations are a form of compensatory justice: if you benefit from someone else’s suffering, you owe them something. It’s not about victimhood; it’s about taking responsibility.

As some scholars in development studies put it:

[In order] to redistribute global wealth and end growing inequality reparations have to be made. The North has to take responsibility for the wealth it has built over centuries at the expense of the South. These reparations are not about compensating victimhood, rather they constitute the radical claim of a growing number of individuals and movements globally for social justice.

Targeting tax havens and striving towards a just taxation worldwide would be a first, although still very modest, step towards a financial model for reparations. Thus, if we abolish [the position of European Union Commissioner for Development], why not replace it with a commissioner for reparations?

Reparations are, in theory, not just about handing over money. If other kinds of policy can meaningfully undo the harms of colonialism, they count too. Still, in practice, financial compensation is by far the most popular proposal.

Writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates and philosophers like Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò have argued for concrete reparation payments. Closer to home, activists in the Netherlands calculated how much a single enslaved woman would be owed by a modern-day foundation, and Belgian politicians discuss compensating for the legacy of colonization in Congo. Although small steps have been taken, full reparations remain largely unrealized. Both because there’s extreme political resistance, and because the idea raises complex questions:

• Who pays: governments, or also complicit companies/organizations?

• Who receives: citizens, or also the state?

• What about countries like Ethiopia that weren’t colonized1 but are still deeply impoverished?

• Should reparations be a one-time transfer or a recurring payment?

• How do we calculate the right amount?

• Should they replace traditional development aid?

These questions don’t have easy answers, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask them.

What about just giving people money?

While calls for reparations often get bogged down in political controversy, there's another approach that's been gaining traction: direct cash transfers. No conditions, no strings attached, just money sent straight to people in extreme poverty.

This idea isn’t just theoretical. Organizations like GiveDirectly have been putting it into practice for years, transferring money directly to mobile banking accounts in countries like Kenya, Liberia, Uganda, Rwanda, and Malawi. Recipients can spend it however they like, there’s no micromanagement, just trust.

GiveDirectly runs multiple programs, including:

• Poverty Relief: one-time, unconditional cash transfers (~$1,000) to households in extreme poverty (e.g. Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda).

• Universal Basic Income: long-term daily cash payments, and the world’s largest UBI experiment in Kenya (also programs in Malawi, Mozambique, Liberia).

• Emergency Relief: rapid cash support after disasters (earthquakes, floods, conflicts: e.g. Morocco, Turkey, DRC).

• Climate Relief Fund: cash transfers to communities affected by climate-related disasters (e.g. Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria).

• Refugee Programs: large cash transfers to refugees to support self-reliance (e.g. Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda).

• U.S. Poverty Relief: unconditional cash aid for low-income Americans (over $270 million distributed since 2017).

While GiveDirectly is the largest, they’re not the only charity that does this. For example, a smaller initiative is Eight, which provides monthly cash transfers over two years to villages in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, whether it’s for charity or for reparations, giving money directly to the poor does raise some questions: Does it actually work? Won’t the money get wasted? Won’t people become dependent on it?
It’s fair to ask these questions, and researchers have been asking them too. But the data tells a surprisingly optimistic story.

What the Research Shows

According to GiveDirectly and a large body of independent studies, cash transfers generally lead to positive outcomes. People use the money wisely, not wastefully. Corruption is rare, thanks to rigorous auditing, identity checks, and follow-up calls. In fact, around 90% of donated dollars go directly to recipients (with practically everything else going to operational expenses).

Typical spending includes:

• Food and medicine

• School fees

• Durable goods like furniture and livestock

• Home improvements (such as installing a metal roof)

Instead of creating dependency, they can increase independence by funding businesses, education, or healthcare that reduce future need.

Direct cash transfers have been praised by many independent experts. From 2012 to 2022, GiveDirectly was even listed as a “top charity” by GiveWell (a leading charity evaluator) and they still considers cash transfers to be one of the most effective poverty interventions available.

What’s the difference?

These two approaches have many things in common. At their core, they both aim to shift wealth from the Global North to the Global South. And both respect the autonomy and dignity of those receiving support. Whether through justice or generosity, these approaches say: “You know best what to do with this money.”

No conditions. No paternalism. No requirements to attend a workshop or follow a government-approved plan. Just trust. That in itself is powerful. It avoids the “white savior” dynamic that has often plagued development aid and centers the dignity of those who have long been marginalized.

There are also differences. Reparations are, as mentioned, often rooted in compensatory justice, whereas cash transfers are typically justified through a utilitarian lens (the idea that we should do the most good for the most people). The latter is less about guilt or responsibility and more about reducing suffering efficiently; so cash should go to poor people regardless of whether the cause of their poverty was (neo)colonialism.

At first glance, that’s a big divergence. One sounds like justice, the other like charity. But in practice, there’s not much of a difference.
Many decolonial critics argue that almost all extreme poverty today is tied, directly or indirectly, to colonialism or its modern offshoots like structural adjustment, trade imbalances, or climate injustice. Even countries that weren’t colonized, like Ethiopia, have suffered from the ripple effects of imperialism. So while the philosophies may be different, the recipients will be nearly identical.

A Shared Vision

Both approaches, at their best, are motivated by moral outrage. Not pity. They’re responses to a world where billions suffer needlessly while others thrive off inherited advantages.
The desired outcome is the same: an end to extreme poverty, global inequality, and neocolonial control over poor countries' futures.

The biggest difference isn’t the goal, it’s how we get there.

• Reparations would require formal, political action: governments negotiating, apologizing, and transferring funds.

• Cash transfers are mostly handled by NGOs and funded by private donors.

Although even here change is coming. Rory Stewart (Former UK cabinet minister and former CEO of GiveDirectly), has suggested that governments should include direct transfers in official development programs. That would make them only one apology away from becoming reparations.

And of course, there’s no reason we can’t do both. I’d love to see more conversations between advocates of reparations and champions of cash transfers. I think it could lead to very fruitful dialogue and coordination. These approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, they’re potentially complementary.

In the meantime, please consider sending some reparations yourself via GiveDirectly.

A huge thanks to Maxim Vandaele for his tremendous help with this post. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

Prediction markets are platforms where participants place bets on the outcomes of future events. These events can include anything from election outcomes and economic trends to sports games and even natural disasters.

Here’s a simple example: imagine a prediction market for an upcoming presidential election. Bettors place money on the candidate they think will win. If many people believe Candidate A will win, more money flows towards Candidate A, increasing the price (or odds) of bets in their favor. Similar to horse racing, these odds shift in real-time, reflecting the collective beliefs of all the bettors. As the event approaches, these odds ideally provide accurate, aggregated predictions because participants have a financial incentive to be correct.1
This collective forecasting can help individuals, businesses, and even governments make better decisions.

