Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • The Myth of the Rational Voter

  • Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
  • By: Bryan Caplan
  • Narrated by: David Drummond
  • Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (31 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Myth of the Rational Voter

By: Bryan Caplan
Narrated by: David Drummond
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

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
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Case Against Education cover art
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution cover art
Against Democracy cover art
Fascism Versus Capitalism cover art
The Elephant in the Brain cover art
The Republican Brain cover art
Moral Animal cover art
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal cover art
The Story of the Human Body cover art
The Constitution of Knowledge cover art
The Conservatarian Manifesto cover art
Narrative Economics cover art
Seeing Like a State cover art
A Spontaneous Order cover art
Real Dissent cover art
The Ethics of Influence cover art

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)

What listeners say about The Myth of the Rational Voter

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!