Over at the Adam Smith Institute’s Weblog, Madsen Pirie says:
There is another view which says that politics matters less these days. When the UK government provided houses and jobs for many of us, and ran the electricity, gas, oil and phone companies, together with steel, coal, ships and cars, it mattered who was in charge. With less coming from government and more from ourselves and the private sector, it is not as important. People tend to vote heavily in high tax countries such as Denmark, and less so in low tax countries such as the USA.
In other words, if politics (i.e. the scramble for the favour of the majority) becomes less important, voting goes down.
Many libertarians, notably Perry de Havilland of this blog, believe that the same idea in reverse is true – that by not voting we can reduce the politicisation of our lives. ‘Let them wither away to irrelevance,’ he says. I’m not so sure. It might be one of those nasty paradoxes such as the one whereby safety breeds lack of vigilance, which makes us less safe.
Perhaps the first to stop voting are those who have achieved relative independence, leaving disproportionate influence to those still at the trough. Have any studies been done on this? And does anyone know what percentage of those eligible to vote in, say, 1900 when the State was very weak, actually did so?
I remember when I was at University 20+ years ago, the hard left dominated Union politics.
On the one hand, despite the vast majority of students being apolitical – with far more important things like drinking to do – “our” Union (which was a closed-shop) represented all of us as similarly left-wing.
On the other hand, most of us didn’t really notice – see drinking comment above.
It seems to me that the difference now is that what our politicians increasingly effects us as the State is getting so much bigger and the consequences of their actions on some key current issues will have a profound effect on all our lives for years to come.
The trouble is, who the hell do we vote for? Apart from the cynicism of all politicians mentioned here a few days ago, the Liberal and Labour Parties are clearly (to me) out of the question. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have betrayed those voters, like me, who used to vote for them but their populist/leaderless approach – did anyone else have trouble understanding what IDS was talking about yesterday – rules them out too.
This country faces some very difficult decisions in the next couple of years and right now, no party is willing to admit to the issues, let alone consider rational approaches to them.
Natalie,
as regards your question concerning voting behaviour:
the book to read is Tullock and Buchanan’s The Calculus of Consent. Tullock and Buchanan are the co-founders of public choice theory — basically the application of economic thinking to the political sphere.
A must-read for all libertarians.
It’s so good I’ll eventually get around to reading it myself.
Your power as a voter rather depends where you vote and under what system of representation, as well as how much power your representative has. (The latter monotonicly decreasing.) I’ve only ever lived in safe seats so it scarcely matters whether I vote or not unless I can alarm the pols by supporting an appropriate fringe candidate.
However, while there is still some power in the hands of the representatives, it seems madness not to try and influence them. Not voting is not the safest course, like not eating at an unhygenic burger bar. You don’t get the choice not to eat. So rather than make the effort to choose the least toxic product, you guarantee you’ll be fed the other customers’ leftovers.
Dear Natalie,
From the standpoint of pure logic, the argument that more government –> higher voter participation would indeed appear to be strong. However, the history of the United States runs precisely in the opposite direction: voter turnout peaked at 90% in 1896 and has been sliding downhill ever since.
So: Are we an anomaly, or does the argument contain a flaw?
All my best,
Fran Porretto
No one should be surprised that high voter participation is positively correlated to big government.
People tend to vote their narrow self-interest.
Your narrow self-interest is served by dipping your paw into the public purse.
People thus tend to vote themselves benefits at public expense.
If more people vote, you just have more people voting themselves benefits at public expense.
This is well-known as the fatal flaw of democracies, since at least Greek times. I guess we have to rediscover in periodically. Public choice theory dresses it up and explains some marginal issues, like why programs never die, but the basic dynamic has long been well-known.
I personally love to watch people react to my observation that limited Consitutional government in the US began to end, and the nanny state began its inexorable rise, when women got the right to vote.
“Many libertarians, notably Perry de Havilland of this blog, believe that the reverse is true – that by not voting we can reduce the politicisation of our lives.”
How can you tell a man, or a government to take their sticky fingers out of your pocket, if you refuse to talk to them?. Which is what you do by refusing to vote.
If you think that by putting your head in the sand, you will achieve a satisfactory outcome to events that materially affect you, then you are woefully mistaken. All you get is your backside being kicked, – and hard!.
What a bizarre thinking!!!
But reflects well the story of last 20-30 years
Continued abdication of people with comon sense to challenge the left.
Do you think that the society is something that stopped in time and isnt being changed continually in a way or a another?
Do you think that the enemies of freedom arent always promoting theirs agenda of more statism and control?
