In S6E3 of The Office, "The Promotion", co-managers Jim and Michael are faced with a dilemma of constrained resources and unlimited desire, a textbook economic conundrum. A corporate executive calls the pair with unfortunate news that Dunder Mifflin has a smaller budget for staff raises than previous years. The two must then decide whether to give a flat 1.5% raise to each employee or somehow divide up raises by department. They eventually decide on merit-based raises, chosen through voting currency. Jim and Michael printed pictures of each employee and took turns placing beans on their faces; each bean represented a 0.5% raise and each boss had 24 beans to place.
This system seemed to resolve tension between the co-managers but incited outrage when the employees found out how their raises were being handled. This episode provoked me to think about the utility of voting currency in the United States voting system. In this case, it didn't work because few people were voting to decide the fate of many, rather than vice versa. But if consumer voters were each endowed with, say, 10 voting dollars, would this succeed? By "succeed" I mean, would this voting system (1) choose the Condorcet winner, (2) minimize incentives for strategic behavior, and (3) make use of ordering information.
These are three positive characteristics of voting systems; if a system satisfies all three, I would consider it successful. This system entails ranking, so the third criterion is fulfilled, but the other two require more analysis. Voting currency can yield a Condorcet winner by empowering voters to express preferences in terms of capital rather than going "all-in" on one candidate. However, this could have adverse effects if voters try to strategize votes to eliminate a candidate. The voting system in the U.S. is clearly broken, but that does not mean our reform should emulate methods used in The Office. This might yield a lot of office supplies trapped in Jell-O.
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