{"id":4332,"date":"2026-07-27T16:12:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4332"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:12:27","slug":"why-did-a-154-billion-ceo-just-endorse-stripping-most-americans-of-voting-rights-and-taking-us-back-to-the-19th-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4332","title":{"rendered":"Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights\u2014and taking us back to the 19th century?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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That two-word endorsement, dropped into a viral thread, has reignited a debate over wealth, power, and democracy that most Americans thought was settled more than a century ago.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018It looked like the apocalypse\u2019: France\u2019s summer of deadly heat turns into a wildfire that is making its own lightning<\/a><\/p>\n

The proposal would invert the founding American principle of \u201cno taxation without representation\u201d into something closer to \u201cno representation without taxation\u201d\u2014and specifically, high taxation. Reactions online split sharply: some framed it as a provocative thought experiment about aligning fiscal responsibility with political voice, while others called it a naked attempt to legitimize plutocracy by giving billionaires and multimillionaires a formal, multiplied vote over the laws that govern everyone else.<\/p>\n

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But it also revealed that America is grappling with a political economy debate, as a frozen housing market and an entrenched wealthy Baby Boomer demographic have many, not just L\u00fctke, arguing that something big needs to change.<\/p>\n

How the thread started<\/h2>\n

The exchange began with a provocation from L\u00fctke: pension recipients should have their financial futures \u201clocked in and guaranteed,\u201d but in return would be reclassified as \u201cdependents\u201d and lose the right to vote\u2014the same way minors can\u2019t vote. A reply from \u201cEric Thor,\u201d who claimed to be a retired banking executive as well as \u201carmchair economist and policy wonk,\u201d proposed a sliding scale: zero votes for anyone who pays no income tax, one vote for those earning $1\u2013100k, two votes for $100\u2013200k, scaling up in that pattern to a hard cap of five votes for anyone earning $500k or more. The pitch was framed as fairness\u2014reward \u201crepresentation\u201d for those who \u201cfoot the bill\u201d through taxation.<\/p>\n

That was the good system that L\u00fctke endorsed.<\/p>\n

To be clear, under this proposed system, the disenfranchised bloc would be enormous. It would encompass all retirees living on Social Security and pension income, students, caregivers, disabled Americans, and millions of low-wage workers who owe no net federal income tax after deductions and credits. Meanwhile, a small population of high earners would receive up to five votes each\u2014a fivefold multiplier on political power concentrated in the hands of people already holding disproportionate economic power.<\/p>\n

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This is not a new idea\u2014it\u2019s an old, discredited one<\/h2>\n

Tying the right to vote to wealth or tax contribution has a name: \u201ccensus suffrage,\u201d or property-qualified voting and in fact, it was the dominant system for the majority of early modern history. Across much of 19th-century Europe and in parts of the early United States, only property owners or taxpayers above a certain threshold could cast a ballot. The earliest democracies in history, in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, likewise limited voting to property owners. <\/p>\n

Read more U.S. to reopen border to Mexican cattle imports after screwworm ban<\/a><\/p>\n

The dawning of the 20th century, though, coincided with several universal suffrage movements that spent decades dismantling those systems precisely because they entrenched the political power of the already-wealthy and locked out workers, women, and minorities from any say in the laws governing them. Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, told Fortune<\/em> recently that the housing market showed signs of returning to an \u201cearly 1900s\u201d status quo, but this surely was not what she meant. <\/p>\n

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Perhaps ironically, L\u00fctke\u2019s tweetstorm began as a response to Jordan Grimes bemoaning the current crisis conditions in the housing market. The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u2018s Laura Waxmann had reported on classic NIMBY (not in my backyard) activism as hundreds of San Francisco Marina residents swamped a town hall to protest what for them was an \u201cuncomfortably tall, 22 & 18 story project at the low-slung neighborhood\u2019s waterfront.\u201d The excessive influence of old homeowners has been dubbed an \u201coldigarchy\u201d by Yale professor Samuel Moyn, who advocated in his recent book Gerontocracy in America <\/em>for something like the reverse of L\u00fctke\u2019s policy: extending the voting age down to an ever-younger population to counterbalance the tyranny of NIMBY boomers.<\/p>\n

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The irony critics can\u2019t ignore<\/h2>\n

L\u00fctke\u2019s own track record with voting rights makes the endorsement especially pointed. In 2022, Shopify shareholders approved a \u201cFounder Share\u201d structure that guarantees L\u00fctke at least 40% of the company\u2019s voting power regardless of how much equity he actually owns\u2014a mechanism governance watchdogs criticized as an entrenchment device that decouples voting power from ownership stake. Glass Lewis, a proxy advisory firm, publicly flagged the structure as controversial when it went to a shareholder vote.<\/p>\n

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In other words, L\u00fctke secured himself outsized, guaranteed control over his own company\u2019s decisions\u2014then publicly praised a system that would strip voting power from the majority of ordinary Americans in the political sphere.<\/p>\n

Read more The midterms may come down to just 20 House races, including \u2018the swingiest swing state\u2019: Pennsylvania<\/a><\/p>\n

Shopify did not immediately respond to Fortune<\/em>\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

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Should how much you pay in taxes determine how much your vote counts? 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