Irrational Voters or Elitist Policies

Is the “rational American voter” just a passing myth? Dr. Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, thinks that voter “irrationality” is widespread throughout democratic America, and contributes to the cleft in opinion between the general public and educated economists on the subject of free trade.

“The real barrier to free trade is public opinion, not special interests,” Caplan opined. He discussed one of the chief points of his book The Myth of the Rational Voter, in which he asserted the common proof that experts are more likely to hold the true position in a disagreement in their respective field with a lay person. The same logic could be true for economic discussions, he argued.

Noting recent events as examples of troubled times for trade policy, such as the expiration of the Presidential Trade Promotion Authority, Caplan positioned his work against the “standard” academic theory today that voter error balances out. For example, the theory would assert that people who fail to believe the full benefits of free trade would be “balanced out” in the voting booth by voters of the quite opposite spectrum. However, Caplan argued, voter errors actually compound themselves amidst the electorate, creating the evidence for the voting irrationality in America.

Caplan, speaking at the Heritage Foundation on the recent situationm of free trade, presented four main biases that he believes are prevalent among the American electorate: anti-market bias, anti-foreign bias, “make-work” bias, and pessimistic bias. The prejudices are fueled by continued public ignorance of centuries of economic studies which promote the idea of free trade. Non-economists, according to Caplan, continue to downplay the benefits of free trade, painting a false picture of maximization of exports and minimization of imports.

Economists may be experts in their respective fields, but the voters might disagree. In the public’s perception, economists fall prey to self-serving bias (wealth and tenure) and political ideologies. To prove the arguments in his book, Caplan presented graphs charting opinions on many economic issues from economists, laymen, and “the enlightened public,” or an estimate of well-educated economists, their tenures and surplus wealth taken away. Caplan said that even if economists were to live according to normal standards of wealth, and wealthy people were to speculate on economics, the results would largely remain the same. An economist with a Doctorate degree and average living standards would think like most educated economists, while multi-billionaire Bill Gates would probably hold the economic opinions of most non-economists.

The multiple graphs presented by the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy (SAEE), on subjects ranging from job outsourcing to foreign trade, proved Caplan’s point that the public generally does differ in opinion with economists and the “enlightened public.” For instance, on the issue of trade agreements between the U.S. and foreign countries affecting American jobs, the public tended to believe that such agreements were negatively affecting the number of domestic jobs, while economists and the “enlightened public” leaned toward the belief that such agreements actually helped create more jobs.

Dr. Phillip Levy argued that the basic economic behavior of the American electorate supports Caplan’s position on voter “irrationality.” The working individual will usually operate on strict calculations when dealing with financial issues, but in the voting booth, things change. Since his one carefully calculated vote may be insignificant amidst a sea of votes, the American voter feels that he can instead be better off with “feel good” voting.

Returning to his assertion that economic experts usually held the true position in economic arguments with the lay public, Caplan added that the electorate must be educated in economics. Voters constantly complain about not being represented by their elected officials, he continued, but if Congress will duplicate the exact beliefs and wants of the public, the country would be a squabbling economic mess, reflective of the darker sides of direct democracy, he claims.

Matt Hadro is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.