{"id":4115,"date":"2014-02-11T01:25:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T00:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=4115"},"modified":"2014-10-09T18:27:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T17:27:29","slug":"review-democracy-and-political-ignorance-why-smaller-government-is-smarter-ilya-somin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2014\/02\/review-democracy-and-political-ignorance-why-smaller-government-is-smarter-ilya-somin\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter (Ilya Somin)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This book is a quick read and covers the area decently well. The major drawback is that it doesnt discuss deliberative democracy or liquid democracy. IMO this book is not as good as Caplans recent book on the same topic<\/a> which i also read. Maybe cuz i read his first.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/gen.lib.rus.ec\/book\/index.php?md5=af2d8de3a8bc8a8e693a1be68a4bd3f3&open=0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

many people conflate political ignorance with sheer \u201c stupidity.\u201d 2 <\/span><\/p>\n

But often, ignorance is actually smart. Even highly intelligent voters <\/span><\/p>\n

can rationally choose to devote little or no effort to acquiring political <\/span><\/p>\n

knowledge. Indeed, political knowledge levels have stagnated over the <\/span><\/p>\n

past several decades, despite the fact that IQ scores have risen enormously <\/span><\/p>\n

during the same period.3<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This error with the FLR effect is one that Somin continously makes thruout the book, so I will just address it once here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The FLR effect is not g<\/em>-loaded. It is like training effects. Training increases the IQ, but not g<\/em>. Training does not make u smarter. It is a form of error introduced to the measurement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

See: http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=4029<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, it turns out that the decision to vote is rational so long as the <\/span><\/p>\n

voter perceives a significant difference between candidates and cares even <\/span><\/p>\n

slightly about the welfare of fellow citizens, as well as his or her own.15 <\/span><\/p>\n

A simple calculation suggests why this is true.16<\/span><\/p>\n

Assume that Uv equals the expected utility of voting, Cv equals <\/span><\/p>\n

the cost of voting, and D equals the expected difference in welfare per <\/span><\/p>\n

person if the voter\u2019s preferred candidate defeats her opponent. Let us <\/span><\/p>\n

further assume that this is a presidential election in a nation with three <\/span><\/p>\n

hundred million people, that the voter\u2019s ballot has only a one in one <\/span><\/p>\n

hundred million chance of being decisive, and that the voter values the <\/span><\/p>\n

welfare of his fellow citizens an average of a thousand times less than <\/span><\/p>\n

his ow n.17<\/span><\/p>\n

The figure of one in one hundred million is used for ease of exposition. <\/span><\/p>\n

Adopting the slightly more accurate figure of one in sixty million\u2014 the <\/span><\/p>\n

average odds of decisiveness in the 2008 presidential election\u2014 would <\/span><\/p>\n

not significantly alter the result.18<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, we get the following equation:<\/span><\/p>\n

EQUATION 3.1:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Utility o f Voting<\/span><\/p>\n

D*(300 million\/1000) \/ (100 million) – Cv = Uv<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ive seen this argument before. It is surely wrong. The difference between the various political options is very small. Especially in the US. A decisive vote will change very, very little in these countries. Might change nothing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is one of those, works in theory under perfect conditions but not in real politics-arguments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

M ore realistically, the average citizen probably lacks the time and <\/span><\/p>\n

expertise to study either the Gelman model or the alternatives. Unless <\/span><\/p>\n

he or she finds the reading interesting or has an extensive background in <\/span><\/p>\n

statistics, the costs o f doing the reading and analyzing the models would <\/span><\/p>\n

be far greater than the expected benefits.2 Thus the rational citizen could <\/span><\/p>\n

reasonably base his or her decisions on voting and acquiring political <\/span><\/p>\n

information on a rough intuitive sense that the chance of decisiveness is <\/span><\/p>\n

extremely low, but still higher than zero. And that is exactly what most <\/span><\/p>\n

people actually seem to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No. If one actually asks a lot of people why they vote, and i did this, they dont give answers like that. Their answers come in two categories basically:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1) The Kantian Voting argument<\/p>\n

