Recently I read an article in the Economist about a book called ‘The Myth of the Rational Voter’ by one Bryan Caplan.

Essentially the book sets out that the American voting system doesn’t work because of the fact that, inevitably, when it comes to politics most of us are by and large ignorant about the details of an awful lot of it.

Many ‘political scientists’ feel that the wisdom of crowds wins out when the candidate who wins the majority of informed votes wins the election.

However, Caplan reckons that this is knocked of course by the fact that voters by and large have biases that skew the vote and make us vote for policies that, in his view, actually make us worse off. Voters have an anti market bias, an anti foreign bias, a bias toward employment rather than production and a general bias toward pessimism (thinking the economy is worse off than it is for example).

Caplan believes that these biases, which are not in his view based on sound fact, result in voting trends which are ultimately damaging to government and country.

The article doesn’t go into detail on Caplan’s suggestions to address the issues:

To curb the majority’s tendency to impose its economic ignorance on everyone else, he suggests we rely less on government and more on private choice. Industries do better when deregulated. Religions thrive when disestablished. Market failures should be tackled, of course, but always with an eye for the unintended consequences of regulation. Mr Caplan is better at diagnosis than prescription.

The article was certainly thought provoking, though I’m not convinced from the article that I’d agree with Caplan on a lot of fronts… I’d be curious to read more, particularly in terms of what he suggests we do about it. I’d certainly be quite uncomfortable with what Dave has (mischievously?) opened for discussion.

The Myth of the Rational Voter is available on Amazon.co.uk