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From Publishers Weekly
Caplan, an associate professor of economics, believes that empirical proof of voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture of democracy and, thus, how to approach and improve it. Focusing on how voters are systematically mistaken in their grasp of economics-according to Caplan, the No. 1 area of concern among voters in most election years-he effectively refutes the "miracle" of aggregation, showing that an uninformed populace will often vote against measures that benefit the majority. Drawing extensively from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy, Caplan discusses how rational consumers often make irrational voters, why it's in politicians' interest to foment that irrationality, what economists make of the (non) existence of systematic bias and how social science's "misguided insistence that every model be a 'story without fools,' " has led them to miss the crucial questions in politics, "where folly is central." Readers unfamiliar with economic theory and its attendant jargon may find themselves occasionally (but only momentarily) lost; otherwise the text is highly readable and Caplan's arguments are impressively original, shedding new light on an age-old political economy conundrum.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
The best political book this year. -- Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
Caplan thinks that democracy as it is now practiced cannot be salvaged, and his position is based on a simple observation: 'Democracy is a commons, not a market.' -- Louis Menand, The New Yorker
One of the two or three best books on public choice in the last twenty years. -- Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
Like a few recent best sellers--Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, The Wisdom of Crowds--The Myth of the Rational Voter unwraps economic theories and applies them to everyday life. Mr. Caplan's thesis, though, lacks any semblance of a compliment: The 'unwisdom of crowds' is closer to his point. He believes that the American public is biased against sensible, empirically proved economic policies about which nearly all economists agree. Voters, he says, are not just ignorant in the sense of having insufficient information. They actually hold wrong-headed and damaging beliefs about how the economy works. -- Daniel Casse, The Wall Street Journal
[P]rovocative. -- Elsa Dixler, New York Times Book Review
The Myth of the Rational Voter usefully extends the discussion [about democracy] by linking it with 'public choice' theory. . . . Public choice theory faces a dilemma. A rational and self-interested person has no incentive to study political issues, as the chances of his or her determining the outcome are negligible. This has become known as 'rational ignorance'. Caplan maintains that the reality is much worse. He shows that voters are not just ignorant but systematically biased in favor of mistaken views. -- Samuel Brittan, Financial Times
Caplan is right to detect a stubborn irrationality in ordinary voters and he correctly points out to his rational choice colleagues that their models are hopelessly unrealistic. -- Martin Leet, Australian Review of Public Affairs
Caplan argues convincingly that irrational behaviour is pervasive among many of us today. . . . Caplan's point, however, is that most voters are irrational. And that is worse than being ignorant. . . . Their irrationality comes with a host of misconceptions that drive policy choices. -- Fazil Mihlar, The Vancouver Sun
This engaging and provocative volume describes why democracy gives us far less than its promise. Countering existing theories of rationally ignorant voters, Caplan argues persuasively that voters are irrational, registering systematically biased beliefs--and consequently votes--against markets and other sound economy policy metrics. . . . [T]his is a compelling book, offering readers a well-written and well-argued competing theory for why democracy fails and why we should limit what is done through the political process. -- M. Steckbeck, Choice
[Caplan] argues that voters' own irrational biases, rather than flaws in the democratic process, compel voters to support policies that are not in their interest. While one may quibble with his specifics, the overall argument is convincing and applicable across a variety of fields...Forces the reader to take a second look at our nation's unshakable faith in the wisdom of the electorate. -- Pio Szamel, Harvard Political Review
A brilliant and disturbing analysis of decision making by electorates that--[Caplan] documents--are perversely ignorant and woefully misinformed. -- Neil Reynolds, The Globe and Mail
Scintillating. . . . Outstanding. -- Gene Epstein, Barron's Magazine
Kudos to Caplan for not wanting to leave well enough alone, but he could have given democracy more credit for diffusing--to the relatively benign act of voting--irrational and reactionary human behaviour that has in the past led to violence and war. In the meantime, it certainly would not hurt for more people to learn about the law of supply and demand. -- Adam Fleisher, International Affairs
