In Fear of the Flood: A Defense of Voting and Democracy

Value is subjective. Some people value casting a ballot. Therefore individual voting is not meaningless for those individuals.

Aggregate voting determines political outcomes. Therefore aggregate voting is not meaningless.

I've been battling both a bad cold and intense homework over the past few days, but wanted to finally respond to Ali's latest posts in our voting debate. (I'll post links to the debate series at the bottom of this post.)

To summarize, Ali has discovered from studying public choice that an individual voting has an infinitesimally small chance of changing the outcome of a mass election. (Typically smaller than the chance of winning the lottery.) Having discovered this, Ali is now of the opinion that voting (from a general, holistic perspective) is meaningless. Ali and I have no disagreement about the mathematical probability of an individual voter swaying an election. We disagree a great deal on the meaningfulness of voting.

Ali writes:

...don’t read this as a prescription either a) not to vote, or b) agitate against democracy =P However, caution is all: I respect received wisdom, but I respect learned wisdom more, and my study of Public Choice suggests to me both that i) voting is useless, and ii) democracy is overrated.

A DROP OF WATER VS. A FLOOD

Concluding "voting is meaningless" just because a single vote doesn't determine political outcomes is the equivalent of saying floods don't matter because a single drop of water won't have any impact.

Just as a single drop of water doesn't matter for maintaining a human life, in aggregate, many drops of water can cause floods, make tsunami's, sustain crops, and prevent someone from dying of thirst. Just because a single vote doesn't determine an election, doesn't mean the voting of the citizenry is unimportant, meaningless, or ineffectual.

To draw on this analogy, democracy (and voting) matter because politicians fear "the Flood". In a well functioning democracy, "The Flood" puts leaders into power and takes them out. The fear of "The Flood" taking them out of power is an important feedback mechanism that constrains (although doesn't eliminate) corruption and helps prevent politicians from engaging in activities that are extremely unpopular with the citizenry.

THE FLOOD OF DEMOCRACY

I believe democracy is extremely valuable for national well-being. Without a removal mechanism, politicians would be far less restrained in doing what's good for themselves at the expense of the citizenry of their nation. The broader the voting support they need to gain power, the more eyes will scrutinize their behavior and the more constrained their political actions have to be. It is hard for them to take actions that are not broadly supported by the citizens of the region they represent.

Ali writes:

Swing voters matter to the outcome, but they are, by definition marginal. If politicians pay attention to a tiny sliver of the population, that’s a mark against, not for the system.

(This comment is a bit paradoxical because it seems that on the one hand, Ali is arguing that voting is meaningless because individual votes don't matter and, on the other hand, he is saying democracy is bad because it places too much power into the hands of too few voters...)

Taking the American national electoral system as an example, aspects of our system such as the electoral college and presidential primaries at first blush may seem wasteful and antiquated. A deeper analysis, however, shows how they both make it necessary for presidential candidates to spend a lot of time and energy building consensus support throughout a large portion of America if they want any hope of gaining office. It also exposes the politician to public scrutiny across the nation and makes him or her more known to people. It dilutes the power of states with large populations, requiring politicians to also focus on the desires of smaller states as well. This dilution of individual state power is one more aspect of a balance of powers and part of the genius of the American system. It also forces presidential candidates to pay attention to many marginal voters throughout society and constantly adjust and reform their campaign to accommodate as many as needed to win. To draw on the flood analogy again, the American system requires that "The Flood" to stem from many sources around the country rather than making the system vulnerable to "leaks" in a few key regions.

Ali writes:

...politicians can appeal to voters, and when voters vote, the politician who has appealed to the most voters wins. Yes. So?

To think about why this matters, simply think about the converse -- a politician being able to get into power despite overwhelming, widespread opposition. Does that sound like a better or more stable system? One of the key aspects of democracy and the process described above is that it helps build cohesion and consensus among members of society on political issues and acceptance of political leaders.