2) The lost right to complain arguments<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first one goes simply: if everybody thought like that (about not voting), something very bad wud happen (i.e. democracy wud crash, or somesuch).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A moment’s reflection will show that this is not good reasoning. Just swap \u201dvoting\u201d with \u201dbecome a firefighter\u201d. In reality this is a matter of game theory. To the rational person, the fewer other ppl who vote, the more reason to vote, cuz his power is higher then. Ofc, if everybody was perfectly rational, they wud never admit to not voting if they wanted to vote. Why? The more people ppl believe that u vote, the less their own vote is worth, and hence it will make them less likely to vote, which increases the worth of ur vote. And so on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2) I will let Carlin handle this one: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also, ppl sometimes claim that one has a duty to vote. I think duty ethics is garbage, but some countries do have compulsory laws: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Compulsory_voting<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Belief in many other political conspiracy theories is common as well, <\/span><\/p>\n

including claims that the government is hiding evidence of visitation by <\/span><\/p>\n

alien civilizations, claims that the AID S virus was deliberately manu\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

factured to target African Americans, and assertions that government <\/span><\/p>\n

agencies planned the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and <\/span><\/p>\n

other prominent political leaders.84<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This reminds me of Gordon’s very interesting paper: Gordon, Robert A. “Everyday life as an intelligence test: Effects of intelligence and intelligence context.” Intelligence<\/em> 24.1 (1997): 203-320.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He shows clearly that belief in conspirary theories correlates perfectly with group mean IQ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rational irrationality also deserves some of the blame. It is prob\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ably no accident that Republicans are disproportionately susceptible to <\/span><\/p>\n

birtherism, while Democrats are far more likely to endorse 9 \/11 conspir\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

acy theories. It is no secret that partisan Republicans tend to be hostile <\/span><\/p>\n

to Obama, while most partisan Democrats felt similarly about Bush. <\/span><\/p>\n

These predispositions make partisans more willing to believe any claim<\/span><\/p>\n

that reflects poorly on their political enemies\u2014 often without carefully <\/span><\/p>\n

considering whether the claim is true or even plausible.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such bias seems irrational if the partisans\u2019 only goal is to get at the <\/span><\/p>\n

truth, to determine whether the allegations against Bush or Obama are <\/span><\/p>\n

accurate. But it is perfectly rational if their objective is at least partly to <\/span><\/p>\n

enjoy the emotional satisfaction of being confirmed in their preexisting <\/span><\/p>\n

views. After all, the partisan voter who mistakenly embraces birtherism <\/span><\/p>\n

or 9 \/11 conspiracy theories suffers no personal harm as a result, while <\/span><\/p>\n

deriving at least some psychological benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This kind of rational irrationality does not work. It implies the false thesis of voluntarism, namely that one can choose to believe things without evidence. This is not how beliefs work. One cannot just will oneself into believing something absurd. Rational irrationalism can work in that one can rationally decide that analyzing certain things properly and thoroly is not worth the time and hence relying on shortcuts instead, which are more error prone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

See: http:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/theodore_drange\/sobel.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ability of voters to punish large and obvious policy failures by <\/span><\/p>\n

incumbents is one of the major advantages of democracy over dictator\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ship. It probably helps explain the remarkable fact that no mass famine <\/span><\/p>\n

has ever occurred in a modern democracy, no matter how poor.72 By <\/span><\/p>\n

contrast, famines deliberately engineered by the government have often <\/span><\/p>\n

occurred in dictatorships.73<\/span><\/p>\n

Even generally ignorant and irrational voters can recognize a mass <\/span><\/p>\n

famine when they see one, and are likely to hold political incumbents <\/span><\/p>\n

responsible for it. Similar factors may explain the fact that democratic <\/span><\/p>\n

governments rarely if ever engage in mass murder against their own <\/span><\/p>\n

citizens, while many authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships do so <\/span><\/p>\n

routinely.74<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Somin has made these claims before. As for the famine one, it checks out. See Wiki: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_famines<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sources for 73-74 are:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

73. Joseph S talin \u2019s com m unist governm ent deliberately engineered a fam ine th at<\/p>\n

killed millions in the early 1930s U.S.S.R. See R ob ert Conquest, The H a rvest o f S o rro w<\/p>\n

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). An even larger governm ent-created fam ine<\/p>\n

occurred in M aoist China, tak in g an estim ated th irty m illion lives. See Jasper Becker,<\/p>\n

H u n g ry G hosts: M a o \u2019s Secret F am ine (New York: H o lt, 1996).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

