Americans will soon start the voting process that will produce a new president next November.
As we prepare for the primaries and caucuses that will yield major-party candidates, we might consider the interesting arguments in George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan’s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press, 2007).
You’ll find Caplan’s thesis in the book’s title: he believes voters are irrational, holding misguided beliefs guided by pessimism and by biases against free markets, foreigners, and labor-saving progress.
Antimarket bias boosts price controls and shortsighted redistribution. Antiforeign bias pushes for protectionism and immigration restrictions, and against trade agreements. Make-work bias recommends labor market regulation to “save jobs.” The policy ramifications of pessimistic bias are less clear, but it is a catalyst for all sorts of ill-conceived crusades and scapegoating.
Caplan’s conclusions are open to debate, but his analysis is timely as the nation prepares to turn to the democratic process again to help chart the future course of the United States of America.
