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We live in the age of democracy.

In a few days, about half of all adults around the country will be exercising what they may see as one of the most important of all rights -- the right to vote. What about the other half?

Some non-voters say they are too busy; some say they are not well-informed about the issues; some belong to religions that discourage or prohibit voting. Some non-voters, persuaded by "rational choice" theories that suggest that the costs of voting are almost always greater than the benefits, say their vote doesn't really matter.

A reasoned discussion of these possible reasons for not voting might be quite interesting, but today I will focus on a different sub-group composed of people we might call "principled non-voters."

The principled non-voter is likely influenced by the great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer who made himself famous by, among other things, pointing out the reality that there are two fundamentally conflicting ways by which men obtain the necessary means for satisfying their wants and needs in life.

Oppenheimer suggested men could obtain goods either by economic means or by political means. According to Oppenheimer, the economic means involves production and exchange, and the political means involves expropriation of the resources of others.

This stark conceptual differentiation between the economic means and the political means is important for the principled non-voter because he understands when the political means are used, there is necessarily a victim involved.

While the economic means are characterized by mutually beneficial exchanges where both parties benefit, the political means is characterized by fundamentally coercive exchanges where one party (or group) benefits at the expense of another.

Understanding these matters in this fashion, the principled non-voter simply chooses (by not voting) to not support the system that glories in the political, or coercive, means.

In short, the principled non-voter is making an attempt to bring his actions in line with ordinary morality. In an attempt to get more specific about the essential nature of the political approach to life, let us imagine a small society of 10 families living relatively peaceful lives somewhere in their own corner of the world. Let us further suppose that seven of these 10 families decide their lives would be more complete if they had a swimming pool available for their use.

After doing some research they estimate $100,000 would be needed to build a nice pool that would fulfill their desires quite nicely. Each of these seven families is willing to contribute $10,000 for the construction of the pool, but three of the 10 families in the community are not willing to contribute $10,000 because they do not value the prospects of a pool.

Ordinary moral theory -- a long-standing theory based on property rights -- suggests the seven families have a variety of options in dealing with the perceived shortfall of $30,000, but using force in requiring the other three families to contribute to the construction of the pool is not one of the options available.

Politics does not override property rights in ordinary moral theory. But alas, politics does not see things this way. Popular political theory, almost by definition, tends to toss ordinary property-rights theory to the wind in favor of some form of majority rule.

There are at least two arguments in opposition to these views of the principled non-voter -- a silly but quite popular argument and a more serious argument.

The silly argument is the ever-popular suggestion that the non-voter cannot rightly complain about the outcomes of the political process because he doesn't make the effort to vote.

This argument is silly because it assumes that the political process is a legitimate and desirable process from the start. In fact the opposite is more correct.

If there is anyone in society who has a legitimate and reasonably consistent right to complain about the outcomes of the political process, it is the person who does not see the process as legitimate from the start. Such a person is being perfectly consistent by grounding his complaints about political outcomes in his insights that tend to recognize the fundamentally coercive nature of the process itself.

The second, more reasoned argument against the principled non-voter comes from folks who agree the political process is fatally flawed in principle but who think that voting for the "lesser of two evils" is a worthwhile way of improving things in the real world in which we live. This is a variation of the age-old "minimize your losses" theory.

While this second argument against the principled non-voter makes some sense, and is indeed quite tempting, it is ultimately a flawed argument in the eyes of the principled non-voter.

After all, if the political process is really a morally unacceptable way of organizing society, then it seems the very act of voting implicates the voter as one who believes in the coercive process and is thereby desirous of using the coercive powers inherent in the political process to impose his own will upon his fellowman.

While it is true we currently live in the age of democracy, fortunately this situation will not last forever. We can be confident that someday (perhaps not in our lifetime) people generally will come to understand the inherent conceptual conflict between coercive political action and an ordinary sense of morality.

(Glen Tenney teaches economics and finance at Great Basin College in Pahrump. He can be reached at glent@gwmail.gbcnv.edu.)