I just interviewed Bryan Caplan on his new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, for an upcoming EconTalk podcast. The podcast should be released on June 25. I’d encourage you to read his book in advance of the podcast if you have the time. It is fascinating, provocative and very well-written. Bryan argues that the bad policies we get aren’t because special interests have hijacked the political process but rather because democracy works too well—it gives irrational voters what they want. The logic is relentless. He will make you think.
The myth of the rational voter
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Haven't I heard the phrase "Tyranny of the majority" before?
One of the results of poltical government is interference with feedback feedback mechanisms. By socializing costs, the results of bad policies are difficult to connect to the policy without deeper analysis than a typical voter can devote to the matter. Of course, there is the gesturing and obfuscaton of politicians to further cloud issues.
…misspelling 'obfuscation' is so awesome. It just adds to the whole point.
Nice write-up of the book in The Economist this week. Liked their conclusion….good book, but Caplan will never run for office because he'll never be able to get elected.
Sorry to say. Caplan’s book is full of illogical and contradictory arguments, mangled terms, cultural prejudice, and a whole lot of other weaknesses. It’s also pretty scary when you really think about what he is arguing for. Like a lot of cloistered academics, he’s hermetically sealed inside his own thinking and theories, and totally unhinged from the real world… past and present. I won’t recap the whole list of objections here… but it’s on my site. (literalmayhem.com)
Economists fail to appreciate the symbolic import of democracy and the process of voting.
In the absence of voting, which is what I think Caplan rails against, there would be two options in the maintenance of social coherence: brute force or the assumption of fully unified rationality between all sectors of society.
Markets are no more rational than the individuals comprising them. If we assume that some are smart and know everything, and others are dumb and know nothing, we are not endorsing justice – we are endorsing a tyranny of the minority. This is not a bad thing per se, but it certainly gives rise to oligarchs with nothing but bloody instrumentality on their minds.
Sure, voters are irrational, but for some reason, the system still works coherently.