No they don’t, many may vote in such a way, but many others are capable of a bit of compassion and responsibility to see beyond their own greed and selfishness.
I don’t think that’s nececeraly right or true though.
I vote towards the left of center, but not out of compassion for people ‘below’ me, because I believe that if everyone’s better off on average the impact is felt by everyone from the bottom up.
I don’t do it out of some alturistic ‘donate my vote to the poor’ compasionate reasoning. It’s a cool headed decision that I think that’s whats best for me.
It’s a democracy, if the right wingers were in power and made the rich rich and loads of people poorer, then there’d be enough poor people voting left of center to overthrow them. Ditto if there was a left of center party in power, building huge debts based on giving people shedloads of free cash they’d all be rich and start voting for the right again. That’s why we have 2 parties, both pretty much in the center, and swing between them every few years.
If people vote on ideological grounds (either way) rather than in their best interests then we end up with a government that on average doesn’t reprisent the needs of the country.
The difference between out reasonings is that despite the fact I’d probably be short term better off voting right of center for lower taxes etc, I don’t believe I’d be better off overall in the longer term. Stuff like overseas aid, social welfare, the NHS, imigration, military spending, etc is all to my short term detriment, but I beilieve it is in my own interest.
Which is why single policy parties like UKIP should exist. IF there was a town in Kent, overun by imigrants, to the detriment of the indiginous population, they have as much a right to that being raised in parliment as an issue as unempoyment in a northern indutrial town being a Labour issue. It’s a big IF though.