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>This found its reductio in Bryan Caplan, who suggested that voters are rationally ignorant of politics because the costs outweigh the benefits, and so economis
by enoch_r 14y ago
>This found its reductio in Bryan Caplan, who suggested that voters are rationally ignorant of politics because the costs outweigh the benefits, and so economists (who are obviously right about everything) should dictate public policy. You know, like in Chile.
At his most extreme, Caplan proposed a weighted voting system, where higher education led to more votes. That's a far cry from "dictating public policy," and even further from the Chilean system, where some Chicago-school economists had moderate influence on a dictator's economic policies and essentially zero influence on other aspects of governance (i.e., whether people should be disappeared).
- guylhem 14y agoAnd to all the people who like to bash Chile and the Chicago School, there are other good things in Chile besides the startup program, just take a second to look at the GDP per capita growth : http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_pp_kd#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_pp_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=region:LAC&idim=country:ARG:CHL:BRA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#... It started lower and below average, it's now at the #1 spot. [because it is well know Argentina is lying on its number since ~2008] On other development rankings, Chile also is in the top scores - like fighting against corruption. Maybe, just maybe, some good things were done, or it wouldn't work as well. Just saying that as someone who seriously consider Chile (along with India).
- m0th87 14y agoIsn't the parent referring to Pinochet? He was ousted in 1990. I'm not sure how much you can attribute the modern Chilean economy to his work. He was also a brutal dictator, so you know, there's that...
- Kudzu_Bob 14y agoPinochet was not especially brutal, as dictators go. On his worst day he was far less homicidal than, say, Pol Pot or Idi Amin. Indeed, I can think of any number of democratically elected leaders with more blood on their hands, including several US Presidents.
- guylhem 14y agoSince the current non-strop trend started in 1983 (click the graph), yes I would attribute some of the current performance to him and the Chicago School, with however great respect too for the presidents elected ever since 1990, who have keep the economy in working order, and by behaving properly, kept the democracy working as well : it's a country of laws (Allende gross disregards for that were reproached to him by the supremes) Anyway it's all past history. Let's wonder more about the bright future.
- jimmaswell 14y agoEducation is more accessible to the wealthy, so while education meaning more voting influence sounds good at first, it could just lead to even less representation of the lower class.
- Symmetry 14y agoEven worse, he then goes on to contrast it with the idea that "politicians and voters act in what they perceive to be the general interest, not narrow self interest" which Caplan actually harped on in his book, since if you're going to vote selfishly the effort involved isn't worth getting out of bed. It's only if you care about the influence of your vote across the country that the tiny amount your vote effects the outcome becomes worth while. Generally speaking Caplan's book[1] actually ended up increasing my faith in democracy, despite reminding me of some of it's significant limitations. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter