Is democracy viable?
As I read Bryan Caplan’s Cato Unbound Lead Essay for October, The Myth of the Rational Voter, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a certain passage from Scott Adams’ book, The Dilbert Future, about democracy. I’m paraphrasing now, so if I butcher it then Adams will have to come give me a very fierce rhyming. What, too soon?
Adams basically hits the same point Caplan hits, which is that there are only two alternatives relating to democracy and intelligence. One is that if intelligence produces the same conclusions as democracy most of the time, that would indicate that intelligence is irrelevant to democracy; the other is that intelligence produces the opposite conclusions as democracy, meaning intelligence is relevant but democracy is doomed. Either way . . . ouch. At least, that was something like his punch line.
I disagree with part of his assessment of “ouch.” It would be ideal if intelligence really was irrelevant for a democracy to produce good results. For that to be true, however, you need questions that are easy to answer, or questions that ask for opinions that have no real impact. Economic questions, by-and-large, do not fall into this category, as Caplan efficiently explains. I can’t remember whether it was in Adams’ book or in America (The Book) (or even whether I’m getting the question exactly right), but IIRC in one of them it highlighted a question about the speed of the intelligence of the average voter–whether the national bird should be the bald eagle or, say, a turkey. Everyone has an opinion, minimal economic impact.
Caplan, at least in this particular short essay, tends to focus on the depth of an issue–some questions are complex, and the average voter is apparently not capable of dealing with such complexity in a rational matter. He does not (perhaps he does in the book) address the breadth of questions and issues voters are barraged with every election cycle. As with your average politician, your average voter in my estimation could probably tackle a handful of tricky issues with some degree of rationality. However, as government has become involved in so many more areas the number of issues to address has become, to put it nicely, quite large. The more issues, the easier it is going to be for any single voter to be out of his or her depth on one particular issue, and the shallower the entire issues pool gets. If the only question the voters have to answer is whether the national bird should be the turkey or the bald eagle, you might even be able to add some depth to it such as whether the turkey is a wild turkey, a free-range turkey or a farm-raised turkey, and whether the turkey should be organically raised or fattened with as much artificially-induced fattiness as current technology allows.
Caplan’s conclusion is both satisfyingly and unsatisfyingly libertarian. It is satisfying because he’s right, individuals in markets will make more investigation into choices that impact them which is likely to create an incentive for better decision making. It is unsatisfying because, like the chances of Libertarian candidates, what chance do libertarians have of influencing voters to reduce the size and scope of government? Neither of the major parties at this time can lay any claim to being in favor of smaller government, and the supposedly preferred practical result for libertarians in 2006–gridlock, merely slows the creeping sickness of government expansion. It offers no rational, reasonable hope of scaling any aspect of government back.
His final suggestion of continuing voter education is “great” (if by “great” one means that it induces a coma-like state of apathy), but can he honestly say that he sleeps better at night with that being his final, best proposal? Great for him if the answer is “yes,” but I’d wager that it inspires substantially less hope (and fewer Ambien-like effects) in most libertarians.
Further, I would extend Caplan’s argument to politicians, at least moreso than he did in his lead essay by indicating they are a product of their voters. We all know that they vote for legislation they may not have even read, much less understand. Besides being somewhat better educated than the average voter, I consider it extremely likely that they do not have a great understanding of many of the issues they are voting on because of the sheer volume of information they would have to be experts on during any individual Congressional session. It is irrationality compounded upon irrationality, with gerrymandering doing a fine job of keeping accountability far off on the horizon.
I expect this to be a fine Cato Unbound topic, with a lot of complaining and probably very little by way of hopeful paths forward and good alternatives. Hell, I really don’t have any either. Guess I’ll just have to read what the experts recommend.
