The Myth of the Rational Voter Review: When Democracy Gets What It Wants
In The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies , Bryan Caplan attacks one of democracy’s most comforting explanations for failure: the public wanted something sensible, but lobbyists, politicians, bureaucrats or the media intercepted it. His more unsettling claim is that democratic systems often produce bad economic policy because they respond to voters rather than betray them. Bad policies are not always imposed on a reluctant electorate. Some remain popular because they fit intuitions people find morally satisfying: imports destroy prosperity, labour-saving technology destroys wealth, prices mainly reflect greed, and economic change is usually decline in disguise. Democracy aggregates preferences, but it also aggregates beliefs about how the world works. When those beliefs are systematically mistaken, faithful representation does not guarantee a sensible result. Caplan’s argument is deliberately abrasive, and sometimes too neat. It places great confidence ...