Caplan's book is a major accomplishment, which breaks new ground in our understanding of democratic politics and opens up a new research territory for further exploration. -- Gene Callahan, Independent Review
Caplan thinks that democracy as it is now practiced cannot be salvaged, and his position is based on a simple observation: 'Democracy is a commons, not a market.' -- Louis Menand, The New Yorker
One of the two or three best books on public choice in the last twenty years. -- Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
Like a few recent best sellers--Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, The Wisdom of Crowds--The Myth of the Rational Voter unwraps economic theories and applies them to everyday life. Mr. Caplan's thesis, though, lacks any semblance of a compliment: The 'unwisdom of crowds' is closer to his point. He believes that the American public is biased against sensible, empirically proved economic policies about which nearly all economists agree. Voters, he says, are not just ignorant in the sense of having insufficient information. They actually hold wrong-headed and damaging beliefs about how the economy works. -- Daniel Casse, The Wall Street Journal
[P]rovocative. -- Elsa Dixler, New York Times Book Review
The Myth of the Rational Voter usefully extends the discussion [about democracy] by linking it with 'public choice' theory. . . . Public choice theory faces a dilemma. A rational and self-interested person has no incentive to study political issues, as the chances of his or her determining the outcome are negligible. This has become known as 'rational ignorance'. Caplan maintains that the reality is much worse. He shows that voters are not just ignorant but systematically biased in favor of mistaken views. -- Samuel Brittan, Financial Times
Caplan is right to detect a stubborn irrationality in ordinary voters and he correctly points out to his rational choice colleagues that their models are hopelessly unrealistic. -- Martin Leet, Australian Review of Public Affairs
Caplan argues convincingly that irrational behaviour is pervasive among many of us today. . . . Caplan's point, however, is that most voters are irrational. And that is worse than being ignorant. . . . Their irrationality comes with a host of misconceptions that drive policy choices. -- Fazil Mihlar, The Vancouver Sun
This engaging and provocative volume describes why democracy gives us far less than its promise. Countering existing theories of rationally ignorant voters, Caplan argues persuasively that voters are irrational, registering systematically biased beliefs--and consequently votes--against markets and other sound economy policy metrics. . . . [T]his is a compelling book, offering readers a well-written and well-argued competing theory for why democracy fails and why we should limit what is done through the political process. -- M. Steckbeck, Choice
[Caplan] argues that voters' own irrational biases, rather than flaws in the democratic process, compel voters to support policies that are not in their interest. While one may quibble with his specifics, the overall argument is convincing and applicable across a variety of fields...Forces the reader to take a second look at our nation's unshakable faith in the wisdom of the electorate. -- Pio Szamel, Harvard Political Review
A brilliant and disturbing analysis of decision making by electorates that--[Caplan] documents--are perversely ignorant and woefully misinformed. -- Neil Reynolds, The Globe and Mail
Scintillating. . . . Outstanding. -- Gene Epstein, Barron's Magazine
Kudos to Caplan for not wanting to leave well enough alone, but he could have given democracy more credit for diffusing--to the relatively benign act of voting--irrational and reactionary human behaviour that has in the past led to violence and war. In the meantime, it certainly would not hurt for more people to learn about the law of supply and demand. -- Adam Fleisher, International Affairs
Caplan's book is a major accomplishment, which breaks new ground in our understanding of democratic politics and opens up a new research territory for further exploration. -- Gene Callahan, Independent Review
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Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Caplan is fun,
By
This review is from: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition) (Paperback)
I don't know if the previous reviewer really understood this book. This is not a forum for a diatribe on the evils of markets and the holiness of government intervention. Caplan does NOT favor an economic autocracy, but rather a move towards markets on the spectrum of government power. The current crisis are by no means an inditement of markets, and the causes that have been pointed out seem to illustrate as much government failure as market failure. Krugman blames Greenspan, which gives the Austrians some ammunition, Caplan does not go nearly as far as most Austrians.Caplan makes economics fun, which is important. Economic illiteracy is rampant, because many of the core concepts are counter-intuitive. A brief description of Ricardian comparative advantage will leave most people's head spinning for a few minutes... what with all the "best best and least worst" descriptions. Caplan makes a positive contribution to the understanding of the (potential) implications of economic illiteracy in a social democracy.
