The Myth of the Rational Voter

I read The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan, 2007, and like many books, the title does not reflect the full extent of the book’s contents. Nevertheless, there are some interesting points addressed in the book that may be of interest to many of you.

One area of interest I have is how to make humans rational, either through breeding or education—whatever it takes. Human rationality is often addressed by the “heuristics and biases” research that tries to uncover how and in what areas humans are often biased through their evolutionary history. One frustrating component to this research is the absence of any generalized set of tests, similar to intelligence testing, which could score how rational a person is. This could be rectified if people were truly scientific materialists, relying entirely on empirical evidence, but it is clear that humans prefer religion, ideology, politically correct dogmas, etc., and reject science when it impinges on their uncritically embraced preferences. A good example is Richard Dawkins’ rejection of a belief in god, while he embraces secular humanism without question.

Caplan claims that this is changing: “This book presents robust empirical evidence that—at minimum—beliefs about economics are riddled with severe systematic errors. I strongly suspect that the same holds for beliefs about many other subjects. But as far as economics is concerned, the jury is in. People do not understand the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, its ability to harmonize private greed and the public interest. I call this antimarket bias. People underestimate the benefits of interaction with foreigners. I call this antiforeign bias. People equate prosperity not with production, but with employment. I call this make-work bias. Lastly, people are overly prone to think that economic conditions are bad and getting worse. I call this pessimistic bias.”

I agree that many people carry the above four biases, even though they have the knowledge and intelligence to understand through empirical data how wrong these biases are (that is say a preference for socialism, inefficient make-work projects, and unwarranted fear of the future). However, Caplan does not have good empirical data on the antiforeign bias due to his own equalitarian bias.

Caplan states, “To a person who suffers from antiforeign bias, immigration is scary. Unskilled foreigners ‘flood’ into the country, ‘steal’ jobs from Americans, depress wages, and gobble up public services. Economists take almost the opposite position—and the Enlightened Public is willing to cosign. International trade in goods increases the size of the pie, even if one trading partner has an absolute advantage in everything, and even if the good is labor. The case is not airtight; immigrants might prefer mugging or collecting welfare to working. But economists recognize, as the public does not, that one more self-supporting worker is a net benefit, no matter where he was born.”

This position overlooks many of the dangers of open immigration. One of the most neglected benefits of labor shortages is the opportunity to use automation, innovation, and increased worker efficiency to accomplish tasks rather than cheap labor. As a cheap labor market shrinks, technology advances to provide alternatives. For example, if we did not have cheap landscapers to mow our lawns we could breed grasses that grow to the proper height then stop growing. A Texas university was developing just such a grass some years ago, and of course it was upsetting a lot of landscape architects and others who rely on fast growing grasses (they apparently ran into snags or the project is stalled for some reason).

Another omission is the genetic quality of the immigrants. As Lynn and Vanhanen have been showing in their research on average intelligence and the wealth, freedom, quality of life, corruption, democratization, etc. of nations, if the immigrants lower the average intelligence of the nation then the nation itself will be in decline. If a nation were really concerned with its economy, then it would be very picky about the quality of its immigrants.

In addition to the economics of immigration policy, a nation must also consider the environmental, aesthetic, and quality of life that immigration will impact. On a personal preference level, I want to live around people that are like me, speak my language, are good looking, and have a culture that is not offensive to my liking. Research has shown that the quality of life is better in nations that are more homogeneous. People are more open, more tolerant, and more comfortable with others like themselves. Diversity and multiculturalism leads to discordance. Economists therefore must have a hidden bias in favor of open immigration, a bias based on the ideology of human genetic and cultural equality that does not exist.

The book also covers voting rationality and rational irrationality. In the case of voters, it makes sense to vote for policies that make a person feel good even though it may be detrimental to a person’s interest. For example, many of Barack Obama’s supporters are upper-class liberals who feel good about promoting blacks, even though they must certainly know that Obama will advance the interests of Blacks over Whites. Caplan points out that people will vote for policies that are emotionally salient to them even if the policies are economically detrimental. They care more about satisfying their beliefs than their personal needs for better living.

A corollary to this observation is the irrational belief that it is in one’s interest to vote. However, understanding the issues and the candidates takes a great deal of time, and when I cast my vote it is highly improbable that my single vote will be the deciding vote in any political race. It would be far more beneficial for my own welfare to ignore the electoral process and use that time to enjoy my life more, make more money, etc. (this then is also true of activism, volunteer work, etc., so humans must either feel that they owe other’s something or they love doing it for its own sake. I love political activism so I pursue it knowing I could have more for myself by ignoring it all and just do my own thing. I know groups of people that are highly intelligent but are oblivious to world events, while other groups are very active in politics, environmentalism, social justice, etc.)

This is where rational irrationality comes in—holding irrational beliefs because those beliefs make me feel better. Humans seem to hold many false beliefs because they reinforce their worldviews, they are easy to adopt, and require no effort. Since there is so little empirical data in the area of human behavior, it becomes easy to debate these varying dogmas or folk beliefs based entirely on anecdotal reminiscing. Rush Limbaugh is a good example of a very intelligent person who does not rely on an iota of empirical data. He rejects evolution but then ignores any other explanation of where we came from, for example.

In Caplan’s words, “In real-world political settings, the price of ideological loyalty is close to zero. So we should expect people to ‘satiate’ their demand for political delusion, to believe whatever makes them feel best. After all, it’s free. The fanatical protectionist who votes to close the borders risks virtually nothing, because the same policy wins no matter how he votes. Either the borders remain open, and the protectionist has the satisfaction of saying, ‘I told you so’; or the borders close, and the protectionist has the satisfaction of saying, ‘Imagine how bad things would have been if we hadn’t closed the borders!’”

Rational irrationality flourishes because people demand conformity of thought in almost every area of human behavior that impacts our dogmatic beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. In reality, only scientific materialism will lead to a truthful understanding of human behavior, but communicating many of these empirically based truths makes one a pariah in the modern world. So is it possible to be totally rational?

I think it is. By being aware of as much of the empirical data that is available with regards to human behavior, and remaining agnostic in areas where there is little available research, one can divest themselves of a lot of dogma or ideological falsehoods. Then, understanding that there is no purpose and there is no morality, everyone is free to choose or act upon his or her individual motives or worldviews. Those choices are personal, subjective, but can also be shared with likeminded people. But they can never be proven true or false.

The recent movie There Will Be Blood is a must see when it comes to tools for engaging others in debating morality, purpose, rationality, etc. If we can get people to start doubting their own false belief systems, they may begin the process of self-indoctrination, taking action towards their own genetic interests.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 11:52 AM in Economics & Finance
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