Voting is irrational if it is an instrumental act. If it’s consumption rather than investment, well, economists have little to say about onanism.

Steve and Agnito: both of you should check out both Caplan’s Myth and Brennan & Lomasky’s prior Democracy and Decision, which lays out the expressive voting argument.

I think a good model is that those who choose not to vote don’t get enough “warm fuzzies” or to make enough of a difference, whereas those who do vote, do get enough enjoyment from it. As this number increases the difference for the marginal voter decreases, and eventually we have an equilibrium.

Maybe this explains the lower voter turnout in America because it is watered down by the larger population.

However, if you don’t vote then this increases the probability that someone else’s vote will matter (i.e. someone who would vote for the party you don’t want to get in). This could possibly be enough to “ratioanlly” induce someone to vote.

On the other hand, if you get warm fuzzies just from voting and arguing with people who voted for other parties etc… then it is still rational:)

I saw a recent web video about an economist who refuses to vote because everyone else votes and therefore its not worth it. It was rather interesting but I can’t remember the link.

Its even worse under MMP because your vote is swallowed by all votes, whereas under FPP your vote is only shared with your electorate (though I suppose its prob actually similar given the probability your vote makes a difference in your electorate and whether your MP makes a difference to the government)

Caplan’s stuff figures prominently in the last couple of weeks of the public choice class I teach at Canterbury…he was on my dissertation committee….

The corollary to this is: that people can’t articulate reasons behind their decisions doesn’t mean those decisions aren’t rational.

The problem that Caplan points out is that people are not just ignorant of their reasons, they are actively irrational.

What I find surprising about his proposed solutions is that he advocates more reliance on free markets. Surely if people are irrational in politics, they are irrational in markets too? Isn’t irrationality an issue across all spheres, and therefore not a good distinguishing feature of any one?

A government should be able to push through it’s entire reform programme in three terms of office. If they then turn up at an election arguing for a mandate to ‘finish the job’ they’re just taking the mick.

Generally governments run out of fresh ideas at about this point anyway. Some governments renew from within, but generally they have to be voted out of office in order to regroup. Having a refreshed Labour party challenge National in three years time would be a very good thing.

Essentially Eliezer suggests that people have evolved to be corrupted by power in order to maintain their position. Therefore it is good to have a heuristic by which we change government regularly in order to avoid such negative consequences. However, that doesn’t mean that change is always for the better. It just means that we get a better outcome on average by switching regularly.

In this case, if people can’t come up with any better reason for change than a heuristic about Labour’s time in power, then maybe the change is not necessarily for the better.