“For the triumph of evil, it´s enough god man do nothing” Edmund Burke
I’ve often wondered if there are any voting systems that allow a citizen to vote for no one. What would happen if one of the choices on the ballot was “none of the above” and, when “none of the above” won, the election had to be re-run? Wouldn’t that encourage the politicians to find out what the people who voted “none of the above” wanted?
Mr. Porretto notes that voter participation peaked in the 1890s. That is also, roughly, the end of the limited franchise in the US, so that is 90% of a smaller and selective group. Of course, the folks being selected out included women, blacks, etc. (as well as the illiterate), so I am not complaining about the expansion of the franchise. Nonetheless, it may well be the case that all of the voters in the 90% continued to vote, but their franchise was diluted, and their vote swamped, by the newcomers.
>What would happen if one of the choices on the ballot was “none of the above”
Even better is “Strong NOTA,” in which, if NOTA wins then the position goes unfilled (and the powers unexercised) until the next election.
You know, Tom, there’s no reason to stop at “strong NOTA.” We could have “kick-ass NOTA,” in which, if NOTA prevails three times for a particular office, the office and the associated powers are permanently abolished. Then there’s “NOTA on steroids,” in which any candidate who is thrice defeated by NOTA in a general election is jailed for life.
All of this puts me in mind of a story by Christopher Anvil, “Mission Of Ignorance.” One of the motifs of that story was that the total size of the law code was bounded from above; once it had reached that maximum size, to pass a new law, the legislature first had to repeal an old one. Another motif was that every law passed had to survive review by the Committee of Dunces, a panel of men with no legal training who could veto any law as too complex for a layman to understand.
Let your imaginations loose, friends!
The most consistent and powerful voting block in the US is the senior citizen group. The results are numerous programs which redistribute great wealth from the working younger members of society to seniors in the guise of Social Security pensions and Medicare/Medicaid.
The former is a Ponzi scheme from which none of my children or grandchildren will ever collect a dime, no matter how many thousands they pay in. The latter is an “entitlement” program which spends enormous amounts of money for medical and nursing home care for the parents of middle class people who don’t want aging relatives cluttering up their “lifestyle”.
The projections for both SS and Medicare programs show exponential rises in costs for the foreseeable future, until they dwarf all other government expenditures. They are not sustainable.
I would suspect that the lack of voting by large segments of the younger, working population has something to do with this state of affairs. I would have to be shown some very powerful evidence that refusing to vote somehow immunizes the person or group against governmental depridation.
Intuitively, and with respect to the situation as described above, I would be inclined to believe that not voting puts one in the same position as the zebra that breaks left when the herd breaks right at the sight of lions—you are lunch.
I’ve often said I’d be happy to vote for any candidate who promised, first, to pass no new laws, and second, to start a programme to repeal at least half those already on the statute books… Also from Mr Poretto’s stimulating post, I’m impressed hugely by the notion of the “NOTA on steroids” voting option, and the pause for thought this might produce in quite a few candidates for office.
Re Ernest Young’s post, he has a point, but a problem arises when there is no-one worth voting for: I mean, voting for the sake of it reduces a vital democratic function to the level of a sterile reflex, a decadent shadow of the real thing.
A poll:
When was the last time any of you read “Civil Disobedience”?
It is utterly astonishing to me how the authentic moral principles at the bottom of voting get swamped under sentiment and “intiution”.
“Your problem is that you’re trying to clean up the whorehouse but keep the business.”
(Frank Chodorov, to the Libertarian Party, 1971)
Tony H,
If there is no-one worth voting for, what does that say about you and your peers?.
Whose fault is it that the only candidates for office are considered an inferior bunch of idiots?, the fault lies with us…if they are so poor, then step up and be counted and run for office yourself! or recommend, persuade, or otherwise cajole someone whose opinion and intellect you do respect.
You know, there is no specific job description for the job of ‘politician’, all that is required is a normal, reasonably intelligent person, who is willing to devote time to the society in which they live. The idea of ‘career’ politicians only really came about in the1960’s.
There is no reason to expect a lawyer to be any better at it than a car salesman or an accountant, or a butcher baker, or candle stick maker, and in this age of ‘multi-careerism’, there is no excuse for being shy about standing, on the grounds that it may impair your career. Probably it would be a career enhancer.
We get the politicians we deserve – now ain’t that the truth!.
Socialism was built – over many years – on the premise of ‘One for all, and All for one’, not that they actually practised it on an individual level, but they certainy do at a group level.