THE CULTURE OF VOTING

Ali (who is Pakistani) writes:

Pakistan isn’t a functional democracy, but the obsession with the ballot [in the US] is not simply intriguing, it undercuts the best predictions of economics: voting is a public good, why do we observe it? This debate is an attempt to understand the dynamics better.

A few observations on the "culture of voting" in America:

• Any political system whose outcome hinges on the single vote of a citizen is highly unstable. The fact that a single vote doesn't typically determine a political outcome is "not a bug, but a feature" of democracy.
• Having a miniscule chance of swaying an election is an argument against voting only if:
  • You expected your vote to be the determining one in the election.
  • The value of your time is so incredibly high that the small amount required for you to vote vastly outweighs whatever other benefits (if any) you derive from voting.
• Voting for your favorite candidate or political party is no more irrational than spending time going to game and cheering for your favorite team to win. Only in the case of voting, the team that wins may determine the direction of your city, state, or country.
• There are many social and psychic benefits to voting.
• In America, there is a strong feeling that we show our appreciation to our country and to men and women who fought and died to give us the right to vote by going to the polls. This gives people a strong sense of satisfaction from voting that is more than worth the cost they bear to vote. (A cost which is far less than many economists often portray it being.)
  • If you believe that democracy is a good thing, I would posit this is a good belief to foster in society because it increases participation in and acceptance of voting.
  • Social disapprobation of non-voters also stems from this view and may be an emergent custom that helps support voting behavior.
  • Many citizens view it as their "duty" to vote. This may be another emergent social custom that helps preserve democracy as a stable system by increasing the personal benefit derived from going to the polls.
• Most people don't expect their ballot to be the decisive ballot cast in any given election. They vote anyway. The personal satisfaction of fulfilling a civic duty and the social benefits of voting will likely outweigh most economic cost-benefits arguments about not voting for most people.
• Value is subjective. Some people value casting a ballot. Therefore individual voting is not meaningless for those individuals.
• Aggregate voting determines political outcomes. Therefore aggregate voting is not meaningless.

INFORMATION CASCADES VS. THE FOURTH ESTATE

Ali mentions discusses how uninformed voters are and the potential problem of information cascades. An added benefit of the dispersed nature of the American electoral system and slowness of presidential campaigns is that it subjects candidates running for the most important political offices into the greatest public scrutiny. Free speech and free press are vital aspects of this system. There is reason that the press is often referred to as the "fourth estate".

With the media and competing political parties trying to uncover as much dirt on candidates as possible, it reduces the probability of important information not reaching voters prior to an election. I am far more concerned about the ramifications of information cascades in developing countries that lack free speech, free press, and less educated citizens.

Another way democracies handle reduced information is by over-punishing politicians when indiscretion is discovered.

ALTERNATIVES TO DEMOCRACY?

Ali mentions that alternatives to democracy "might exist", but doesn't propose any others. He also says history is replete with other systems of government that have persisted for centuries. First, I would say that until I hear what this "mysterious hypothetical" political system is, I will assume it does not exist. Talking about it in the abstract is merely meaningless hand-waving. I'm happy to discuss the tenability of alternative systems but need to hear it described before I can gauge if it is better than democracy. Second, I would argue that other political systems have indeed existed in the past and most of them have fallen by the wayside, many times to various forms of democracy. The first nations to develop were democracies and I would posit that democracy is a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for leading economic growth.

Question: Are there any examples of countries that have flourished that either A) were democracies, B) bordered democracies that created a threat of a mass exodus of people emigrating out of their country if policies became too bad, or C) were built upon political, economic, and/or technological innovations that were "spill-overs" from existing democracies?

LEMMINGS!

Lastly, in his last post on this topic, Ali asked if I knew what a lemming was. Indeed I do. What concerns me is that Ali may be following others who are jumping over a cliff in their dismissal of and failure to appreciate the positive aspects of democracy.