At least, that's the idea.

The Good

I like the idea of prediction markets. For years I was a top 25 predictor on Metaculus, the world’s biggest “prediction platform”, a site akin to a prediction market but without the use of real money. Metaculus gives you a detailed track record of how you predicted in the past. Not only does this sharpen your forecasting abilities by promoting critical thinking and showing you in which areas you’re overconfident or underconfident, it also prevents hindsight bias (the “I knew it all along” effect).

For anyone who has ever watched the news, the appeal is obvious. Public figures regularly get away with making false or misleading claims. Prediction markets could help us here. If every time a bullshit artist starts spouting bullshit people would go: “Okay, bet on it then”, the bullshit artist would either be immediately revealed as a fraud, or go bankrupt (and then be revealed as a fraud).2
Conversely, people who may not look or sound like a traditional expert, but are good at making predictions, could make a lot of money calling out fraudsters and can subsequently become influential figures instead. That seems like it would create a much better media landscape.

The Bad

If prediction markets are so good, where are they? Well, governments don’t tend to like them. I’ve previously talked about how it may not always be ethical to require people to bet on their beliefs, and talked about how the interests of rich people could bias certain prediction markets,3 but that’s not the reason governments don’t like them.

In 2003, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a “Policy Analysis Market” designed to predict geopolitical events, including assassinations, terrorist attacks, and regime changes. When journalists and politicians discovered the market, they were outraged. Headlines labeled it a “terrorism futures market”, saying people could profit from successfully predicting—or even facilitating—harmful outcomes. The program was swiftly canceled within 24 hours of media coverage.

The objection here (beyond the usual moral panic) is that prediction markets can create perverse incentives. The classic scenario illustrating this concern is known as the “assassination market objection”.4 Suppose there’s a market predicting the assassination of a public figure. Bettors placing money on the assassination have a direct financial incentive to cause that assassination to happen (so they can profit from their prediction).

Proponents of prediction markets often dismiss this concern, arguing that incentives to cause harm exist in conventional financial markets as well, but rarely lead to manipulation or unethical actions because existing legal frameworks prevent it.5
Governments aren’t convinced and have largely banned or heavily regulated prediction markets. This might have been a good idea, but it does limit our ability to empirically check whether they would’ve indeed created perverse outcomes.

With one notable exception.

Sports betting

Sports betting is a recently legalized form of prediction market that has grown enormously in a short amount of time. It can serve as a clear case study for the potential dangers of prediction markets. People have pointed out how it incentivizes and generates gambling addiction, which has also grown enormously since it was legalized. I won’t focus on this aspect here, but this is also a very real concern.

For all the ills sports betting has created, it does finally allow us to see whether perverse incentives are indeed created and acted upon in prediction markets. In short, the answer is yes:

Last year NBA player Jontay Porter was playing a game for the Toronto Raptors. Early in the game he grabbed several rebounds, seemingly headed for a solid performance.6 However, Porter suddenly asked to leave the game, claiming an injury. Initially, this seemed routine and harmless, players often experience minor injuries and leave games prematurely. However, three months later, the NBA revealed that Porter had deliberately influenced the game’s outcome. Porter had participated in betting markets focused specifically on his own performance.

In Porter's case, here's exactly how the scheme worked:
The market knew Porter was a decent basketball player, so bettors generally expected Porter to perform well, placing bets saying he'd achieve more than 4.5 rebounds. Porter and his associates secretly placed large bets predicting he would have fewer than 4.5 rebounds. After quickly grabbing three rebounds in the game, Porter intentionally left, claiming an injury, thereby ensuring he stayed below the threshold. By leaving the game early, Porter ensured the underperformed bet would win — allowing him and his associates to rake in the profits.

Participants in prediction markets like Porter do not just bet on uncertain outcomes; they can effect/manipulate the outcomes. This is not a one off either, we can find similar scandals in tennis, football, rugby, baseball, cricket, and many more sports.

Sports leagues are now beginning to acknowledge these risks and are internally debating how much they should restrict betting markets, as are regulators.

Decreasing trust

So this is obviously bad if the behavior that’s incentivized by the market is unethical in itself (e.g. assassinations), but I would argue it has a negative effect even beyond that. I’ve previously written about how social trust is decreasing and what kinds of negative effects this has on society. Incidents like Porter’s significantly damaged public trust in the integrity of sporting events. People realize Porter was only caught because the site noticed an absurdly high volume of bets and warned the NBA. If Porter hadn’t coordinated with so many associates he would’ve gotten away with it, which means a lot of athletes are likely doing it and getting away with it.

If even an NBA player like Porter, who’s earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, can succumb to these incentives, imagine the risks for lower-paid or unpaid athletes, like college athletes.7

People can now no longer fully trust the outcome of sporting events. Imagine what would happen if we widened prediction markets to allow betting on events in the public sphere, or worse, government decisions…

Misinformation

It gets worse. Prediction markets often incentivize the spreading of misinformation.

Here’s a simple example: let’s say there’s a prediction market for the outcome of a presidential election. The market is offering contracts that will pay $1 if Candidate A wins. Right now, the market price for a "Candidate A Wins" contract is $0.40, meaning the market believes Candidate A has a 40% chance of winning.

An individual or group buys a large number of contracts at $0.40. Then they deliberately spread false but convincing rumors online that Candidate A is surging in key states, or that there’s a leaked tape of Candidate B having sex with a minor.

This shifts public perception and causes other market participants to believe Candidate A’s odds are rising. The contract price jumps from $0.40 to $0.70. Those who bought in early (and spread the rumors) can now sell at a 75% profit.

Has something like this happened in real life? Almost certainly yes. It seems, for example, to have happened during the 2020 US presidential election. But of course, it’s nearly impossible to prove whether the people spreading rumors were deliberately lying. Still, even if the creation of falsehoods didn’t happen, the spreading of falsehoods can be just as dangerous.

I haven’t seen the forecasting community engage much with this criticism. The standard retort seems to be that prediction markets also incentivize the detecting of falsehoods. That’s true enough in most cases, but I find this an insufficient defense for two reasons:

1. In many cases, it’s more profitable to keep the discovery of a falsehood to yourself, so you can beat the market.

2. It’s much faster and easier to spread falsehoods than it is to debunk them, so if both are incentivized we should expect the former to happen more often.

A world where prediction markets are common is a world where you will never be able to fully trust what people say, or do.

