Voting on Income Redistribution: How a Little Bit of Altruism Creates Transitivity

We consider an election that is solely concerned with redistribution of income. It is well known that when voters are selfish, there is no political equilibrium. We consider the case where voters are modestly altruistic. We demonstrate that modest altruism results in a unique political equilibrium. We also provide an explanation for why voters are much more altruistic than individuals acting alone.