THe ‘closed shop union’ is a manifestation of this.
Such a Union will have members from all persuasions, but the group will be managed by socialists, who will then cast their vote(s), and the Unions cash, behind the candidate of their choice. (See Gray Davis’s list of supporters).
When you consider the list of unionised professions and industries, it is not surprising that the bias is toward the more ‘liberal’ policies. When did you last hear of a ‘right wing’ union?.
Conservative voters are not organised in the same way, and really have little defence against the “Workers Solidaritity’ organisation of the Left. After all it was strong enough to defeat the Russian State machine in Poland!
Somehow a commitee of ‘blue rinses’, really can not be expected to out-politick a commitee of hardened university ‘brainwashed’ political savants.
Face it, the Left are well organised and well funded, and they have a long tradition of getting their own way, by fair means or foul.
The only reply that the moderates and the Right have is excercise their vote – frequently and consistently. It is the only way that we can show our ‘solidarity’ with the principles that we believe in.
If it might persuade you to go and vote, – remember – the left are doing their collective best to persuade you that voting is a waste of time, that ‘it is done deal’.
Reading this post and comments, it would seem that they succeeding……
If there were ‘open field’ elections in all of the US, I’d be much more in favor of voting here. (The CA recall was a very open field, which is why it was so interesting).
An open ballot with the only requirement to stand being that of being a citizen not in the clink at the moment, combined with Condorcet voting, would be an election that a vote would be worth something in.
With all candidates vetted by establishment connections and/or cash by (State funded!) primaries, and signiture requirements (only established parties and the rich can pay enough to gather enough signatures), we have finally succeeded in engineering ourselves an aristocracy in the US.
But if we went total open field, actual CITIZENS might stand for office and win. Oh, dear…
Didn’t that happen in California? And still, it was the well known candidate with lots of spending power(Arnie) who won.
Sad as it may be, for somebody to have a successful shot at public office, they need to have extensive experience in running businesses, be relatively well known, etc. Ideology counts only when the candidate has demonstrated his expertise. No voter wants on-the-job training for their choice.
About voting for NOTA – I repeat my proposal of a few days ago:
Introduce a “against” vote. Each voter will have the right to two votes, one a “for” vote for his favorite candidate and the other an “against” vote for the most hated candidate. The winner is the candidate who gets the highest for/against ratio.
This scenario will increase voter participation, as voters with negative feelings about the candidates will have a way of expressing their position.
If there is no-one worth voting for, what does that say about you and your peers?
It says that that people who think that modern democratic politics is just theft are not willing to join the brigandry themselves. Working from within the corrupting system is not the only way to effects changes… I would rather build networks via other means.
Ah, Perry, I was confident you would join the debate sooner or later – I hope I am not dragging you away from your holiday.*
What exact means had you in mind? How would it work?
*Does anyone ever feel a pang of sympathy for the Devil, or Lord Voldemort or anyone else who knows by psychic means when their name is spoken. “Oh, drat it all, I have my sunbathing interrupted by Harry Potter’s adolescent mental ramblings again…
Perry,
Since you are in California, a hypotetical question: would you have voted in the recall ? There was a hated leftie to unseat, a principled quasi libertarian to vote for (McClintock), and the colorful Arnold. Surely an interesting election.
Francis W Poretto – I, also of this parish, suggested something similar on a thread around two months ago and didn’t get any takers. I suggested laws that had been on the books for five years be automatically annulled unless their continued existence was specifically voted for. This would not be as time consuming as it first appears, because no party would devote the time to refighting old battles that played to the gallery of the time. Thus the Dangerous Dogs act would be dead and gone. Things like murder, rape, burglary – real crimes, would be walked through, but the junk laws would be struck from the books. Same would go for treaties. Thus Maastricht would have been dropped or re-endorsed by now, according to what we have learned in the interim. And given the plummet in public confidence in the police to do anything other than fight hate crimes, we might have our right to defend ourselves back. In another two or three years the absurd hate crimes legislation would slide off the books.
I still like this idea and don’t understand why it didn’t get any support, never mind any comment, when I mentioned it before.
Well, Verity, as attractive as the idea sounds, it’s a major departure from the status quo, and so would be unlikely to get a lot of consideration…unless some interest group with the ability to command media attention saw a potential profit in it.
There are a lot of “dogs that didn’t bark in the night” in politics. All those NOTA ideas we were discussing are in that category. Every one of them would be at least a modest improvement on existing electoral rules — but no interest group would make a buck off them. Worse, they’d require an enforcement mechanism…and when was the last time our political class enforced a law specifically aimed at them, to their own detriment?