2 of 12 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Myth of the Rational Economist,
By Too Soon Old (Rothesay, New Brunswick Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition) (Paperback)
Which is more foolish, voting behavior that is irrational about economic policies, or economic policies that are irrational about voting behavior? As a fairly literate reader on economic matters, I think it is the latter, but the authour of this book, a professor of economics at George Mason University, (wherever that is) definitely believes that free market economists have a much greater understanding of what is good for society, and if only the public would pay more attention to their brand of economic theory, democracy could be saved from the liberal economic biases inherent in our human nature.To prove just why economists are so smart he devotes the first part of his book to a mathematical analysis of an opinion survey of 1510 "members of the American public and 250 economics PhDs" called the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy, SAEE. There were 37 questions as to why the economy is not doing better than it is. Strangely many of the queries in the survey are leading questions, which prompt a negative or biased response. For example: "taxes too high", "business profits too high", and "companies are sending jobs overseas". As would be expected the public's opinions differ significantly in most cases from those of the economists, so to prove that the economists opinions are more valid he takes the answers of those members of the public that mostly closely match the education and income of the economists and "voila!", the opinions match much more closely and therefore economists must be more correct in their beliefs! Of course all this only proves that different groups have different biases not that economists have greater knowledge of the truth. Caplan is a free market fundamentalist of the first order, and although he would hotly deny this, he makes it abundantly clear with such statements as "It is logically possible that clear eyed business greed makes better decisions than confused voter altruism." Recent market events certainly have proved the inanity of this type of thinking, but I am sure that he would somehow argue that all the problems are due to the government's encouragement of homeownership. He also says that "prosperity and peace voting heavily discourages the adoption of policies with long run gains but short term costs - such as preemptive war against a rising menace." I assume by this that he thinks Bush's preemptive strike on Iraq was a brilliant master stroke of economic policy. In a very weird example of his free market ideas he uses the illustration of how the drug trade and the black market, show that free markets work very well without government intervention. This would seem to suggest that we should adopt this type of morality when it comes to other social and economic issues. I am surprised that he did not also use the free market history of the slave trade to also make his case. In the book he argues, that the public is irrational when it comes to economic matters. I would certainly agree with this but he then goes on to make the case that economists are the only people that have a much clearer vision of what really is better for the average person than they do themselves. It's a case of an economist "father knows best". This is probably even worse than believing that lawyers are people who can save the world. In the 18th century David Hume observed that reason is a slave to the passions. By this he meant that reason's role is mainly limited to its utility in aiding in and responding to our emotions. We use it to protect ourselves from any threats to our self esteem. The prejudices and biases in rationalizing our beliefs are formed by the memes that we pick up from our culture and particularly from our education. Economists are certainly not immune to this process as the diversity and changes in economic opinion throughout history shows that economic models can be rationalized for any type political system you want to create. Caplan is definitely a true believer in the free market economics of the Chicago School as espoused by Milton Friedman. He is about as right wing as you can get, and really believes that the many problems that can be seen in democratic society can be directly attributed to the fact that voters don't think like free market economists. He believes as an article of faith that if there are enough well informed traders, freely allowed to do as they please, the markets will collectively lead to the optimum outcome. Free Markets are an oracle that can lead us to a Utopian economic future. The recent collapse of the financial sector of the economy suggests then that economists were either not very well informed, or were as stupid as a bag of hammers. Of course neither is the really the case. Economists are just as irrational in their thinking due to reasoning bias as the rest of us. He believes that "Democracy suffers from ... the mental pollution of systematically biased beliefs". I would agree with this as it is certainly well illustrated by the Bush years in which free markets were allowed free reign resulting the economic disaster we have today. Caplan's ideas as to how to improve the operation of democracy include, reducing voter turn out (it will be less likely that the economically uninformed would be induced to vote), and allowing more educated voters (the ones that would more likely agree with his economic views) to have greater weight given to their votes. As he says, when they vote, "the rich are not trying to advance their upper class interests". Caplan does not want to have to deal with the world as it is and instead wants to bend it to conform to his own economic ideals. Rather than democracy he seems to prefer some sort of economic autocracy. He has become a prisoner of his premise and any academic objectivity he may have had before he got converted to the Gospel of free trade has been totally lost. Read this book if you want to learn just how weird, bizarre, and dangerous economic ideas can become. It is especially disturbing to think how he is instilling such ideas in his unsuspecting students.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews) 164 of 184 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Don't confuse us with the facts!",
By Nicole - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Hardcover)