Conclusion

I appreciate the benefits of prediction markets: aggregating knowledge, holding public figures accountable, sharpening forecasting skills... That said, I'm extremely wary of expanding real-money prediction markets. What we witnessed with the legalization of sports betting is likely a sign of what’s to come if we fully legalized prediction markets: the creation of perverse incentives that people act on, an even steeper decline in public trust, and a sharp increase in gambling addiction.

I don’t think this is worth it. Luckily, platforms like Metaculus demonstrate that we can capture most of the advantages —like accurate forecasts, accountability, and improved reasoning— without financially incentivizing harmful behavior. Instead of pushing for broad legalization of prediction markets, I encourage the forecasting community to focus on promoting these safer, non-money-based alternatives.

Worker co-ops seem basically equivalent to a firm that gives its employees stock—but then permanently blocks them from selling it. Isn't that harmful? The ability to sell your shares is valuable. You might want to diversify your investments, liquidate shares to make a big purchase (like buying a house), or avoid having all your financial eggs in one basket. Why force workers to hold their shares indefinitely? If they really wanted to keep them, they could just choose not to sell.

At first glance, this objection feels logical. After all, publicly traded companies usually let people buy and sell their stock freely, giving investors plenty of flexibility. So, wouldn’t preventing workers from selling their shares in a co-op be bad for them?

But there are a few important details missing from this framing — let's unpack them step by step.

1. Most workers don't own much stock in traditional companies

So first of all, this objection doesn’t work for companies that are not publicly traded.

Secondly, even if employees do buy stock, employers have an army of lawyers and much more bargaining power than the employees, so they often pull contract shenanigans.

Lastly, while, in theory, nothing stops a regular employee at a publicly traded company from buying stock, in practice, most stock ownership is heavily concentrated among wealthy individuals. Workers usually don't own a significant percentage of the stocks. But worker co-ops fundamentally change this dynamic by giving employees shares directly, making stock ownership accessible and widespread, not just limited to wealthy investors.

2. We should distinguish between voting shares and non-voting shares

There are two kinds of shares:

• Voting shares: These shares give employees actual decision-making power within the company—allowing them to vote on important decisions. Crucially, co-ops do not allow these shares to be sold to outsiders, because if voting shares could be sold freely, external investors could eventually gain control, and the co-op would revert to being a regular capitalist firm.

• Non-voting shares: These shares provide financial benefits like dividends and can often be sold, allowing workers to access financial liquidity, diversify their investments, or buy a house. The crucial difference here is that the workers themselves (through their voting shares) control the rules around selling non-voting shares—making sure that financial flexibility doesn't compromise their ownership or control.

Compare this to traditional firms, which rarely offer meaningful control to employees. Employees might receive shares as part of their compensation, but these shares are usually non-voting. This means employees have no real say in company decisions, including crucial financial decisions like issuing new stock.

3. Why dilution matters (and how co-ops prevent it)

A common issue in traditional companies is something called ‘dilution’. Dilution happens when a company issues more shares, reducing the ownership percentage of existing shareholders. Think of it like owning a pizza: if someone suddenly cuts your pizza into smaller slices and gives some slices to someone else, your share of pizza is now worth less—even though you didn't do anything. Companies often dilute shares to raise money or grant new stock to executives or investors, and employees typically have no control over this process. Dilution can dramatically reduce the value of shares held by regular employees.

In a worker co-op, dilution can't happen without employee approval, because the employees hold voting shares and therefore control any decision about issuing more shares. This structure protects worker-owners from suddenly finding their shares becoming worthless or diluted without their consent.

4. Ownership alone isn’t enough, workers need real decision-making power

Now, let's talk about why simply giving workers some shares isn't sufficient. Ownership without decision-making power often feels meaningless to employees. This isn’t just theory, there’s solid research backing it up.

Let’s examine the study “Do Broad-based Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing and Stock Options Help the Best Firms Do Even Better?” by Blasi et al. This research looked at American companies that practice something the paper called “shared capitalism”, which means broadly distributing stock options, profit-sharing, and ownership stakes to workers.1

The researchers wanted to understand whether “shared capitalism” improves company outcomes like profitability and employee retention. Importantly, they didn't just look at ownership alone—they also considered how employee empowerment (decision-making power, participation, and trust) interacts with ownership:

Let’s break this down:

• On the y-axis, you see voluntary turnover, meaning how often employees choose to leave the company voluntarily. Lower is better here because you want employees to stay—high turnover is expensive and disruptive.

• On the x-axis, you see employee empowerment, measured by how much employees feel trusted, participate in company decisions, and have access to information about their workplace. Higher empowerment means more participation and trust.

There are two lines here:

• The red line represents companies without “shared capitalism”—no meaningful employee ownership or profit-sharing. Notice that as employee empowerment increases (moving to the right), voluntary turnover doesn't change much. Employees who don't have ownership aren't less likely to leave even when given more responsibility or trust. It seems empowerment alone isn't very meaningful without an ownership stake.

• The black line represents companies with high “shared capitalism”—employees hold shares, receive profits, and have ownership stakes. In these companies, greater empowerment is clearly linked to reduced turnover (the black line slopes downward). Employees who feel empowered and have an ownership stake tend to stay longer.

In other words: ownership without empowerment doesn't mean much to employees, and empowerment without ownership doesn't keep them around. But together (ownership plus genuine participation and decision-making) these factors significantly improve employee retention. And importantly, the researchers found no negative impact on financial performance.2

TL;DR

It’s fine that co-ops prevent employees from selling all their shares, because they do provide financial flexibility through selling non-voting shares. The restriction on selling voting shares exists specifically to maintain worker control. This prevents dilution and ensures the firm continues to be run democratically by its workers.
The data tells us this structure is valuable. Giving workers shares without giving them real power isn’t effective, employees need genuine control to benefit fully from ownership.

Trust in institutions is also falling. Over that same period trust in the government fell from 42% to 20%.

For civil services it fell from 56% to 41%, for the police it fell from 74% to 68%, and for congress it fell from 52% to a whopping 15%.2
Even international institutions, like the United Nations, are losing trust, going from 47% to 44%.

It’s not just institutions, organizations are also losing trust. According to the WVS, over that same period public trust in the press declined from 49% to 29%, trust in major companies declined from 49% to 31%, and trust in churches declined from 77% to 53%.

If we allow for shorter timelines we have data for other things that show a similar trend happening between 1998 and 2022. For political parties trust declined from 20% to 11%, for armed forces from 85% to 80%, and for the TV media from 24% to 22%.

The only things that seem to be gaining trust in that same period are, surprisingly, the courts, going from 35% to 57%, and progressive movements: with labor unions going from 30% to 33%, the women’s movement going from 48% to 54%, the environmental protection movement going from 44% to 54%.

What can be done about it?