This is the hellish part of political economy. You have to follow out the incentives and constraints to their logical conclusions. Sometimes those conclusions are just bloody awful, as here.
“It is said the ancient Greeks used a simple method to stop the multiplication of ‘laws.’ Perhaps we should try it on our Congress. Anyone wishing to propose a new law had to do so while standing on a platform with a rope around his neck. If the law was passed, the rope was removed. If the law was voted down, the platform was removed.” — from Dreams Come Due: Government And Economics As If Freedom Mattered, by “John Galt”
I still like this idea and don’t understand why it didn’t get any support, never mind any comment, when I mentioned it before.
Because you gloss over the “murder, rape, burglary – real crimes” issue as if it really is that straight forward.
Its not.
Besides, they’re probably not the laws which you’ll suddenly find are missing when you actually need them.
There’s a lot of dead wood on the statute books, but there’s also a lot of obscure crap that would take time to vote but can be rather useful for the private citizen.
Unless you propose to make everything precident and tort related, which is just another way of giving money to the legal “profession”. I’m not sure I see that as a better option that politicians.
Dave – I’m not saying it wouldn’t need to be tweaked, but it would shovel a lot of garbage out the door and out of our lives. I didn’t ‘gloss over’ murder, rape and robbery. Obviously, those laws would remain on the books by common accord – walked through on a nod. In other words, no party would dare vote against them. The gun ban, which was orchestrated by that one insane Snowdrop woman (who didn’t even have anyone killed in Dunblane) would disappear unfought for. Politicians are only interested in supporting legislated that plays to the gallery of the day, not yesterday.
Francis Poretto’s post struck a chilling chord of truth. Yes, the adoption of any of the NOTA suggestions would be an improvement over what we’ve got now, but he is right: without a special interest group (bearing gifts) to push them through, they’re not going to happen. Even better is the Greek method. So quick. So unambiguous. I like it.
“Working from within the corrupting system is not the only way to effects changes… I would rather build networks via other means.”
Perry,
Your standard reply to the suggestion that we should become more involved, is beginning to wear a little thin. I, for one would appreciate some indication of your train of thought on the matter, not an ‘in-depth’ thesis, but just a hint as to what you envision as a replacement for the democratic process.
I see a revision of the meaning of constitutional democracy, as being the first step. Throwing out a system that has been around for a long time, is not the answer, as the only alternative would seem to be some form of anarchy. Dictatorships have been tried and found wanting.
However, I would be interested to hear what you would consider to be a viable alternative.
To the question of voting or no – I suggest a pragmatic, case by case approach. Where all candidates are bad, and you don’t feel any interest in voting – then there is no point in going to vote. But when there are differences between the candidates and you feel you would like one of them to win, or feel it is imperative to keep a bad candidate out of office – you go and vote.
> Introduce a “against” vote.
Jacob:
The system you describe would probably be functionally similar to the Alternative Vote system used in Australia (and probably other places). In that system, you rank the candidates by preference. If a candidate gets a majority of first rankings, that candidate wins the office. If not, the candidate with the lowest number of first rankings is removed from the count and his or her ballots are distributed among the remaining candidates based on the second ranking. This continues until someone has a majority.
Tedd,
I wasn’t aware that such an Alternative Vote system existed.
The “against” vote is supposed to motivate people to vote in the frequent cases when all candidates stink, and you cannot bring yourself to vote for one of them, so you stay home.
Maybe the recall in California offered the nearest thing to an “against” vote (voting for the recall was voting against Davis), and indeed, the turnout was higher than usual (though, maybe it was also because of the colorful personality of Arnold).
Anyway, an “against” vote would certainly be fun, and politicians will hate it – nobody wants to be swamped by a pile of against ballots.
The gun ban, which was orchestrated by that one insane Snowdrop woman (who didn’t even have anyone killed in Dunblane) would disappear unfought for.
Verity, the problem is I think you’re wrong on this one. The Dunblane “kneejerk”, was really very very popular. The Tory government refused, rightly so, to go down that route and it was something that Nu Labour had promised should they be elected.
They were, they did. There simply isn’t enough of a gun lobby in this country to stop it. Last poll I saw had something like 80% wanting stronger gun control – although that may have changed.
So, laws like the handgun leglislation would be nodded through on a popular vote.
Watching “Hitler” over the weekend, it is a good reminder about how a weak or weakened democracy can go bad really really really quickly.
That, Dave, is the most sensible sentence on this thread.