A Democratic voucher? Why we request a fresh way of financing policy

We live in a planet of large wealth inequality, and we do not have a good prescription to change things. More reports are making it more and more apparent. This year's planet Inequality study 2026 shows a tendency to constantly concentrate assets in the hands of narrow elites. The richest 10% of people own about 75% of the global property, the poorest 50% have only about 2% of the assets, and at national level differences can be even higher. Despite this, nothing changes. Looking for solutions, we can meet with a number of economist proposals: from the concept of taxation for billionaires and sealing taxation systems by eliminating privileges in taxation havens, to strengthening public services and the position of the planet of work, to regulating the rules of operation of large corporations. All these actions combine 1 common denominator – their ineffectiveness. Inequality keeps growing.

The planet of discipline leaves the search for solutions to the unfavorable state of affairs to economists, possibly not appreciating how much wealth inequalities harm everyone.

In the US, this problem has been seen since the beginning of American statehood and the issue of "money in politics" has always played a major function in public debate. As early as the 19th century, the word "Tammany Hall" became popular as the name of obscure corruption-political-business agreements related to the Democratic Party, which decided on fresh York politics practically until F. D. Roosevelt's presidency, and in the 1970s the Watergate affair became a turning point, showing how much money plays in US politics. It was in this country that the first regulations were passed in the early 20th century to limit the impact of large assets on politics.

In the 21st century, in many fields of experience and accomplishments, the United States is increasingly being negated due to the increasingly mediocre position of the US in the standards of surviving and the quality of democracy, but in terms of the level of debate on money in politics they deserve attention.

Attempts to advance systemic backing have failed and since 2014 there has been virtually no public support for elections, as in most developed countries in the world. The deficiency of a national solution forced the search for opportunities at local level. In 1988, fresh York introduced the rule matching funds, which assumes that for all private deposit on a campaign, little than $1,000, the city adds a 1:1 ratio to the public registry in later years expanding it to 4:1 for the first $250 and 6:1 for the first $175 for public funds. Another instrument is Lump Sum Grants, where a candidate after collecting a certain amount for the run is considered to be sufficiently typical of the local government that he receives a grant for the run estimation previously presented.

Both of these solutions over time took office in cities or states. In Seattle, the introduction of a kind strategy was besides considered in 2013. matching funds, however, under the influence of people associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement and personalities like Lawrence Lessig decided on another solution.

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A Democratic voucher consists of giving all citizen a voucher worth, for example, $100 in denominations of $25. It would be awarded on an equal footing with the right to vote in elections.

Any citizen may usage it up to six months before election day and contribute to the election run of a candidate or a fewer if he decides to allocate funds according to partial preferences. After the deadline for distribution of funds from vouchers, run funds are transferred from the public register.

W Seattle's backing of the program came from a peculiar charge on the property taxation of all city resident at $8 a year.

In the first concepts proposed in the academic discussions in the US inactive in the 1990s, the voucher was to be in principle, the only legal monetary support for the election run of a peculiar candidate. Under the conditions of a functioning state, this was not possible due to the fact that the candidate can always decide whether he refuses public money and has besides been adapted to this rule in Seattle. At the same time, the rule was introduced that a candidate who does not choose to accept public money has a higher spending limit and lower reporting restrictions on run expenditure. The seemingly illogical solution – after all, why to burden candidates receiving public support with stricter limits – has its political consequences. specified a candidate can easy get a business-supported patch, which can be a dense burden under local elections.

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A improvement of the rules for selecting candidates in local elections, in which the introduction of a democratic voucher was only 1 element, was carried out from the bottom up by the Citizens' Committee "Fairer Elections Seattle" composed of very many civilian organizations. The resolution initiative of citizens gained the required number of signatures and then obtained support in the local referendum in 2015 by 67 votes to 33%. In 2017, the program began to operate first in the city council election and since 2021 in the mayoral election. The main objectives of the program were to make a origin of backing that would encourage city residents to participate and compete in elections and to increase the number of Seattle residents who support local candidates.

According to cross-cutting research, the backing of electoral campaigns in this city after the introduction of vouchers, the level of backing increased twice from $3.4 million to $7.3 million, and the increase resulted from an increase in the number of tiny contributions to $100 and a decrease in the share of those over $250.

The number of candidates moving for city council elections has increased more than twice.

