Category: Political Science

Julian Sanchez has an excellent round-up; as usual Virginia Postrel has one of the sharpest contributions.

First perhaps libertarians are not very numerous and thus they are playing against immovable opponents in the relevant political game.  That is, they won’t get anything back from Democrats.  That also suggests their support is worth nothing, and the decision can be viewed in that framework.  I suspect this is the relevant case.

Alternatively, perhaps libertarians are numerous enough to get some concessions from Democrats.  They would be playing a "threat-bluff-bargain" game with the two major parties.  Isn’t a mixed strategy usually best in these settings?  It becomes a question of "how much" to lean toward a party rather than "whether."  Libertarians would not want Republicans to feel they were abandoned altogether.  In any case the key is to act strong, offer more than you really have, and be prepared to bolt.

Keep also in mind there is a nested game within the so-called "libertarian movement."  Strategies which make sense in a coordinated fashion often fail when there is discord from within.  If libertarians think that the Republicans need to worry about the libertarians bolting, well, I suspect the libertarians have more than a few potential bolters of their own. 

My personal inclination is not to worry too much about such matters.  None of the obvious arguments, even if they appear strong, get us very far toward an answer.

Matt Yglesias reports:

Sebastian Mallaby observes of conservative/libertarian splits that "It’s not just the values of the South that pose a problem. It is the region’s appetite for government."  In particular, "The most solidly red states in the nation tend also to be the most reliant on federal handouts — farm subsidies, water projects and sundry other earmarks.  It’s hard to be the party of small government when you represent the communities that benefit most from big government."

…in less than a year, the lobbying salary commanded by a top Democratic staffer for a middle-rank member of the House has more than doubled, from $180,000 to $400,000.

That is from The New York Times, December 2, Thomas Edsall, p.A27.

1. Maybe not.

2. Human world champion Kramnik vs. Fritz, the chess match starts November 25th.

3. Random thought for the day: I don’t actually know many people like this.  I love reading personal vignettes, if only to remind myself of the diversity of humanity.

4. Wireless power?

In all three states where TABOR-style spending caps [Taxpayer Bill of Rights] were placed on the ballot, they were defeated…voters in recent years have repealed TABORs across the country, notably
in Colorado, where the first one was enacted in 1992.  Yesterday, the
three new attempts to institute the rules were flatly rejected.

That is from a very happy Ezra Klein.

The ever-invigorating Leiter Reports [addendum: in this case Professor Hellie] writes:

Excellent!  Daniel Ortega, a true peoples’ hero, appears poised to make his comeback.  Caveat: he used to be a Good Guy, overthrowing one of the more vicious Central American caudillos, and valiantly stood up for years against a ruinous US proxy war, dunno what he’s been up to these days.

Here is what Daniel Ortega has been up to.  His defenders may wish to note he was cleared.

That’s how he knows so much about the American voter, this week at Cato Unbound.  His research (likely to be one of the top books for next year) outlines the claim that voter irrationality is the fundamental force behind bad policy.  Unlike the well-known theories of "rational ignorance," Bryan stresses that the irrationality is willful rather than the result of simple misinformation.  That makes the problem harder to dislodge.

So what are Bryan’s remedies?

Above all, relying less on democracy and more on private choice and free markets.  By and large, we don’t even ask voters whether we should allow unpopular speech or religion, and this "elitist" practice has saved us a world of trouble.  Why not take more issues off the agenda?  Even if the free market does a mediocre job, the relevant question is not whether smart, well-meaning regulation would be better.  The relevant question is whether the kind of regulation that appeals to the majority would be better.

Another way to deal with voter irrationality is institutional reform.  Imagine, for example, if the Council of Economic Advisors, in the spirit of the Supreme Court, had the power to invalidate legislation as "uneconomical."  Similarly, since the data show that well-educated voters hold more sensible policy views, we could emulate pre-1949 Great Britain by giving college graduates an extra vote.

I don’t think those reforms would work, if only because voter irrationality has to be given enough free play so that it doesn’t explode or boil over into a more fundamental revolt.  (Matt Y notes: "Voting and legislatures aren’t a very good mechanism for generating knowledge, but they at least serve as peaceful mechanisms for resolving coflicts of interest, which are simply endemic in the policy arena.")  In addition Bryan is legislating policy or procedural outcomes by fiat, rather than explaining how they might come about through the (irrational) status quo.

My idea?  Voter irrationality often makes American policy, especially foreign policy, more magnanimous than it otherwise would be.  And truly rational voters simply would not show up at the polls, thereby ruining democracy. 

So we need voter irrationality, although we should seek to improve its content. (Note also that many good policies are based on irrational voter views, such as the belief in meritocracy.)  Irrationality is what keeps us going, and that is why Bryan Caplan, like American democracy, is so extremely productive. 

Addendum: Greg Mankiw wants fewer people to vote.  Here is my previous post on whether or not you should vote.

What do you think the world would look like if everyone knew as much about Economics as you do?

I imagine many facets of the world would remain the same.  For example, demand curves would still slope downward and to the right.  But what of politics?  Would politics change?  Would libertarianism remain a defensible political position?  It seems to me that much of what makes libertarianism so desirable is the public choice problem.  We’re rationally ignorant, and probably somewhat irrational as well.  Would a moderate left-leaning position such as Matt Yglesias’s suddenly become much more tenable?

With all due respect to myself, I doubt if politics would improve much.  To flesh out the scenario a bit, it can’t be that everyone is a clone of me.  Sex aside, who would fix my computer, leave comments on this blog, or do all the talking at cocktail parties? 

Once a reasonable degree of human diversity is introduced, coalitions need to be built.  Building coalitions requires politics.  That includes compromises, horse-trading, shading the truth, and so on.  "Me as politician" is not an especially wonderful vision.  If I acted like Tyler the blogger, I would lose power very quickly.  Even if I stayed in office.  Having some "me’s" in the voting booth wouldn’t much change this.

We might avoid a few total bonehead policies, if only by shifting the bargaining point.  But government wouldn’t become much more efficient, at least not as long as coalitions need to be built.

The costs of building coalitions are also a neglected element in the theory of organizations.  Even in the private sector, once we consider cohesion and morale, businesses have many fewer degrees of freedom than we might think.  That is why merit pay and prediction markets are not as common as an economist might expect.  Too often those institutions put people at odds with each other.

So don’t even think of voting for me, for Alex, or for whomever you might think of as smart.  Vote instead for someone who shares one or two core values with you, and is a good coalition builder.  And then make sure that their coalition doesn’t violate those core values.

Addendum: Matt Yglesias chips in.

If Congress got rid of online gambling, how come the biggest online bet is whether voters will get rid of Congress?

Read more here.

Hmm…I had just been thinking about related ideas:

Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim (of Celtel fame) has created a $5 million dollar cash prize for Africa’s most effective head of state.

Each
year the winning leader will, at the end of his term, get $5m (£2.7m)
over 10 years and $200,000 (£107,000) each year for life thereafter.
"We need to remove corruption and improve governance," Mr Ibrahim said.

…The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will
be launched in London on Thursday… It will be available only to a
president who democratically transfers power to his successor.  Harvard
University will do the measuring to see just how well the president has
served his or her people during their term in office.

Here is more, and thanks to Pablo for the pointer.  The prize sounds too small, relative to the lure of corruption, but I see no reason not to try this idea.

I’m not claiming the following model is true, but it is worth seeing what the simplest public choice model implies…