The Vote that Money Buys

So here’s the paradox: companies are “people” when it suits them. They can own land, sue the government, dodge tax with the grace of a ballerina and the conscience of a brick, and even kill through negligence – yet they can’t vote. Which, given their track record, is probably the only thing standing between democracy and complete corporate capture.

But that hasn’t stopped them trying. They’ve done the next best thing – buying the voters instead. When a citizen makes a mark on a ballot paper, it’s a single act of conscience. When a corporation “donates”, it’s a transaction. A party buys silence, a lobby buys influence, and the public gets sold.

It’s a neat trick: you don’t need a vote when your money can whisper in ministers’ ears, draft your own regulations, and make “public consultation” mean three days’ notice and a PDF nobody reads. You and I get one vote every few years. Shell, BP, and whoever owns the Daily Mail get one every morning, with breakfast briefings thrown in.

Of course, some will say, “What about the unions?” And yes – the comparison is fair, at least at first glance. Both are collectives using pooled resources to influence politics. But that’s where the similarity ends.

Unions ask their members for consent. They ballot. They publish accounts. Their money comes from subscriptions – people’s wages. Corporate donations come from profits, often inflated by cutting those same wages, sacking staff, or shipping the whole operation to somewhere that hasn’t invented employment law yet.

A union represents voters. A company represents capital. One wants a fair share of power for those who do the work; the other wants more power for those who own it. The moral equivalence collapses the moment you ask who benefits.

And then there’s the great philosophical question – if a company is a “person”, where’s its conscience? Does it feel shame? Does it queue in the rain to vote, or mourn its dead when it poisons a river? No. It exists to convert human effort into money, and money into influence. Everything else is PR.

If we were truly consistent, we’d ban all collective donations – corporate and union alike – and let individuals fund politics directly, with strict limits. But we won’t, because the rich would howl. The right depend on corporate money the way a junkie depends on the next fix. The left depend on union money, yes – but at least it’s transparent and comes from people who can still vote.

So we have a democracy where companies can’t vote but can buy votes, where workers can vote but can’t afford to be heard, and where politicians pretend this balance of corruption and consent is the natural order of things.

A company is not a citizen. It’s a construct – a convenient fiction designed to make commerce work. But it’s the only “person” in Britain that can break the law, kill by negligence, move to Jersey, and still be invited to Number 10 for drinks.

Until we end the vote that money buys, democracy will remain exactly what it’s become – a polite auction where the rest of us are allowed to watch.