Critics have frequently pointed out that in absolute numbers the scale of usage of vouchers is very small. Depending on the election year, vouchers have utilized up from 4% eligible to 7.5%, which seems to be a very tiny result, taking into account e.g. election turnout, but, as the representatives of the Seattle Election and Ethics Committee pointed out, this is simply a immense change in favour compared to the period before the introduction of vouchers. Supporters of the programme besides point to much greater cultural diversity of the programme. In 2025, despite differing votes on its legitimacy, it was extended to another 10 years with an increase in funding.

The Seattle solution echoed in the US and many cities like Austin, Albuquerqe, Los Angeles, or even the state of South Dakota considered introducing a akin strategy at home. It was voted in Oakland and was scheduled to enter into force in 2022, however, due to budgetary constraints its implementation was moved to 2026. The proposal to launch a pilot program at national level was voted in the home of Representatives, but was rejected in the Senate. Andrew Yang, a candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary for President, proposed a strategy based on a voucher for the full country. In another countries too, this strategy has been noticed.

Unfortunately, the effect of this thought outside the US is limited mainly to another Anglo-Saxon countries specified as Australia and fresh Zealand.

In Europe, any scientists, specified as French economist Julia Cage, author of the book "The Price of Democracy" or Daniel Chandler, supporter of John Rawls's thoughts on a more just society in the book "Free and Equal", propose the introduction of democratic vouchers into the organization solutions of European states, but this voice is very small heard.

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W Europe's money issue in politics is not at the forefront of discussions on the main challenges facing the Old Continent. Debates focus on:

• security, against threats from external enemies and the desire to change borders in Europe by the Russian Federation,
• the defence against commercial and economical dominance, whether from China or from the increasingly little and little transatlantic cooperation of the United States,
• the hazard of sovereignty in the event of further dependence on fossil fuels,
• internal threats arising from uncontrolled migration to associate States,
• the prospects of maintaining the social state model together with the innovation and competitiveness of economies and the desire to keep the course for combating climate change.

The issue of developing political systems in order to increase the quality of democracy and greater public participation in power in European countries has practically completely gone sideways.

Moreover, the full planet faces an unprecedented reversal from democratic principles, as shown by the results of global projects measuring the quality of democracy in the world.

The Variety of Democracy task in its latest study on the state of democracy in the planet for the year 2025 shows that the quality of democracy achieved its 1974 result, erstwhile the 3rd Wave of Democracy in the planet began with the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. This very alarming trend, which cannot be reversed, makes us think about the deeper causes of the current global problems. This emphasis on more egalitarian and redistributive economical systems in European countries, as in the US after planet War II, gave impetus to the gradual improvement of the quality of democracy in Western countries, which gradually began to influence anti-colonial tendencies worldwide, democratisation in Latin America, and yet besides in the area of russian satellite states. The countries of Western Europe had to have a peculiar asset that led to the boom of more democratic and egalitarian societies, and were mass political parties with a membership base frequently exceeding a million people.

Many supporters of welfare states mention these times with nostalgia, pointing to affirmative aspects of this period as advanced taxes and attitudes towards building a welfare state. However, there may be an crucial origin which is not noticed in the Polish left-wing debate, specified as decentralised and egalitarian financing of political parties.

Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie in the book Money and Electoral Politics. Local parties and backing at general elections” analyse the function of money in British politics. They point out that in the 1950s the Conservative organization had about 3 million members, Labour organization million, while this number fell in 2010 to 177 1000 and 193 1000 members respectively. Hence, it is easy to conclude that the backing of organization activities, as well as political campaigns, came from within the organization in the 1950s and was very dispersed, which rapidly began to change in the following decades.

The rising costs of campaigning, centralising resources in campaigning stations, the expanding function of mass media and another factors made parties request a fresh origin of gross to finance run spending, all the more so that trends in massaging and greater individualization of life caused a fast departure of members from the party.

Since the 1980s. Of course, it is hard for powerful donors to imagine that they should do this unselfishly.

The authors give an example of the exclusion of expression 1 from the 1997 ban on advertising of nicotine products, which can be easy linked to the transfer of £1 million by the then owner of expression 1 Bernie Ecclestone to the Labour organization campaign.

In most western European countries, the shift from a mass organization to a cartel model, mainly serving the interests of the narrow organization elite and its lobbyists, is besides linked to the emerging public subsidies schemes.

Public backing influenced the decisions of the organization members.

