My main worry about referendums is that you are taking a very complicated political question that requires knowledge of a bunch of background facts in the social sciences and you're handing that question to people who don't know those facts and in fact, are systematically misinformed about them.

Jason Brennan

Categorized in : People Worry Political

The power to regulate the economy is the same thing as the power... by Jason Brennan

The power to regulate the economy is the same thing as the power to distribute favors.

economy favors

It's often considered elitist to say that well maybe voters are uninformed and that they should know more before they cast their votes. It's strange to say that because it's also elitist to say that to run a radio station requires skill or to be a plumber requires skill and background knowledge.

radio skills running

I'm skeptical about even educating voters as a chance for being successful. You know, when we look at what people retain from high school a year after they've graduated, they've forgotten most everything about history and civics and everything, and I think the main worry here is that because your individual vote counts for so little, you just don't have a strong incentive to invest in the knowledge, to retain the knowledge, to process information in a rational way.

strong successful school

The problem with voting is that because your individual vote makes very little difference, you're voting with a mass of others, you have very little incentive to take care in carefully considering what your vote would mean.

voting differences mean

When I'm crossing the street, I look both ways and I process the information rationally because if I make a mistake I get hurt, but when I cast a vote, kind of regardless of how I voted, doesn't make a difference and that's sort of a recipe for uninformed and irrational voting.

differences hurt mistake

For some reason when it comes to democracy, we seem to think that political knowledge doesn't make any kind of difference or we shouldn't say that it does, like it would hurt people's feelings.

differences hurt thinking