See our previous posts in this debate (in chronological order):

• The Virtues of Voting
• Why Vote? Why blog about voting?
• Why Voting Matters
• Voting Debate continued...
• The Value of Voting?
• Extension to the Voting Debate: How informed are voters?
  

The Value of Voting?

Ali and I have been having an online debate on the benefits of voting. It started with Ali commenting:

The more I study Public Choice, the more convinced I am that voting is useless.

Here was my response, Ali's reply, my retort, and Ali's latest thoughts. I have a big legal writing assignment due tomorrow, but will try to respond by Wednesday.

Be sure to read Ali's latest post. He put a lot of time and thought into it.

Why Voting Matters

As promised, here is my reply to Ali's response about my post on the virtues of voting. This all started when Ali wrote:

The more I study Public Choice, the more convinced I am that voting is useless.

As one who has also studied Public Choice, I think Ali is taking the wrong conclusion from his studies. Ali is a good friend and I hope this response is not uncharitable. I mean for it to express my own views on why I disagree and to help clarify my thinking. Here goes...

Ali starts off with his economic analysis of voting:

1. Your vote doesn't matter to the outcome.

What I think Ali means to say is that your individual vote has a near-zero probability of being the deciding vote in a mass election. No argument there. I don't think anyone expects their vote to be the deciding factor in any election. (Although having voted in Florida in 2000, I came about as close as you can come for this happening in a national election.)

2. You don't have enough information about the candidates, and you will not invest enough time to find out. And if your time is incredibly cheap, and you do in fact invest that time, you're going to be roughly the only one in your area who has. All those other voters voting don't have enough information about the candidates, so the election outcome will not hinge on underlying information.

This is where I think Ali makes his first misstep in his analysis. Underlying information does matter. Just because people don't research all of it themselves doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Individuals find proxy sources such as pundits they trust, political parties to affiliate with, opinions of friends, etc. This allows them to economize on information. This is no different from how people come to make choices on a whole range of commercial goods and why branding can be so important for businesses. The credibility of these sources all hinge on underlying information which makes that information extremely relevant.

3. In a two-party system, the parties will situate themselves in the middle, to appeal to the median voter, so ultimately it won't matter if you pick the Left party or the Right party, because there aren't any Left parties or Right parties, just two parties in the Middle.

Several comments on this point and why I think who governs matters. (For reference, I believe Ali is basing this statement on the median voter theorem.)

1. The median voter theorem works only because voting does matter. Politicians know this and adjust their behavior to try to maximize the number of votes they receive.
2. Ali's statement presumes a two-party system. Good for analyzing American politics, but not for necessarily for other political systems.
3. Saying that "ultimately it won't matter if you pick the Left party or the Right party" is confusing the simplicity of the model with the complexity of reality. The model serves as a reasonably good first approximation for political behavior during elections, but has much more limited application for predicting how parties govern after elected.
4. There are two parties (in American politics) -- a Left and a Right. There is no Middle party. The Left and the Right differ a great deal in fundamental ideology. (Read Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles for an excellent treatise on this.)
5. Voters would have to be even more irrational than Bryan Caplan believes they are to invest so much energy and time into elections if parties didn't matter.
6. Leadership matters. Political leaders are often opinion leaders as well. The more charismatic they are, the more successful they will be at this. The more they sway public opinion, the more latitude they have to implement policies they believe in. I am not aware of any good economic models of leadership, but it certainly matters. (See The Leadership Challenge, Leading at the Edge)
7. Ideology matters. After getting elected, politicians will typically gravitate as far back towards their political base as they think they can without loosing popular support. If Gore had been elected President instead of Bush, the War on Terror would almost certainly have been handled differently and far more focus would have been placed on environmental policy.
8. Influence matters. Any politician who is elected brings with him or her a whole host of political relationships and networks of connection. This means they will be more easily influenced by some groups than by others. Rent-seeking by special interest groups is profoundly influenced by who gets into office, which explains why they are so willing to invest huge sums of money into political campaigns.