Previously, they could have changed to the detriment of organization elites if they were acting against the interests of people working. With an automatic algorithmic way of clearing funds, the size of the grant depends on the electoral result, i.e. the number of votes earned, regardless of the content that is proposed in the campaign. This system, despite its advantages compared to the US system, where public election backing systems have fallen down over time and run spending has already depended practically entirely on the large contributions of private individuals, does not give sensitivity to the contributions of individual organization members and frequently associated trade unions, which had to be sought by private members and private citizens by political decisions. It is precisely the crucial depletion of the political organisation's membership base and the resulting change in the structure of the party's backing that could have contributed to the erosion of democracy in our political parties and, consequently, to the gradual decline in the quality of democracy besides in Europe.

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The democratic voucher, thanks to its egalitarian and pluralistic public choice, can be a consequence to the current political organization crisis in which we are in.

Every citizen will have an equal impact on the most crucial thing in politics, which is almost never mentioned, or money.

The voucher strategy does not request to replace the existing strategy of backing of political parties from the budget, but it can complement it significantly, for example, by the fact that it can be allocated to fresh political groups that are just entering the political phase and can be supported erstwhile they request it most. This can peculiarly be crucial in local elections where there is no public support and tiny bottom-up committees cannot compare with the committees of mayors and city presidents. The introduction of specified a solution may give impetus to a complete change in the electoral system, which in Poland shows its shortcomings in all election. The deficiency of regulation of expenditure for the promotion of the candidate before the authoritative start of the electoral campaign, the anticipation of financing political activities through foundations, the deficiency of regulation of cryptocurrency market, the deficiency of adequate expenditure on electoral administration, the treatment by electoral authority of large central committees on the same strict principles as tiny local committees – all these and another areas could be written a lot. However, in order to indicate the request to address a public policy area, a broader thought is needed, for example: "It is you, citizen, who will decide what you will spend 100 PLN, which you will get from the state."

At the same time, it is easy to imagine a situation in which the simplification of expenditure only for election committees in an election year may not gain social approval.

Politicians are among the worst rated social groups, taking into account the assurance rate, and respondents have been questioned for many years by CBOS that political parties should finance themselves from the contributions of their members, as indicated from 58% in 1992 to 67% of respondents in 2016, while the state budget as a origin of backing has only indicated 2% of respondents in 1992 and 10% of respondents in 2016. Therefore, besides after 10 years of experience in Seattle, it is worth considering the possibilities of improving and developing it.

After all, institutions requiring universal civilian support besides include another kind of "critical infrastructure of democracy" specified as local media, trade unions besides by supporting, for example, strike funds or NGOs.

It would so be appropriate to consider developing the strategy into a universal electoral voucher that could be awarded to citizens annually.

Citizens could choose to support political parties, and in years erstwhile there is no election, they could devote their support to a different kind of purpose. specified an area could already be mentioned in the area of civilian society, which could besides be partially changed, for example, by taking into account the anticipation of reforming the strategy 1.5 percent of the taxation erstwhile clearing the PIT.

This catalogue of areas for support can be extended to socially applicable marketplace areas, specified as chronically underfunded book publishing, start-ups with the anticipation to finance social innovation, investigation or the social economy sector specified as cooperatives.

Such a catalogue is not closed and if only any area essential for the sustainable improvement of society is underfunded, then it could be open to public support. However, it is simply a very crucial condition that vouchers do not form the form of financing of existing basic public services specified as education, wellness care or infrastructure and another tax-funded items. This strategy aims to support all citizen as a citizen, giving him the chance to express his preferences, for which many citizens have no money due to regular life expenses. Resident support, as a individual in request of many public services, serves a progressive taxation strategy that will not be replaced by vouchers. It is worth mentioning, due to the fact that looking for sources of usage of vouchers in the US without knowing the reality of the country, the average citizen could confuse it with e.g. educational vouchers, which as a consequence of Republican presidents in the US entered mainstream, while being criticised for undermining the quality of the public education system.

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We should talk about money in politics much more frequently than today, especially since the full political class, independently of the thought option, is very reluctant to mention it. A fresh strategy must be set up in this respect, otherwise we can sustain the 1 that is presently forming, in which politicians are financed by cryptocurrency and no 1 can control it.

Elon Musk is able to contribute just 1 US presidential candidate to the campaign, $300 million, corporate media dominate the transmission of information, while public interest organizations and writings fight for endurance each year.

It is impossible to halt further social erosion without changing the public sphere backing system. Let us begin this debate and remember that this is simply a cheaper and easier solution than building infrastructure for many billions. A limited allocation of funds requires thoughtful action at both individual and state level.