Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I Have a Dream...Of a World Where Voting is Just as Simple as Buying a Soda.

During Matthew Mictchell's presentation he juxtaposes the transaction of buying a soda from a vending machine to that of the transaction a voter makes when they step into a polling booth with their ballot. In this example there is an essence of beauty present in buying a soda that is absent in the voting process.

This presence of beauty occurs when you use your own personal preferences and have the full realization that the button you chose to push will result in that particular kind of soda falling down to fulfill your utmost desire for a high fructose corn syrup beverage. However, this is not true when you vote as the way you vote doesn't result in the outcome of the ballot measures or candidates selected, as this is determined by the aggregate majority. Because of this we have this whole notion of Public Choice theory.

Why do people vote when their vote makes so little impact? Infact their vote can result in irrationality due to intransitive preferences. Now it becomes a game of rock-paper-scissors between whatever these interfaces are. For example the doves-hawks-pragmatists or the McMillerskis and they result in the same thing. A system where your vote doesn't fully count in the way that your dollar can. Mitchell states, that it is this process which results in cycling and if the institution is not changed and we only change the people we will find ourselves facing the same dilemmas that our political economy is built on.

According to Mitchell's argument the reverse should be true. If we purchased a soda in a machine that would spit something else out then we would care less about which button we push. Using these explanations as to why people choose to be rationally ignorant or to develop their vote based on an internal basis or consideration of the candidate's personal level of attractiveness is nothing shocking.

What would be shocking would be a world where this essence of buying a soda with its of importance of personal choice and the tangible cause and effect relationship was present in a system's legal and political institutions. In this world we as individuals would be empowered by the fact that their votes count and make a difference, in result we would have the incentive to stray away from being an idiot voter (I personally know some one who votes like a test on how everyone else votes and always anxiously awaits for results to see if his voting is "right".... Ridiculous, I know). This world however as cynical as it sounds just a dream...How can we ever aspect ever to live in a system were personal choice could be reflected in public choice without the conflict of equity problem (the problem of our choice crowding out the choices of others)?

2 comments:

  1. "According to Mitchell's argument the reverse should be true. If we purchased a soda in a machine that would spit something else out then we would care less about which button we push. Using these explanations as to why people choose to be rationally ignorant or to develop their vote based on an internal basis or consideration of the candidate's personal level of attractiveness is nothing shocking."

    The problem, as I see it, is that there isn't an alternative to government. We have an alternative to the glitchy vending machine. We could walk to the Wood Center and use another one, or St Jeebus forbid, walk down the hall and use the drinking fountain. I'd like his analogy more if the real world had a series of opt-in governments. We could put our money in one vending machine, I like koek more than pessi, but there is nothing keeping me from switching.

    It'd be nice if we could do the same with governments. Ask David how.

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  2. So are you saying if we had more competition between governments they we could have the option of choosing a less glitchy one? Or are you referring to a problem based on the lack of possible substitutes?

    We should remember though to ask David about this tomorrow...Oh yeah and I'll remember to do a Google image search on Austrian economists and send you the results for some potential "beard mustache action" this Thursday.

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