I just finished reading and reviewing The Myth of the Rational Voter. Most of classic Public Choice theory assumes that voters vote in their self interest, in his book, Caplan explains why voters vote altruistically:
Consider. First, altruism and morality are consumption goods like any other, so we should expect people to buy more altruism when the price is low. Second, due to the low probability of decisiveness, the price of altruism is drastically cheaper in politics than in markets. voting to raise your taxes by a thousand dollar when your probability of decisiveness is 1 in 100,000 has an expected cost of less than a penny.
I find this logic convincing, but it brings up another question: why does the plurality electoral formula generate only two political parties? Does voting altruistically for a candidate who has a chance to win feel better than voting for one that does not?
In classic Public Choice theory, assuming self interested voting, this result is fairly easy to explain; the expected benefits from voting for a particular candidate are proportional to benefits from policies the candidate will implement as well as the expected probability that the candidate will win because the probability that the voter is decisive goes up as their chances of winning go up. As time goes on, a reputation for winning elections gives two parties much better chances of winning than 3rd parties, because their percieved chances of winning rise. Reputation is self reinforcing because it attracts votes, so the equilibrium is stable. This process stops at two parties because 50% of the vote is the maximum ever needed to win an election, so getting above 50% of the vote does not improve winning reputation.
Public Choice theory using a rationally irrational voter assumption explains this in a similar but slightly different way. I think the answer is that the feeling of altruism is proportional to the expected social benefits from voting for a particular candidate. The expected social benefit from voting for a particular candidate is proportional to the percieved external social benefits from the policies the candidate will implement as well as the expected probability that the candidate will win because the probability that the voter is decisive goes up as their chances of winning go up. Then, the same thing happens as in classic Public Choice; a reputation for winning elections gives two parties much better chances of winning than 3rd parties, because their percieved chances of winning rise. Reputation is self reinforcing because it attracts votes, so the equilibrium is stable.
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July 7, 2007 at 4:26 am
john m
1) People do NOT vote for taxes ‘altruistically’. The first thing the Liberal Charest government did after winning this last election (with 34% of the vote, mind) was insist on 700 million in tax cuts, against the desires of the other two parties. The social-democratic PQ only supported it on account of being dead scared of a new election (voting down a budget topples the government, and they placed third last time), with right-wing ADQ voting against, for reason of the tax-cut. People were ANGRY. tax-cuts mean lower services and higher debt, both of which everyone’s against. A poll showed something greater than 60% of quebecers opposed. It wasn’t altruism, it’s just the way they see things. People want more metro lines, better roads, pensions, lower provincial debt (which is sky-high), etc.
In Quebec, people identify with the state, so for the state to have more money is analogous to themselves having more money.
2) I wonder how it is explained that Canada and Great Britain, both using the US’s same first-past-the-post system, have viable 3-party elections at the federal level (at least, for Canada in the three largest provinces: Quebec, Ontario, and BC), while this doesn’t exist in the US. I think it’s possible that there’s something about the US that makes Americans see things differently, or if you want to listen to Chomskyites, that it’s just plain less democratic.
July 7, 2007 at 2:47 pm
jsalvati
1) I am not certain I understand your claim about cutting taxes. It seems like cutting taxes could be easily explained if the 34% who voted for the Liberals thought that cutting taxes was good for the nation as a whole. Of course, many could, and apparently do, disagree with that position, but that would not imply that the 34% did not vote altruistically in the sense of voting based on national interest as opposed to entirely self-interest considerations.
Caplan backs up his claim that voters are altruistic with a large number of studies. I have looked at a few of these and they do seem to imply that voters vote altruistically. For example, the paper “Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior: Group-Based Judgments of Fairness and Well-Being” concludes that their empirical results show that “voters are not just attentive to the overall state of the national economy, but also to whether various groups within society have been treated fairly.” The overall state of the economy and the relative fairness of policy to various groups are definitely national-interest and not self-interest concerns.
2) That’s a very good and interesting question. I don’t have an answer, but I think I will look into it.
July 31, 2007 at 7:05 pm
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[...] I have been thinking about Bryan Caplan’s assertion that voters are altruistic (which I have discussed before). Caplan’s argument relies on the fact that the probability of any vote being decisive is [...]
October 10, 2007 at 1:30 am
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