Many people have noted that democracy seems not to work - policies are implemented that often are not in the best interest of voters, and when voters are surveyed they routinely lack even the most basic civic knowledge. The way people have typically answered this problem is to say that voters are uninformed, and that if they simply had more access to good information, they would use that information to make better choices. But even so, the tiny informed minority will sway elections because the uninformed majority will vote at random.Here, Caplan directly challenges that view by asserting that voters are not simply ignorant but irrational, and that this is in fact predicted by economic theory. Voting is not like shopping - it is more like making use of a commons, because the costs of a "bad" vote are borne by the public at large, and the chance of an individual casting the deciding vote is tiny. Therefore, people will vote for what makes them feel good without bothering to find out whether it really is good - it simply doesn't matter. Caplan explores four systematic biases voters hold against good economic policy - antimarket bias, antiforeign bias, make-work bias, and pessimistic bias. The fact that systematic bias exists means that the irrational majority does not in fact vote at random, so it's the irrational voters deciding who wins elections rather than the small, informed, rational minority. Voters get what they want, it's just that what they want is actually bad for them - and they don't care! Caplan makes a persuasive case for viewing the average voter as irrational rather than simply ignorant, though admittedly I am sympathetic to this idea to begin with. I wish he had been able to include more recommendations in his conclusion, but this should be a promising area for further research. 75 of 88 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Economists know best?,
By J. Gordon "nonfiction enthusiast" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Hardcover)
This book is a very interesting read, describing a utility-based model of why voters vote as they do. The author proposes that voters are naturally biased against their own interests. The concept is that the probability of any one voter changing the result of a vote is vanishingly small, and therefore each voter votes for what makes them feel better about themselves, even if the policies go against their own interest and the interests of the economy. For example, voters vote for higher taxes, large inefficient government programs, and protectionist policies.For example, a voter might vote for a politician who promises to raise the voter's taxes and give their money to the poor. The voter figures that the chances that their individual vote would make the difference between the candidate winning or losing is extremely small; making the cost of the vote effectively zero. However, the psychic benefit of the vote is positive. Where the author fails is in the chapter where he measures the policy leanings of an artificial "enlightened voter". How he defines an "enlightened voter" is an average voter with the statistical characteristics of one having a graduate degree in Economics. Based on a sophisticated multivariate-regression-based analysis, the author determines that an "enlightened voter" would be predicted to view potential policies more like... an economist! What a surprise! Caplan asserts that the voting public would support more reasonable policies if they all had graduate degrees in economics. However, there are plenty of Econ PhD's who put too much faith in government policies solving apparent market failures. The book is well worth reading, and makes many good points regarding the reasons why voters vote for policies that go against their own best interests, and in aggregate against the health of the overall economy. However, it does not make a convincing case that economists should be running the show. 30 of 35 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well-researched, well-written book,
By Howard "Howie" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Hardcover)
Caplan's take on democracy can by summarized as follows: first, he accepts two arguments FOR democracy by democratic enthusiasts, 1. voters are largely unselfish; 2. politicians usually comply with public opinion. He then adds his point: 3. voters are irrational (they have "systematically biased beliefs", or in layman's terms, they have false beliefs). Caplan develops a theoretical framework to prove that it is in fact rational for voters to be irrational because the "price" of their irrationality is low in politics.The book mainly consists of the following themes: 1. the history of people's economic misconceptions; 2. empirical evidence of systematically biased beliefs; 3. the "rational irrationality" framework and why systematically biased beliefs lead to democratic failure; 4. prescription for overcoming democracy's weakness. I think Caplan succeeds pretty admirably in 1, 2 and 3, but he is relatively terse at 4. But this is understandable: if you take his arguments seriously, then unless every voter (or at least the "median voter") has a Ph.D. in economics (in fact, she needs to be a libertarian economist!), the outcome of democracy will not be efficient. Increasing the electorate's education, etc. level will somewhat mitigate the situation, but as Caplan himself proves, this is hardly enough (education is not sufficient to eradicate all systematically biased beliefs). As to the book itself, it is quite readable. I knew about his work before reading the book, what surprised me was how he mixed it with the history of economics with his own research, with quotes and all. It's also interesting to note that (at least according to my observations) mainstream public choice (the economic approach of studying politics) economists tend to downplay Caplan's work, maybe it is because Caplan's work cuts to the core of public choice (the "rational choice" approach)? Or maybe they really think his work is not much different than rational ignorance? Now that his book seems to have gathered a lot of publicity, maybe others will take a second look. The only weakness of the book is the part that he repudiates the accusation that economists have "market fundamentalism". His point is basically 1. markets, when free of failures, will lead to efficient outcome (first, "positive", premise); 2. Caplan does not say this, but in most economists' thinking, there is also an implicit second, or "normative" premise, which is that efficient outcome is desirable. In fact, most economists tend to shy away from this conclusion and maintain that they only specialize in cost/benefit analysis and do not make such judgment, but from their passionate, enthusiastic and sometimes vehement arguments for free market, it is not too difficult to detect such deep-rooted belief -- that "free market is good". 3. economists do not always assume there are no market failures, therefore they are not "market fundamentalists". But this is typical economists' thinking: in order to argue with them, you must accept their first premise first, and implicitly also accept the second premise, then the debate about "market fundamentalism" naturally reduces to argument about whether there are market failures. But, they are people who do not accept even the first premise, and there are more -- on moral grounds, etc. -- having difficulty accepting the second. I am not saying I agree with these people (but I have not been blinded by the ivory tower yet, so at least I know the existence of such people and such views). It is very typical of economists to not even acknowledge such views, or pretend they do not exist. It is not an easy task to face these people face-to-face, listen to their arguments, then come up with your own arguments to correct their "biased beliefs", but a good economist should not be daunted. However, this is not a big blemish in an otherwise well researched and well written book, so I am still giving it 5 stars. |
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