A recent issue of the New Yorker (July 9 and 16, 2007) featured an excellent review of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics, a new book by a George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan. Penned by the always thoughtful and literate Louis Menand, the review evaluates Caplan’s argument that “increasing voting participation is a bad thing.” Why?
Caplan posits that the average voter is not only not informed, but is actually wrong about most issues. Voters hold points of view, especially regarding economic policy, which, if enacted, would make us all worse off. In Caplan’s opinion, “democracy fails because it does what voters want.” The best solution for this problem is less democracy, not more.
Menand’s review states that Caplan doesn’t quite say that the world ought to be run by professional economists, but he comes within an inch of doing so. Caplan suggests that people with superior economic knowledge should be awarded more votes to cast, that the completion of economics courses should be requirement for voter eligibility that voters should pass an economics literacy test to be able to vote, and so forth.
Is this man joking?
Menand believes Caplan may be intentionally provocative, exaggerating to increase book sales. Much of what Caplan says, however, follows from the writings of Public Choice thinkers and Friedrich von Hayek. In one of his works, Hayek sets an age floor of 45 for holding office and having legislators serve a single 15-year term. Many followers of the Public Choice school of thought want to constitutionally require votes on tax measures to be enacted only if approved by supermajorities.
Menand ably responds to these ideas by arguing that not all policy concerns in a democracy are economic in nature. Further, contrary to what Caplan seems to imply, economics is not free of ideology, controversy or competing schools of thought. Values are at stake as well. Here’s Menand:
Negotiating the tension between “rational” policy choices and “irrational” preferences and anxieties—between the desirability of more productivity and the desire to preserve a way of life—is what democratic politics is all about. It is a messy negotiation. Having the franchise be universal only makes it even messier. If all policy decisions were straightforward economic calculations, it might be simpler . . . but many policy decisions don’t have an optimal answer. They involve values that are deeply contested: when life begins, whether liberty is more important than equality, how racial integration is best achieved (and what would count as genuine integration).
Bravo. I think that Caplan needs further education as well. How about a civics lesson? Political and social history? Philosophy? All these would help.
But the most important instruction needed by many economists is an earnest attempt to set aside the equations, the supply and demand charts, and the numbers and walk a few miles in another citizen’s shoes. Indeed, Caplan is right about one thing: the most dangerous opinions are the ones where you know you’re right—but you are not fully aware of what you do not know.
American democracy is ailing now, but its condition would not be improved by following Caplan’s silly, impractical prescriptions.
These would only likely make the case, well, terminal.