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The Myth of the Rational Voter

Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

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The Myth of the Rational Voter

By: Bryan Caplan
Narrated by: David Drummond
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About this listen

The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.

Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Boldly calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisely because it does what voters want. Through an analysis of Americans' voting behavior and opinions on a range of economic issues, he makes the convincing case that noneconomists suffer from four prevailing biases: they underestimate the wisdom of the market mechanism, distrust foreigners, undervalue the benefits of conserving labor, and pessimistically believe the economy is going from bad to worse. Caplan lays out several bold ways to make democratic government work better - for example, urging economic educators to focus on correcting popular misconceptions and reccomending that democracies do less and let markets take up the slack.

The Myth of the Rational Voter takes an unflinching look at how people who vote under the influence of false beliefs ultimately end up with government that delivers lousy results. With the upcoming presidential election season drawing nearer, this thought-provoking book is sure to spark a long-overdue reappraisal of our elective system.

This book is published by Princeton University Press.

©2007 Princeton University Press (P)2010 Redwood Audiobooks
Economics Political Science Politics & Government Economic inequality Economic disparity Economic policy
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Critic reviews

"The best political book this year." ( The New York Times)
"Caplan thinks that democracy as it is now practiced cannot be salvaged, and his position is based on a simple observation: 'Democracy is a commons, not a market.'" ( The New Yorker)

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Rational acknowledgment of prevailing irrationalit

essential reading for anyone interested in the flaws of the Democratic process and how it affects economic policies.
Very efficiently debunks accepted common sense wisdom.

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Thought provoking

Do voters act in a rational fashion when they cast their ballots? Are they self interested or ideologically driven? Decades of research is strung together in a coherent and compelling story. Well worded and read. Reccomended to anyone interested in politics.

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