So major companies are losing trust, while labor unions, environmental movements and women’s movements are gaining trust, to the point that all three are now higher in trust than major companies. This gives us reason to suspect that transforming major companies/organizations into worker co-ops would increase trust, since worker co-ops are better for labor, for women, and for the environment.

I would personally argue that our current political economy is not exactly stellar for all three, but we all know that the last one is the classic example of an externality that’s causing the destruction of a common good (in this case, the climate). I hope this data shows that we’re in a similar situation with another common good: trust.

Unlike greenhouse gases, however, there’s no ready-made way to tackle this inside the current market. I mean, there are many strategies to increase social trust that can be employed outside of the market. I’ve previously talked about one such strategy: democratization. Getting rid of the two-party system is a no-brainer, but even beyond that, having non-deterministic elections creates a more proportional distribution of power, lowering minority resentment.
What if we try to deploy similar strategies inside the market? Is there a way to make the market itself more democratic?

Market democratization

One way to make the market more democratic is to implement more leftist policies. Giving the democratic government more teeth to regulate the economy obviously increases how democratic the market is, but other ideas like sovereign wealth funds, and strong labor unions do the same thing. Again, labor unions were one of the few things that had an increase in trust, so building on that, what other methods do we have to empower labor?

Worker co-ops are one of the oldest socialist ideas.3 It’s conceptually very simple: the transition the enlightenment proposed for going from hierarchical systems to egalitarian systems, gets extended to the workplace.
It used to be that we had a two-tiered citizenry: one class owned and controlled the nation’s government (the nobility) and one class merely worked for said nation (the laborers). Then we decided that the laborers should also partially own and control the government. However, this practice was not extended to the workplace, which remains in that classic hierarchy to this day; with one class owning and controlling the firm, while the other class merely works for it.4

With this in mind the idea of a co-op becomes kinda natural. Instead of having owners who decide who manages the workers, the workers become part owners and get a say in how the firm is run. Just like the previous time we democratized a two-tiered system, this creates a boatload of positive effects for the political economy as a whole. So many, in fact, that I will have to spin it off into one or more future blogposts (to keep the scale manageable) and only focus on the effect on social trust in this post.

Trust and economic growth

One of the biggest predictors for lack of trust is economic inequality.5 This isn’t just ideological: it’s backed by data. Across countries, higher levels of inequality consistently go hand-in-hand with lower levels of trust.
The chart below is a handy visualization of this trend: more unequal countries tend to have significantly less interpersonal trust.
It feels almost superfluous to say, but research does show that people are more likely to trust others when they feel like they’re on the same level, not when they live in totally different economic realities.

This is unfortunate because low trust screws with the economy. If you don’t trust the people you’re dealing with, you’ll hesitate to invest, to buy, or to commit. The less trust there is, the more everything slows down or gets bogged down in red tape:

This graph shows how strongly trust correlates with economic output. Countries with higher levels of social trust also tend to have higher GDP per capita. And this isn’t just a correlation, several studies show a causal link: trust drives growth. If people trust that others will follow through, that institutions will work, that cooperation isn’t a scam, they’re way more likely to invest in public goods, infrastructure, and long-term economic activity.

Low trust, on the other hand, raises transaction costs, undermines collective action, and makes people evade taxes because they don’t believe the system will use their money wisely. Trust is a public good: when it breaks down, everyone loses, even economically.

Trust and inequality

Now that we’ve looked at the link between trust and inequality, we can look at the consequences beyond just economics. This report from “Equality Trust” finds lots of links between inequality and social ills. It can lead to more inequality between different demographics within a society:

Decline in democracy and economic inequality seem to go hand in hand:

This all can’t be great for the average citizen:

For the record, socialists do not believe that worker co-ops are the uttermost optimal way to combat inequality. However, they are a way to combat it. Studies do show that worker co-ops have lower inequality within firms, which makes sense, if you can vote on how the wages are distributed you can vote against the CEO taking hundreds of times more than the average employee.

Capitalists argue that this comes at the cost of having lower average wages overall, and point to studies like this.
However, socialists counter that co-ops actually generate higher average income and point to studies like these.

So what’s going on here? Well, notice that these two claims don’t actually contradict. During economic downturns co-ops prefer to lower wages instead of firing people, which means that economic downturns cause the average wages to be lower, but the average income to be higher (since the unemployed earn nothing). While lowered wages suck, it’s still much more preferable to being fired. This is not only good for the workers but also good for the government, since it requires less investment in social safety nets.

The capitalist may counter that not firing people is all well and good, but if the firm itself goes under you’ll generate more unemployed. However, research shows that worker co-ops tend to actually be more resilient than conventional capitalist firms.
So capitalist firms externalize the costs that come with economic downturns (putting it on society at large) while worker co-ops internalize them. More good news for workers and the government.

But while all of this is solid evidence it isn’t a direct measurement of social trust in worker co-ops. Do we have that?

Direct measurements of trust in worker co-ops

A key study by Sabatini et al investigated how cooperative enterprises in Italy influence social trust. Their findings suggest that, unlike any other type of enterprise, co-ops are uniquely capable of fostering social trust, primarily because they rely on less hierarchical governance structures and prioritize broader goals than pure profit maximization. They say that such models help reduce uncertainty, lower transaction costs, and foster an environment where investment in ideas, human capital, and physical capital becomes more feasible.

Meanwhile, Blasi et al examined the impact of employee ownership on company culture and found it correlates with higher trust, perceptions of fairness, better information sharing, and greater cooperation. Their data analysis revealed that forms of shared ownership often go hand in hand with “high-trust” supervision, employee participation in decisions, and lower turnover: all of which can reinforce a sense of collective commitment.

Similarly, Joshi (not Yoshi) et al. looked at two major cooperative leagues (Mondragon in Spain and La Lega in Italy) and concluded that co-ops fare better in markets where cooperative principles are already established. In such environments, workers tend to have higher satisfaction, stronger social cohesion, and a clearer sense of shared purpose.

Other studies have explored connections between autonomy, well-being, and trust in co-op settings. Coad et al, for example, found that increased workplace autonomy significantly affects job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Park et al concluded that worker co-ops in Seoul help moderate the adverse effects of high job demands, indicating that the more democratic the workplace, the stronger the sense of trust and commitment among employees.

Conclusion

With trust in steep decline, it’s clear we need to rethink how our economy and institutions are structured. The scientific literature suggests that worker co-ops aren’t just a feel-good idea, they’re a practical response to a very real problem.
I’m not saying they’re a silver bullet, and implementing them at scale isn’t trivial, but if we’re serious about restoring trust then democratizing the workplace deserves to be on the table.6 Given the stakes here, the fact that trust is crucial for a stable society and economy, exploring models that place greater emphasis on cooperation and shared ownership may be one of the most pragmatic steps we can take.

