Relinquishing power, exploitation and political unemployment in democratic organizations Articles uri icon

publication date

  • December 2017

start page

  • 735

end page

  • 753

issue

  • 1-2

volume

  • 49

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0176-1714

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1432-217X

abstract

  • We analyze the evolution of organizations which take decisions on whomto hire and how to share the output by plurality voting. Agents are grouped in threeclasses, high, medium and low productivity.We study the evolution of political powerand show that in some cases, rational agents who value the future may yield politicalpower to another class. This is what we call the relinquish effect. We show that high productivity agents may receive less than their individual output, i.e. exploitation is possible.We also showthat high productivity agents may be left out in the cold because their entrance in an organization may threaten the dominance of other classes.We call this political unemployment

subjects

  • Economics

keywords

  • democratic organizations; evolution political power; exploitation; political unemployemt