The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.

• Author: Callahan, Gene
• Position: Book review

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

By Bryan Caplan

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Pp. 276. $29.95 cloth.

In The Myth of the Rational Voter, Bryan Caplan presents a noteworthy challenge to a view that prevails among economists who study political behavior and political scientists who employ rational-choice theory--namely, that the average voter in a modern, democratic nation rationally chooses to remain largely ignorant about the options presented to him in an election. The reason his ignorance is rational, according to this common understanding, is that the costs of his becoming a well-informed voter are much greater than the likely benefits of his doing so because the odds against his single vote's deciding an election are enormous. Therefore, the theory goes, it would make no sense for him to devote his time to understanding the issues at stake. In fact, except as a display of civic virtue or as an expression of personal identity, it does not make sense for him to bother voting at all.

Although Caplan acknowledges the force of the case for the voter's rational ignorance, he argues that the real situation in democracies is even worse: not only are voters uninformed on policy matters, a condition that would imply that their votes would be cast randomly across the range of options they face, but they actually gain utility from warmly embracing economic policies that the vast majority of professional economists regards as demonstrably false. For example, few economists today, on either the left or the right, do not agree that the principle of comparative advantage indicates that citizens of both poor nations and rich nations stand to gain from international freedom of trade. Yet the protectionist policies of the mercantilist school, whose theories were discredited in the eighteenth century, remain popular with the public and with many pundits in the popular press. How can we explain this divergence between expert opinion and popular belief? Caplan's answer is that given the minimal cost any individual voter pays for embracing protectionism in terms of the effect he will have on policy, it is only to be expected that he will choose his political positions based on how they fit into a worldview that makes him feel good about himself, rather than based on an analysis of the probable consequences of their implementation.

Caplan's thesis relies heavily on this notion of "rational irrationality." As indicated, this idea means is that it can sometimes be "rational" to hold "irrational" beliefs: if the practical consequences of holding the belief are minimal or nonexistent, then the psychic comfort the believer gets from the belief may outweigh the costs involved.

Caplan backs his case for the existence of rational irrationality with data from the extensive 1996 Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy. The survey showed a significant gap between professional economists' opinions and the general public's opinions on issues such as...