74. Rudolph Rum m el, P o w er K ills : D em o cra cy as a M eth o d o f N o n v io le n ce (New<\/p>\n

Brunswick: Transaction, 1997); Rudolph Rummel, Death by Governm ent(New Brunswick:<\/p>\n

T ran sactio n, 1994)-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the connection between two or more matters of public policy is <\/span><\/p>\n

not obvious or is ignored by politicians and the media for their own rea\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

sons, voters may fail to pick it up. Social Security reform, for instance, <\/span><\/p>\n

is almost never defined as a racial issue, yet the lower life expectancy <\/span><\/p>\n

of blacks combined with the fact that they pay Social Security payroll <\/span><\/p>\n

taxes at the same rate as whites turned Social Security into a major hid\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

den redistribution from black workers to white retirees.89 The subtlety <\/span><\/p>\n

of the connection leads the relevant black issue public to ignore it. Such <\/span><\/p>\n

problems might often prevent an issue public from ever forming to begin <\/span><\/p>\n

with. Thanks in part to political ignorance, some potential issue publics <\/span><\/p>\n

are likely to be numbered among Mancur Olson\u2019s \u201c forgotten groups who<\/span><\/p>\n

suffer in silence.\u201d 90<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This wud be true if africans and europeans contributed equally. They dont. Europeans earn much more money and thus pay much higher taxes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In addition to alleviating knowledge problems by transferring decision\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

making power to foot voters, reductions in the size and complexity of <\/span><\/p>\n

government might also reduce information problems with respect to <\/span><\/p>\n

issues that still remain subject to the ballot box. The debate over voter<\/span><\/p>\n

ignorance has focused on how much voters know but rarely on the ques\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tion of how much government there is for them to know about. Yet it is <\/span><\/p>\n

clear that the greater the size and scope of government, the more voters <\/span><\/p>\n

have to know to control its policies through the ballot. As James Madison <\/span><\/p>\n

put in Federalist62, \u201c [i]t w ill be of little avail to the people that the laws <\/span><\/p>\n

are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that <\/span><\/p>\n

they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.\u201d 94<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indeed. Also great quote.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the lack of systematic survey evidence of political <\/span><\/p>\n

knowledge in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries makes it very <\/span><\/p>\n

difficult to directly compare knowledge levels then to those that prevail <\/span><\/p>\n

today. Yet we can get some idea through analysis of the sophistication of <\/span><\/p>\n

political rhetoric directed at voters by politicians. Candidates and politi\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

cal office-holders have strong incentives to accurately gauge the level of <\/span><\/p>\n

sophistication of their audience so as to make more effective campaign <\/span><\/p>\n

appeals.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Linguistic researchers at the YourDictionary.com website used the <\/span><\/p>\n

Flesch-Kincaid scale to gauge the grade level of the language and phras\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ing used in every presidential inaugural address from 1789 to 20 0 1.11 <\/span><\/p>\n

They found that every inaugural address prior to 1900 reached what <\/span><\/p>\n

would today be considered a izth-grade level, except for one that scored <\/span><\/p>\n

at 1 1 .5 .103 By contrast, inaugural addresses over the past fifty years have <\/span><\/p>\n

been around a 7th- to 9th-grade level.104<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Political scientist Elvin Lim documents a similar pattern in the evo\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

lution of presidential speeches over the past sixty years, concluding that <\/span><\/p>\n

they have become increasingly simplistic.10’\u2019 The same pattern emerges<\/span><\/p>\n

from linguist Paul J J Payack\u2019s content analysis of political debates. In <\/span><\/p>\n

the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, D ouglas\u2019s speeches rated an 1 1 .9 <\/span><\/p>\n

grade level, and Lincoln\u2019s an 1 1 . z.106 Recent presidential debates tended <\/span><\/p>\n

to fall somewhere between the 6th- and 9th grade-levels.107 The differ\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ence is all the more striking in light of the much higher education levels <\/span><\/p>\n

of modern voters compared to those of the nineteenth century.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Obviously, linguistic sophistication is not the same thing as substan\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tive sophistication. It is theoretically possible that modern politicians are <\/span><\/p>\n

simply making complex arguments using simple words. Nonetheless, lin\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

guistic complexity and substantive complexity do tend to be correlated. <\/span><\/p>\n

