Democracy and demokratia as rule by the poor: is unequal suffrage needed?

  1. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    On democracy, Aristotle wrote that demokratia is rule by the poor. In that case, is unequal suffrage necessary?

    I'm not referring to the unequal, disproportionate weighting between urban soviets and rural soviets by the Bolsheviks. I'm also not referring, more hypothetically, to two inherent problems within a council democracy based on workplaces or working groups, unequal sizes of councils and people voting twice or more based on belonging to at least two workplace and/or working group councils at the same level (such as pensioners' councils, tenants' councils, and consumers' councils).

    I am referring to the socioeconomic strata distinction between the working poor and the precariat, on the one hand, and more well-off workers (including the "labour aristocracy") on the other. Combining universal suffrage with Aristotle's definition of demokratia would mean that, while a more well-off worker would get one vote, someone from the working poor or the precariat would get, say, two votes.

    Should worker-class rule introduce such stratification of voting power as an extreme form of affirmative action policy based on socioeconomic strata?