With all the hub-bub surrounding the failure of most of the GOP presidential campaigns to make the Virginia primary ballot (either due to lack of effort, a failed system, a deep conspiracy or a reason to be named later), one common thread has managed to emerge:
Virginia voters now lack choice on the ballot. This is bad and must be changed — either retroactively or, at minimum, very soon.
As much as I sympathize with this view, and my strong bias is toward ballot laws that allow wider choices than either the frick-and-frack Democrats or Republicans, there’s a strong argument to be made that allowing more choice, per se, is exactly the wrong way to go. Back in 2007, I wrote a piece for the old (and excellent) Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine on George Mason University Prof. Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter.”
Caplan didn’t address ballot rules or primary voting specifically. He did, however, write about how voters can, and do, use their trips to the polls to render verdicts that would confuse Solomon:
Caplan argues that when irrational voters get together on election day, they create a form of “political pollution,” where the costs of indulging their individual biases and misconceptions is shared by everyone… to the detriment of us all.
The theory flies in the face of most of the accepted wisdom regarding democracies (republics, too) and the sovereign citizen. Bad outcomes stem from special interests, most will say. Poor policies can be overcome through voter education and a return to principle, as I’ve often said.
But in “The Myth of the Rational Voter,” Caplan states that these arguments just aren’t true. Instead:
In the naïve public interest view, democracy works because it does what voters want. In the view of democracy skeptics, it fails because it does not do what voters want. In my view, democracy fails because it does what voters want. In economic jargon, democracy has a built-in externality. An irrational voter does not hurt only himself. He also hurts everyone who is, as a result of his irrationality, more likely to live under misguided policies. Since most of the cost of voter irrationality is external – paid for by other people, why not indulge? If enough voters think this way, socially injurious policies win by popular demand.
It’s not a popular thesis. We like to think of ourselves as sensible people who make sane choices. It’s the guy behind the tree who is the real problem…and he thinks the same of us.
Caplan approached the issue through an economist’s lens. Many will have a problem with that, and charge that economists are no more bias-free than the rest of us. But his thesis is worth considering in light not only of the recent ballot unpleasantness, but also as we move toward another of those “most important ever” national elections.
If the nation is heading on the wrong course, if you disagree with this or that process, politician, party or policy, remember that when pointing the finger of blame, three fingers point back at you.
Or at the guy behind the tree.
