I like the analogy, but what about the following counter-example that goes against the point made in your country example:
If instead of countries we look at local governments like cities, counties, etc, where only the current residents can vote in local elections and only current residents have a say in the future of the city, it can easily lead to massive problems too.
Take Silicon Valley or San Francisco (California, USA) as an example, where extreme zoning laws largely prohibit new home construction, which then massively increase the value of existing housing in these areas. Rapidly increasing housing costs are of course benefiting all current homeowners and landlords in the area, and therefore they, and their elected local officials, continue to support such harmful policies. But at the same time a large number of “potential residents” who would want to move into the area for very good reasons (reasons that are at least as valid as those of the existing residents), such as wanting to be closer to work and to reduce their commute by several hours each day, may be priced out.
I think the above example makes a point that is valid for the Algorand governance discussion too, as current Algorand holders could be seen as “San Francisco residents” who benefit greatly from prices going up, and therefore prefer such policies even if it harms the larger economy as a whole. And at the same time a large number of potential Algorand users, who want Algorand to be successful not for it’s investment value but because of the utility it’s technical superiority would bring to the whole economy (faster transactions etc), and whose goals may therefore be even more aligned with Algorand’s long-term goals than the current Algo holders’, have no say in governance if they don’t already hold a lot of Algo.
This is not an argument for or against in the the current DeFi discussion, but just wanted to point out that using “1 algo = 1 vote” for everything may not be as trivial as it seems. Though it might still be the best that we have…
(I also have nothing at all against San Francisco, just happened to pick one city that I know of where housing costs are a major problem due to their zoning laws.)