More Timely Than Ever!

Friday, February 14, 2014

TGIF: Don't Get Out the Vote

A mass democratic system encourages voter irresponsibility. Because the consequence of any single vote is negligible, individuals have an incentive to vote on some basis other than an understanding of current issues — which would require, among other things, the costly acquisition of a grasp of economics. Voters, then, are free to vote their biases. This voter mentality is known as rational ignorance. If there are no benefits, but only costs, associated with acquiring information, why acquire it? (This could not be more different than decision-making in the marketplace, where people expect to bear the costs and reap the rewards of their decisions. This does not mean that such market decision-making is flawless; but it does imply that people tend to learn from their errors.)
Read it here.

2 comments:

Grung_e_Gene said...

If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal, That's why the Plutocrats keep restricting voting or go for disenfranchisement schemes or making voting harder or returning to only allowing the landed gentry the vote...

No wait! Voting does change things which is preciesely why there's been so much effort to undermine it...

Sheldon Richman said...

Nothing fundamental. The plutocrats are just trying to tilt the balance of power within the ruling class in favor of their sect.