5

Inequality has been rising for years. There are strong links between all sorts of negative effects and inequality, such as worse conditions for workers, worse gender equality, and worse environmental problems.

Now, it’s difficult to ascertain to what extend one causes the other, but since worker co-ops both decrease inequality, and are better for workers, gender equality, and the environment, it doesn’t really matter. Worker-coops are a way to tackle these issues in any case.

6

Originally this post also talked about mistrust, but then I realized that I didn’t have a source showing a decrease in trust corresponds with an increase in mistrust. Now most of you will probably say that this is basically tautological, but for the few skeptics among you, I did find a scatter plot:

To be on the safe side I only talked about a decrease in trust and not about an increased in mistrust, though they’re almost certain both happening in tandem.

A while back, I wrote a quick update on the EA forum about my work with a Belgian animal advocacy group and how the Belgian Senate voted to enshrine animal welfare in the Constitution.

It's been a journey. I work for GAIA, a Belgian animal advocacy group that for years has tried to get animal welfare added to the constitution. Today we were present as a supermajority of the senate came out in favor of our proposed constitutional amendment. [...]

It's a very good day for Belgian animals but I do want to note that:

1. This does not mean an effective shutdown of the meat industry, merely that all future pro-animal welfare laws and lawsuits will have an easier time.  And,

2. It still needs to pass the Chamber of Representatives.

If there's interest I will make a full post about it if once it passes the Chamber.

It is now my great pleasure to announce to you that a supermajority of the Chamber also voted in favor of enshrining animal welfare in the Constitution. Article 7a of the Belgian Constitution now reads as follows:

In the exercise of their respective powers, the Federal State, the Communities and the Regions shall ensure the protection and welfare of animals as sentient beings.

This inclusion of animals as sentient beings is notable as it represents the fourth major revision of the Constitution in favor of individual rights. Previous revisions have addressed universal suffrage, gender equality, and the rights of people with disabilities.

TL;DR: The significance of this inclusion extends beyond symbolic value. It will have tangible effects on animal protection in Belgium:

1. Fundamental Value: Animal welfare is now recognized as a fundamental value of Belgian society. In cases where a constitutional right conflicts with animal protection, the latter will hold greater legal weight and must be seriously considered. For example, this recognition may facilitate the implementation of a country-wide ban on slaughter without anesthesia, as both freedom of religion and animal welfare are now constitutionally protected.

2. Legislative Guidance: The inclusion of animal welfare will encourage legislative and executive bodies to prioritize laws aimed at improving animal protection while rejecting those that may undermine it. Regressive measures with certain interests (e.g. purely financial interests) will face increased scrutiny as they are weighed against the constitutional protection of animal welfare.

3. Legal Precedent: In legal cases involving animals, whether criminal or civil, judges will be influenced by the values enshrined in the Constitution. This awareness may lead to greater consideration of animal interests in judicial decisions.
    

Legal importance

In the hierarchy of Belgian legal norms, the Constitution is at the very top. This means that lower regulations (the laws of the federal and regional parliament(s), the regulations of local governments and executive orders) must comply with the Constitution.

If different rights must be weighed against one another, the one that is enshrined in the Constitution is deemed more important. Previously, religious freedom was in the Constitution and animal welfare was not, meaning the former carried more weight. Article 19 of the Constitution merely states that the exercise of worship is free unless crimes (criminal violations of law) are committed in the course of that exercise. There have been many attempts to ban unanesthetized slaughter; in some regions they were successful, in others not, in all of them they led to fierce legal debate and lengthy proceedings. Enshrining animal welfare in the constitutional will finally ensure a full victory for the animals.

(The exercise of other fundamental rights besides religious freedom can also have a negative impact on animal welfare; e.g., freedom of expression can allow an artist to mistreat an animal in an exhibition, but in this post I will focus on the meat industry since that has the bigger impact).

GAIA's experience with the ban on unanesthetized slaughter

We can divide Belgium into three main legislative regions: Flanders, Walloon and Brussels. Right now, there is a ban on unanesthetized slaughter in Flanders and Walloon, but not in Brussels. The ban on unanesthetized slaughter in the Flemish and Walloon Regions was very difficult to obtain, since religious freedom was protected in the Belgian Constitution but animal welfare was not. A ban on non-anesthetized slaughter generated a lot of protest from religious groups, who base this on the constitutionally protected right to religious freedom. This allows the burden of proof to then shift to animal welfare advocates, such as GAIA, to prove that a ban on unanesthetized slaughter is compatible with freedom of religion. This reversal of the burden of proof made it very difficult, in practice, to protect animals.

On December 17, 2020, the Court of Justice ruled in this case that the Flemish ban on unanesthetized slaughter is nevertheless a legitimate restriction on religious freedom. However, the practical experience with and complexity of this procedure made it clear that putting animal welfare on equal constitutional footing with other rights must be a priority. While Brussels has voted against banning unanesthetized slaughter in the past, now that animal welfare is constitutionally enshrined, banning it should be way easier. (I don't know to what extent this advice generalizes; it may be that your country's constitution is less important or that the entire legislative landscape is different, but it's at least worth considering)
 

Belgian animal welfare law

Belgium is now the 5th EU Member State to confer constitutional protection on animals, joining Germany (2002), Slovenia (1991), Luxembourg (2007) and Italy (2022), with animals also being recognized in the constitutions of Austria (2013), Switzerland (1973), Egypt (2014), Brazil (1988) and India (1976).

Besides the eight-year battle to add animal welfare to the Constitution, GAIA has also fought to add animal welfare to the Civil Code. On Jan. 30, 2020, the Chamber of Representatives approved a bill to insert Article 3.39 into the Civil Code. This provision states "animals have sensory capacity and have biological needs. The provisions relating to physical objects shall apply to animals, subject to the legal and regulatory provisions for the protection of animals and public order."

This legislation seems to indicate that, in addition to the legal categories of "persons" and "goods," animals constitute a third separate legal category, to which the legal rules on goods continue to apply. The result of this legislation is that judges in civil disputes over, e.g., custody or visitation rights of dogs in divorce proceedings can make their decision in the best interest of the animal. Or the interest of animals can prevail in bankruptcies of animal breeders, where the animals are sold to the highest bidder in chaotic circumstances.
 

Political analysis

There is a saying in Belgium about Belgian politics: "If you think you understand Belgian politics, you have not understood Belgian politics". As such I will not try to explain the whole political landscape, but in order to point to some interesting political trends I will paint a simplified picture. I will briefly describe the parties and then compare how they voted for this amendment.