Ali writes:

I'm not sure I understand the positive externalities from voting in large numbers.

I have mentioned to Gordon Tullock on at least a couple of occasions that I see two key benefits to a well-functioning democracy:

1. It allows people to express disagreement without resorting to violence. By allowing people the right to try to affect political outcomes, it relieves social tension, gives an incentive for cooperation and coalition building, and helps promote peace within a society.
2. It gives accountability to political leaders by giving a periodic review of their performance. If they don't keep voters happy, they risk losing power. This tends to focus their attention on giving voters what they want. This helps to constrain the power of politicians and punish corruption when it occurs.

Tullock said he didn't disagree and then proceeded to give me one of his world-famous insults. I take that as a positive sign...

These two benefits only function if a significant portion of the population believes they have the ability to participate in political activism. As I wrote in my previous post:

Part of the reason democracy works to help maintain social order is because people believe it does. I think there is a strong tacit knowledge contained in the social stigmatization of non-voters. Don’t get so caught up in the technical analysis that you become cynical and miss out on part of the larger human dimension that is getting played out in election processes.

Ali responds to this by saying:

I'm not sure I follow. First, I'm not sure I agree that democracy "works". Second, if it works because people think it works, than surely an alternative would work if people came to believe it'd work?

When you say I shouldn't get caught up in the technical analysis, all sorts of warning bells go off. Imagine if a socialist came to you and said: "Socialism works because we're all working together. Don't get so caught up in the technical analysis that you become cynical and miss out on the element of human sacrifice and virtue that's part of the socialist process"

I'd imagine you wouldn't accept that. So why hold ourselves to lower standards with Democracy?

A few points and questions to Ali:

1. What is this "alternative" that would work if people came to believe it would work? How do you implement it and how do you get people to believe it in? What makes you think it would be better than democracy?
2. To explain what I mean by "it works", I mean it accomplishes the points I made to Gordon Tullock. It works because people believe in it in the same way that laws do. If no one believed laws would be enforced and that other people wouldn't obey them, then rule of law would ultimately break-down. That helps explain what occurs in many undeveloped countries. Expectations matter tremendously in these types of social contexts.
3. I never said to ignore the technical analysis nor did I say to lower our standards of analysis. What I did say was not to ignore that which may lie outside of it.

A few last points to make:

• When Ali says "voting is pointless", he is making a subjective, normative statement that I believe is unsupported by the positive models he is basing his conclusion on. He is a broad statement that I think over-reaches in its conclusion.
• Voting is indeed costly and individual votes have miniscule probability of affecting outcomes. As economists, rather than concluding "voting is pointless", shouldn't we instead be asking what the point of voting is?
• Economic models often ignore the influence individual actors have on one another. If everyone votes, no one vote matters, but everyone voting does. If some people don't vote, you can still get an approximation of the same outcome with a smaller number of people voting. However, if too many people become disillusioned and begin to think "voting is pointless", the positive benefits of democracy may be weakened.
• Social disapprobation of people who don't vote may be a rational cultural strategy for maintaining active participation in the democratic process, despite its costs. Most of my (non-economist) friends who don't vote in elections either try to hide the fact or feel guilt and/or shame for not voting. This cultural norm of viewing voting as a good thing may incorporate aspects of social reality that are missing in economist's models.
• Individual leaders can influence large numbers of voters. This is how mass movements start. Because each individual has one vote. the power of a large group influenced by one or several influencers can have significant impact on political outcomes.
• The notion of "one man, one vote" may help underpin the belief in the equality of all people under the law, reinforcing notions of individual rights and limited government. The act of each individual is a powerful visual reminder of this equality.

There is much more I would like to say, but will stop for now. I look forward to hearing Ali's response.

The Virtues of Voting

Is a George Mason economist allowed to talk about this?

Ali left this comment on my recent post, Yes We Can:

The more I study Public Choice, the more convinced I am that voting is useless.