To the extent that is true, it would seem that politicians are directing <\/span><\/p>\n

much less sophisticated arguments at voters than did their predecessors <\/span><\/p>\n

o f a century ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Very interesting!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The source is this one: http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20111111133224\/http:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/about\/news038.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The obvious hypothesis seems to be true: mass media made presidents lower the level, so as to target more ppl. Starting with radio and become worse with TV. At least, it cant get worse now, but we are also at rock bottom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Empirical studies almost uniformly show that education and political <\/span><\/p>\n

knowledge are highly correlated, even when controlling for other variables.7 <\/span><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, those people with the highest education levels also tend <\/span><\/p>\n

to have greater political knowledge. Unfortunately, however, there is a <\/span><\/p>\n

major fly in the education-increases-knowledge ointment: massive rises in <\/span><\/p>\n

education over the past fifty years have not led to significant increases in <\/span><\/p>\n

political knowledge.8 From 1972 to 1994, average educational attainment <\/span><\/p>\n

for Americans over the age of thirty grew from eleven years of schooling to <\/span><\/p>\n

thirteen, while measured political knowledge remained roughly constant.9 <\/span><\/p>\n

On an education-adjusted basis, political knowledge may actually have <\/span><\/p>\n

declined, with 1990s college graduates having knowledge levels comparable<\/span><\/p>\n

to those of high school graduates in the 1940s.10 It is also noteworthy that <\/span><\/p>\n

rising education levels have failed to increase political knowledge despite <\/span><\/p>\n

the fact that measured intelligence has been rising, with IQ scores increas\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ing substantially over the past century.11<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The stagnation of political knowledge levels in the face of greatly <\/span><\/p>\n

augmented educational attainment suggests that further raising of edu\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

cation levels cannot be counted on to increase political knowledge in the <\/span><\/p>\n

future.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The decline is surely due to opening up of education. High school in 1940 was more g<\/em> selective than college is today in the US.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.census.gov\/hhes\/socdemo\/education\/data\/cps\/historical\/fig2.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.census.gov\/hhes\/socdemo\/education\/data\/cps\/historical\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HS or more was about 24% in 1940, and college is about 32% now. Add to that all the lower g<\/em> immigrants, it means that the college level is quite low now compared to HS in 1940.<\/p>\n

Back then \u201dhigh school\u201d actually meant just that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An alternative but not mutually exclusive explanation is that edu\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

cation correlates with political knowledge in large part because it is a <\/span><\/p>\n

proxy for intelligence. When IQ is controlled for, the correlation between <\/span><\/p>\n

education and economic knowledge is sharply reduced, and intelligence <\/span><\/p>\n

turns out to have the greater effect of the tw o .11 Political knowledge may <\/span><\/p>\n

function similarly. Yet rising IQ scores over the last several decades have <\/span><\/p>\n

also seemingly failed to increase political knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was going to cite this study, but he did it himself. :)<\/p>\n

its this one, by Caplan, his libertarian brother in arms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Caplan, Bryan, and Stephen C. Miller. “Intelligence makes people think like economists: Evidence from the General Social Survey.” Intelligence<\/em> 38.6 (2010): 636-647.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/econfaculty.gmu.edu\/bcaplan\/pdfs\/intelligencethinklike.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nonetheless, future technological breakthroughs might still signifi\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

cantly increase political learning through the media. This is particularly <\/span><\/p>\n

likely if future technologies make it possible for people to assimilate <\/span><\/p>\n

new information with less time and effort than is possible at present. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rationally ignorant voters may continue to limit the resources they are <\/span><\/p>\n

willing to devote to learning about politics. But more advanced informa\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tion technology might make it possible for them to learn more without <\/span><\/p>\n

devoting any more effort to the task than at present.74<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Genetic engineering, gogogo! :)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book is a quick read and covers the area decently well. The major drawback is that it doesnt discuss deliberative democracy or liquid democracy. IMO this book is not as good as Caplans recent book on the same topic which i also read. Maybe cuz i read his first. http:\/\/gen.lib.rus.ec\/book\/index.php?md5=af2d8de3a8bc8a8e693a1be68a4bd3f3&open=0   many people conflate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1839,1946,1921],"tags":[2012,1067],"class_list":["post-4115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychometics","category-political-science","category-sociology","tag-political-ignorance","tag-review","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4117,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115\/revisions\/4117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}