Political parties

(You can skip to "How the parties voted" if you don't care about the complexities of Belgian politics and just want to see how the left vs the right voted)

Belgian politics are complex, characterized by distinct parties for the Walloon and Flemish regions. In Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, voters can only cast ballots for Flemish parties, and similarly, in Wallonia voters can only cast votes for Walloon parties. (These parties form part of the federal government, but there are also regional governments with their own specific powers. The structure is confusing, even to Belgians).

VOORUIT (Flemish) and PS (Walloon) are social democratic parties advocating for the improvement of working conditions for the middle and lower classes.

OPEN-VLD (Flemish) and MR (Walloon) champion a neo-liberal, center-right agenda with a focus on market economy and liberal progressive values.

GROEN (Flemish) and Ecolo (Walloon) are the green parties, focusing on progressive values and environmental issues.

CD&V (Flemish) is a Christian centrist party with a semi-conservative stance, focusing on broad family values. LE (Walloon) is secular and more progressive.

Vlaams Belang, active only in Flanders, is a far-right, nationalist, and separatist party.

N-VA, also exclusive to Flanders, is a right-wing nationalist party with a liberal agenda.

DéFI is a center-right party dedicated to protecting the interests of French-speaking Belgians.

PTB-PVDA is a left to far-left Marxist party active in both regions, championing socialist ideals such as higher taxes for the rich, and support for the underprivileged and discriminated.

Overall, Belgium exhibits regional political polarization. Flanders leans significantly to the right with Vlaams Belang and N-VA being predominant, while Wallonia is more left-leaning with their parties often being more leftwing than their Flemish counterparts and with major parties being PS and PTB-PVDA.

Obligatory political compass (black border means Flemish party):

How the parties voted

I made a table visualizing how the parties voted ordered roughly from leftwing to rightwing while trying to keep linguistically split parties together (e.g. LE is in reality left of Open VLD). I gave the Flemish parties italics and since I can't add color I used emojis to make scanning easier (no extra meaning intended).

✅ means a vote in favor    ❌ means a vote against    ⏹ means abstention

So the Walloon parties were more in favor than the Flemish ones. Given that Wallonia is more progressive this doesn't surprise me. Leftwing parties also voted more in favor, again no surprise there, but it's interesting to note that the far-right parties were less against it than the center-right parties. Now some people didn't show up to vote, so maybe that would have changed things slightly, but overall this seems to be a general trend in Belgian animal welfare politics.

I don't follow most countries' politics. I can't say I see a similar trend in US legislation, but then again the two party system makes it harder to observe the political spectrum. I do follow Dutch politics reasonably well, and I think I observe a similar trend there:

Far-right animal welfare politics

In the Netherlands there is a far-right party called the PVV (currently also the largest party) which has a track record of being animal friendly. Not as animal friendly as the leftwing parties, but still much more animal friendly than the centrist and center-right parties. In 2021 the 'party for the animals' introduced a law that would expand animal rights and, under the strictest reading, would ban factory farming. The PVV voted in favor. This aspect of the party is primarily pushed for by party member Dion Graus who has been with the PVV since 2006 when the party first entered the Chamber. So how does one combine xenophobia and animal welfare concerns? Well to hear him tell it, it's a natural combination:

Whenever there's an abuse case, I often deal with the local police or the public prosecutor, and indeed, it's often immigrants who are abusing the animals. And I mean on the street too, those who kick ducks around and stuff. [...] You won't quickly see immigrants in a circus or a zoo; they just have nothing to do with animals.

In 2010 the PVV introduced 500 "Animal Cops" to act against animal cruelty. When looking at how they voted in the past, you can see that while all the parties that voted equally or more in favor of pro-animal welfare policies are leftwing, they perform much better than the center and rightwing parties:

Yes, the other far-right parties (JA21 and FVD) aren't good for animals, but they're also way smaller (PVV: 37 seats, JA21: 1 seat, FVD: 3 seats).

So now that they are finally the largest party, do they go ahead and use that voting power to introduce more pro-animal policies? No. In fact, they voted against that 2021 animal welfare law that they voted for earlier. And this is a trend that keeps worsening.

So what can explain this strange behavior? Well here's my hypothesis: Far-right parties don't really care about animals; it's just an indirect way to screw over Muslims, and when they're in power, they will not focus on expanding animal rights. Of course there might be individual far-right people who care about animals that can nudge things here and there, but the far-right movement as a whole doesn’t.
The PVV has now formed a coalition; we'll see if my prediction holds up soon. In the meantime, we can look at countries where there isn't an influx of Muslim immigrants and see if the far-right cares about animal welfare there (my guess is they don't).

So in conclusion, the leftwing votes way more in favor of expanding animal rights, and while the rightwing is generally against it, the far-right can be less against it than the center-right. Thus, for other people looking to expand animal rights, focus on recruiting leftwing people, they vote the most reliably.

Representatives of districts (or other local areas) get a voting weight in the senate (or other assembly) equal to the number of votes they get from their district.

Example:

Imagine a scenario where a senator from Utah wins an election with a 51% approval rate, using an approval voting method1. Instead of the traditional system where the senator has full voting power (1 vote) in the legislature, they would now have a voting weight of 0.51 (as if they only get 0.51 of a seat instead of a “full” seat). Conversely, a senator from Idaho, who secures a whopping 99% approval rate, would have a voting power of 0.99.

Potential Benefits:

1. Reflects Constituent Support: The primary advantage of this approach is that it mirrors the level of support a representative has in their district or state. A representative with a higher approval percentage indicates broader consensus and should arguably have more influence.

2. Encourages Voting/Political Participation: In the current system, if you hold a minority position, your vote doesn’t really matter because the representative will get a majority of the votes and therefore get all the power. However, in this new system, voting does matter because you can lessen the amount of power the representatives get.

3. Protection for Minority Voices: Minority voices now have a mechanism to influence the results of the election by limiting the power of undesired representatives.

4. Encourages Bipartisanship: Politicians may be incentivized to build broader coalitions and appeal to a wider range of constituents. The promise of greater legislative influence could drive politicians to find common ground and "reach across the aisle".

Potential Objections

• Complexity: Implementing such a system would require modifications to existing legislative procedures. It could also make legislative outcomes harder to predict.

  • Counterpoint: This is a logistical objection, not a normative one. Furthermore, it is logistically possible to implement this.

• Erosion of One Person, One Vote: Central to many democratic systems is the idea that each person's vote has equal weight. This proposal could be seen as undermining that principle by giving some representatives more power than others based on election results.

  • Counterpoint: Representatives (often) already have unequal voting weight without undermining our belief in ‘one person, one vote’.