I just left a response to his comment and thought it deserved a post of its own. Here is what I wrote:

I understand your sentiment, Ali, but think you may be taking away the wrong lesson. I don't think voting is useless. It has significant positive externalities when exercised in large numbers. Economically speaking, perhaps the optimal strategy is to free-ride, but I think that misses a large human side of the equation. I was a Boy Scout long before I became an economist and do believe there is value in being a contributing citizen to the society you belong to. I get utility from this and believe it helps set positive examples to others, reinforcing this behavior. I think many of the processes of democracy (such as voting, rallying, making speeches, etc.) serves to help preserve social order, promote peace within a society, and can be a vehicle for positive social change. It’s something I think is often under-appreciated by many economic models and economists.

We’ve talked before about how different societies seem to get their “pumps primed” in either positive or negative directions that affect respect for the rule of law, functioning of institutions, etc. Part of this depends on how you expect other actors around you to behave. Part of the reason democracy works to help maintain social order is because people believe it does. I think there is a strong tacit knowledge contained in the social stigmatization of non-voters. Don’t get so caught up in the technical analysis that you become cynical and miss out on part of the larger human dimension that is getting played out in election processes.

See my recent post on The Virtues of Democracy for more on this.

If you’re doubtful about the meaningfulness of voting and/or democracy, ask yourself if you’d rather live in a region of the world with or without democracy. Democracies will win my vote (no pun intended) every time. They aren’t perfect, but they are better.

P.S. -- Ali replies here. I will respond to his reply later today -- I'm on my way out to GMU's Fairfax campus to take care of some administrative stuff and get some of Triya's Indian cooking!

The Virtues of Democracy

This map shows the Democracy Index as published in January, 2007. The palest blue countries get a score above 9.5 out of 10 (with Sweden being the most democratic country at 9.88), while the black countries score below 2 (with North Korea being the least democratic at 1.03). -- Wikipedia

Tyler Cowen:

...democracy is a very blunt instrument. Especially as it is found in the United States, democracy just isn't that smart or that finely honed or that closely geared toward truth or "progressive" values. (NB: Democracy in smaller, better educated, ethnically homogeneous nations is, sometimes, another story.)

But unlike one of my esteemed colleagues, I believe that we should revere democracy as one of the modern world's greatest achievements. We should step off a British Airways flight with a tear in our eye, in appreciation for all that country has done to promote democratic government (sorry, former colonies, but perhaps you are democratic today). This is no exaggeration or blog tease: I want to see you crying at Heathrow. The future is far more likely to have "too little democracy" than "too much democracy." I do believe in checks and balances, but within a broadly democratic framework, such as we have in the United States.

That all said, we should not demand from democracy what democracy cannot provide. Democracy is pretty good at pushing scoundrels out of office, or checking them once they are in office. Democracy is also good at making sure enough interest groups are bought off so that social order may continue and that a broad if sometimes inane social consensus can be manufactured and maintained. We should expect all those things of democracy and indeed democracy can, for the most part, deliver them.

Here is Matt Yglesias on libertarianism and democracy. Here is a Hilton Root review of the new Michael Mandelbaum book praising democracy.

My thoughts: Despite all of its flaws, democracy is indeed a wonderful blessing. Some under-appreciated effects of well-functioning democracy include giving people an outlet and opportunity to have a political voice and feel a part of shaping their nation. If you take away this outlet of expression, people will often turn to guns and violence instead. Democracy has a tendency to necessitate compromise and coalition building between conflicting groups of people, helping them to maintain peaceful relationships with one another.

Some form of representational republic (like the US) with a well-structured balance of powers is the best form of government in my opinion. It captures many of the positive benefits of direct democracy, while decentralizing power and reducing the likelihood of a tyranny of the majority. One-man, one-vote is not the ideal. The ideal is to come up with a system that maximizes individual rights, dignity, and freedom. With all its shortcomings, I don't know of any system of government that does a better job at this than ones based on some form of democracy.