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> Voters aren't rational Huh? Voters are quite rational. If you mean they don't pay attention to everything that's happening in Washington, D.C. or state capit
by declan 13y ago
> Voters aren't rational
Huh? Voters are quite rational. If you mean they don't pay attention to everything that's happening in Washington, D.C. or state capitols, that's perfectly rational. (Remember you're more likely to win the lottery than to have your vote changing the outcome of an election.) Economics call this, correctly, "rational ignorance"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance
Politicians and bureaucrats are also rational. Unfortunately this rationality means they put their private interests above the public interest (whatever that means). The influence of special interest groups, the revolving door between .gov and lobbying, these are all elements of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
- chii 13y ago> > Voters aren't rational i think that's generally taken to mean that the voters do the most optimal thing for themselves, but the whole system ends up being sub-optimal. Some call it the tragedy of the commons.
- repsilat 13y agoUgh. It was clear when I said that "voters aren't rational" that I meant "Voters as a class do not vote in their own best interests." No reasonable person reading my post and trying to understand what I meant would have interpreted that statement to refer to the fashionable (and absurd) game-theoretic definition of "rationality". (Not to mention that "rational ignorance" doesn't explain current voting patterns. Nobody informs themselves politically according to a mixed strategy, and deliberately uninformed people do not abstain from the voting process.)