• Potential for Gridlock: If a significant number of representatives have low voting weights, it could lead to difficulties in passing legislation, as there might not be enough "weighted" votes to achieve a majority.

  • Counterproposal: The new 'majority vote’ in the senate doesn’t work with the number of seats, but with the percentage of accumulated approval. So if a senate has a 100 seats but the representatives have only accumulated 60% approval, you now need more than 50% of that 60% (30 “full” seats) to pass a bill.

  • Some might, conversely, like the gridlock and think that since only 60% approves of the representatives it should be harder to implement policy. While I philosophically agree, in practice, a legislature needs to be able to react to upcoming problems.
    Perhaps something in between could be implemented. Something exactly between the two would be halving the disapproval, e.g. if 40% of the voters disapprove of the representatives (there are 60 “full” seats in the senate), it’s treated as if 20% disapprove, and the representatives need to have 40 full seats instead of the 50 full seats in the pro-gridlock system, nor the 30 full seats in the anti-gridlock system.

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~~~ In a world where information is power, and influence is shaped by the depth of one's pockets, the creation and popularization of conditional prediction markets can add a new dimension to policy decisions.  These markets, in theory, would allow participants to bet on the outcomes of potential policies, giving us an accurate picture of the future which would then sway policymakers in the direction of the better policy.  However, when the deck is already stacked against a majority, can these markets truly offer unbiased insight? ~~~   ᅠ ⁣ 

Scenario: The Predicament of Examplestan

Let's say the people of Examplestan have a large underclass who live paycheck to paycheck and a small upperclass who gets their money from land ownership. The government is thinking of introducing a bill that would make their tax revenue come less from paychecks and more from taxing land value. Democracy advocates want to put it to a vote, but a group of futarchy lobbyists convince the government to run a conditional prediction market instead.

The market question is "If we replace the paycheck tax with a land value tax, will welfare increase?". The large underclass has almost no money to bet that it will, while the small upperclass bets a large chunk of their money that it won't. Predictably, more money is betted on it not increasing welfare and when the market closes, everyone gets their money back and the government decides not to implement it.

Individual vs. Group Interests

Advocates of futarchy (governments relying on prediction markets) argue that these markets incentivize individuals to prioritize personal profits over class loyalties. The idea is that the allure of potential gains will entice participants to defect from their fellow wealthy and go for their own individual interests.

But is it in your individual interest? Is making enemies of your friends and family while losing a guaranteed lifelong stream of income for you and your children really worth it for the possibility of having a one time large payout?
What about with different probabilities? What if you think the policy has a 51% chance of helping the poor and a 49% chance of doing nothing. This would be a fantastic policy to try, but even without coordination mechanisms like dominance assurance contracts, I doubt a self interested rich person would sacrifice their social network and lifelong stream of income for a 51% of having a one time large payout (actually less than 51% since it probably won't be implemented due to the conditional prediction market).

The Verdict: Inherent Bias Remains

While conditional prediction markets might be pitched as instruments of objectivity and unbiased policy decisions, the realities of economic disparities will undeniably influence their outcomes. When one group has an outsized influence on the market, the results are predictably skewed in their favor.

And I do mean skewed. Sometimes it’s not about policy and the rich won’t coordinate. Sometimes the outcome is too certain or the benefits to mild and they’re sufficiently tempted to defect. Sometimes the question will be asked in a way that does allow the results to be tested, and the money won’t be automatically returned because the policy was never implemented. It’s not always going to favor the wealthy, but it will be biased towards them.

Not to mention that you can create an infinite amount of conditional prediction markets. Will the poor even have the money and free time to bet on all of them?

In essence, for as long as wealth disparities exist, conditional prediction markets will remain susceptible to that bias. Until we can establish mechanisms that level the playing field, relying solely on these markets for policy decisions could perpetuate the very inequalities they seek to address.

Whenever I have to vote I always leave the voting booth unhappy. Even though I live in a country where I can choose between more than two political parties, I always feel like I cannot adequately express my political position. I can agree with a party on certain issues, but disagree with them on others. So what would happen if we split up the vote into different categories?

Category Voting

Say that we had a voting ballot with two categories: social policy and economic policy.

 	              Red Party   Yellow Party   Blue Party
Social Policy          	❒      	 ❒	    ❒
Economic Policy     	❒	 ❒	    ❒

Whenever you enter an election you could bring out one vote in favor of your favorite party in terms of economic policy and one vote in favor of social policy. The amount of votes one political party would have to win to get a seat in parliament would double, because the amount of votes people can give has also doubled. After an election the statistics on how people voted for both categories would become public. There wouldn't be two different parliaments (one for economic policy and one for social policy) it would still be one parliament, but a party can better understand the reason people gave them a certain number of votes. People can add more nuance to their vote and if the red party gained a lot of votes because of their social policy, but not so much their economic policy, they can see that and subsequently adjust their position to align themselves better with the will of the people.

But what if you think economic policy is more important than social policy. How do you show which type of policy you find more important? One way to solve this is to make it a form of score voting.

 	          Red Party	Yellow Party	Blue Party
Social Policy	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤
Economic Policy	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤

This might seem complex, but it's essentially the system we already use for movies, online products and hotels. Perhaps we could make the circles little stars, so people grasp the concept of scoring political parties more quickly.
Let's say you think the red party has the best plan for for social policy, but you think the yellow party has the best economic policy. However, you think social policy is twice as important. Ideally you should be able to give 2/3 of your vote to the red party and 1/3 to the yellow party. Here's how this could look in practice:

 	          Red Party	Yellow Party	Blue Party
Social Policy	① ② ③ ⬤ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤
Economic Policy	① ② ③ ④ ⑤	① ⬤ ③ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤

You have successfully signaled that you find social policy more important than economic policy. Give higher numbers won't increase your voting power because all the numbers get normalized. Normalization means the number of votes you give will always be divided by itself.

So in this example you have given six votes in total, four to the red party and two to the yellow party. When we normalize it to one vote it will give 2/3 of your vote to the red party (marked as social policy) and 1/3 to the yellow party (marked as economic policy). This system has a couple of advantages. One advantage is that you don't even need to fill in both categories at all. If you don't think economic policy is important to politics, you aren't forced to fill it in just to have a comparable voting power to other people. If you only give one vote in social policy to the red party, it will register that you gave 1/1 of your vote the the red party (for social policy). This is another way to track the interests of the population (and will become more important later in this article). Within the normalized score voting system you can even give votes to different parties on the same category, while simultaneously signaling how comparatively good each party performed and how important you find each type of policy. So in this scenario:

 	          Red Party        Yellow Party	Blue Party
Social Policy	① ② ③ ⬤ ⑤	① ② ⬤ ④ ⑤	① ② ③ ④ ⑤
Economic Policy	① ② ③ ④  ⑤	① ⬤ ③ ④ ⑤	⬤ ② ③ ④ ⑤

Someone wants to signals that social policy is more important and thinks both the reds and the yellows have good plans, though she thinks the reds' are slightly better, and the blues have dropped the ball. And while the economic front might be less important, the reds don't have any good policies, but the blues and yellows do. This person gives 4/10 of her vote to the reds (marked social), 3/10 to the yellows (marked social), 2/10 to the yellows (marked economic) and 1/10 to the blues (marked economic).

