According to International IDEA, the United States has almost the lowest voter turnout in the world, ranked a measly 140 out of 163. Perhaps Americans are apathetic, or maybe they’re just concerned their vote is meaningless in the face of America's massive political machine. Can my vote really change the course of politics, or am I just a grain of sand on the massive beach of democracy?
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Evidence Suggests That Voter Errors are Systematically Biased
- From Art Carden
By Art Carden - Economics Professor, Rhodes College
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No, the evidence is not about "errors"
I have read Dr. Caplan's book, and his evidence does not support his conclusions. Evidence suggests that voter choices are different from consumer choices - but which of these are the "errors" is a matter of perspective.
What Dr. Caplan has actually discovered is that there is a significant and consistent difference between the way people vote and the way they behave in the market. For example, in the market they would prefer cheaper food, but in voting they support farm subsidies, which make food more expensive.
Dr. Caplan chose to call this "voter bias." He assumed - for no particular reason - that markets are the measure of what people "really want." So if they vote in ways that go against their market behavior, they are "making a mistake." But who is he - or who are you - to decide which is the mistake and which is the correct choice when people behave inconsistently? Perhaps votes truly reflect people's wishes, and the markets are the ones that are biased and prone to mistakes.
- Kwiz
August 27, 2008 1:46PM
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Side: Yes
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Another interpretation of the data
To follow-up on my previous comment: We know that markets and votes yield different results. But we cannot say with certainty which of the results is the "correct" one, because we cannot know for sure what people really want. In fact, it is more likely that votes are correct and markets are biased, because people give more thought to their voting decisions than to their grocery shopping. When buying food, people don't consider all the factors they care about. When voting for farm subsidies, they consider more factors than when they go shopping. There are numerous debates in the media and civil society about voting. There are much fewer debates about shopping. Voters, as uninformed as they may be, are certainly more informed than shoppers.
So we should react to the difference between democracy and markets by joining the side of democracy, extending the range of things that are decided democratically and reducing the range of things that are decided through market channels.
- Kwiz
August 27, 2008 1:51PM
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Side: Yes
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