Gary Bass reviews Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies for this week’s NYT Magazine. Caplan argues that voters are not only ignorant but, worse, irrational - by which he means that they don’t think like economists.

To the exasperation of the libertarian-minded Caplan, most Americans do not think like economists. They are biased against free markets and against trade with foreigners. Absurdly, they think that the American economy is being hurt by too much spending on foreign aid; they also exaggerate the potential economic harms of immigration. In a similar vein, Scott L. Althaus, a University of Illinois political scientist, finds that if the public were better informed, it would overcome its ingrained biases and make different political decisions. According to his studies, such a public would be more progressive on social issues like abortion and gay rights, more ideologically conservative in preferring markets to government intervention and less isolationist but more dovish in foreign policy.

Caplan suggests “giving extra votes to individuals or groups with greater economic literacy,” permitting the Council of Economic Advisers to strike down legislation as “uneconomical,” and using the educational curriculum to stamp out biases. The Platonist in me appreciates Caplan’s frustration with democracy but there’s good reason why Plato’s political philosophy as expressed in The Republic never caught on. One of the strongest arguments in favor of reading The Republic allegorically is that Plato never deals with how such a government would establish itself. He takes for granted that individuals with Guardian-like abilities will be recognized and trusted. Caplan’s suggestions present a similar problem: how would we use the Council of Economic Advisers to strike down “uneconomical” legislation, for instance, if the democratic process is itself unreliable?

There’s a deep problem with Caplan’s approach, which Bass puts his finger on: “Caplan’s view of democracy is all about efficiency, not legitimacy.” The idea that government should pursue economic efficiency for its own sake is contrary to democratic values. In a democracy, the government should pursue economic efficiency if and only if it’s the will of the people. And in many cases, it’s not. For a democratic government to be legitimate, it must reflect the values and preferences of the public it serves. It is not enough for it merely to be right.

… Samuel P. Huntington pointed out the weakness of dictatorships that justify their rule by only the quality of their job performance: as soon as something goes wrong — a war is lost or inflation skyrockets — the public has no further reason to put up with a despot. If the public asked Caplan’s Council of Economic Advisers by what authority it struck down a law, the council members could point only to their diplomas and peer-reviewed articles. A democratic public may not always like — or understand — the government’s policy, but the consent of the governed gives the citizens a reason not to reject the whole system.