The problem is that you don't really know if this person thinks economic policy is less important or if she thinks it is important, but just thinks the parties are incompetent at it. If you want to punish parties for a bad performance in a category, it could also be interpreted as signaling that you don't find this category important. One way to fix this would be a separate column for marking the importance. 

Here the "importance column" works as a multiplier. This person marked social policy as four times more important than economic policy, so the two votes for the red party become eight votes and the one vote for the yellow party becomes four votes. The five economic votes for the blue party stay five votes (5 x 1 = 5) and the three votes for the yellow party also stay three. This person gives 8/20 votes to the red party, 4/20 to the yellow party, another 3/20 to the yellow party and a 5/20 to the blue party. This system allows you to simultaneously signal how competent you think the parties are without sacrificing your ability to signal the importance of a policy category.

However, this system doesn't allow you to distinguish between importance and uncertainty. Say I don't know anything about economics and don't feel qualified to voice my opinion on it, but do think it's very important. If I leave the economic policy blank, that could be interpreted as me not caring about economic policy. We could introduce an extra column for epistemic uncertainty about a category, but I feel that would make the ballot too complex. The ballot-design I've given above is already pushing it in terms of the amount of complexity we can expect the general population to handle. Besides, for most people "not knowing" and "not caring" do go hand in hand, so for the vast majority of the population this extra column wouldn't be necessary. I'm just mentioning it here in case you want to create a voting system for a group of super nerdy people for which "uncertainty" and "caring" are vastly different. This voting doesn't need to be about politics, voting systems can also be used for everyday decisions in groups or companies. Maybe in the future when people are more voting literate they will demand this more complex version, but for now I wouldn't recommend using anything more complex than "Score Category Voting with Importance-column" (or SCVI for short). This is already pushing it in terms of complexity and perhaps Approval Category Voting (ACV) would be a good intermediate voting system before we transition to more voting systems with more complexity.

There are a lot of voting systems, all with their own advantages and disadvantages, and each of which can be applied to category voting. By necessity this post will not be a comprehensive lists of all the possible ways you can have a category voting system, but feel free to post more versions in the comments. This post is primarily here to tickle your imagination about what could potentially be used as categories and columns. I will now move on to one way to select the categories.

Department Voting

In the examples above I filled the two categories with the labels "social policy" and "economic policy". While you might think that the categories "social policy" and "economic policy" are appropriate, they are actually kind of arbitrary. It is unclear how security policy falls into it and we could just as easily make a distinction between foreign policy and domestic policy. But the way we select these categories is important, since it can frame politics in certain ways. One way to solve this is to have a vote on what you're later going to be voting on, but that is not particularly practical. You could have an independent panel decide on the categories, but that has the usual problem of ensuring that the panel remains truly independent. One other way to choose is to use the government departments (or ministries) as the categories. This has a couple of advantages:

1. It makes people more aware of how their government functions. I seriously doubt most people could name all their government departments, but seeing them listed every time they go to vote could teach them. This has the additional benefit that since people start to know the departments, they can start to critically reflect on them. Do we even need all of them? Shouldn't this department be split? Could these two be fused? It also brings with it a sense of epistemic humility. There is so much work the government is doing and so much stuff I am not informed about. This has the potential to broaden someones political considerations and make them not only better informed, but more politically engaged.

2. It isn't easily exploitable. If the categories on the ballot paper where decided by the government, the political parties in charge could try to influence the electorate by changing the categories to only things they're good at. Say, for example, the dominant political party was very bad at defense spending. They couldn't just remove "defense" as a category from the ballot list without first dissolving the department of defense itself, which would be massively shooting yourself in the bureaucratic foot. One way I can see to get around this, is by only renaming some departments. If the names you give to the departments are sufficiently non-descriptive/misleading it might lead some folks to vote differently. That said, I think this could be solved by having a critical enough media landscape, having an independent panel or requiring a supermajority for any name changes.

3. People that are not that politically engaged don't become overwhelmed. You don't need to fill in all the boxes. If you just want to vote for your favorite party without all this nuance getting in the way, you could only tick the "department of state" box (or whichever department your government has as its first department) for your favorite party. Because of normalization your vote will not be of less value than someone who fills in more boxes. Similarly, someone who isn't interested in the different departments but is interested in ranking different political parties can signal that too. This system allows you to fill in as much, or as little nuance as you want. One addition I would make to this ballot is to have final category for "Other" which people can fill in for reasons that aren't captured by the different departments, like e.g good media communication. If we have advanced enough reading A.I (or voting machines) we could even let people create their own boxes by writing in some empty ones at the bottom of the list. Though this probably isn't something we could easily implement today.

4. Every political issue will have a category. If you don't use departments you run the risk of having an incomplete list. Certain issues that people find important aren't mentioned or mislabeled. But everything a government does must be done through one of its departments, so any government job is by necessity on the list. If you think there is something the government should be doing that isn't being done by any departments, then this reveals that flaw and you can demand to get the job of a department expanded or a new department added. Which brings me to the next point.

5. Departments are flexible. If a society is struggling with a certain issue at one point in  time and makes a department for it, that doesn't mean the departments permanently sticks around. Society and the challenges it faces change all the time and departments change with them in an attempt to best tackle them. This is a feature not a bug.

6. But most importantly, it makes the composition of the government better reflect the preferences of the population. If you have a representative multiparty system, you will most likely have a government that is formed out of a coalition of parties, rather than one party dominating. When forming a government, the coalition needs to decide which parties in the coalition will helm which departments. For example, if the red party and the yellow party form a coalition and they see that everyone has rated the red party highly on "education" it makes sense that in the formation of their coalition government, they let the red party helm the department of education. Instead of departments being helmed based on the will of politicians, it will be based on the will of the population.

A disadvantage of this system would be that it will take voters much longer to fill out their ballots and that it will take vote-counters much longer to count all the ballots (assuming it's done by hand and not by machines). As such more money will need to be spend on voting booths and election day should be made a national holiday so people don't miss more work if they take longer to fill out their ballots. Overall I think these changes are worth it.

EDIT: This method is not strategy-proof. I might make this more robust in the future, but the important part is the general idea.