Perspective ~ Are the Voters Qualified to Pick a President?
By Sheldon Richman
The big political buzz is over whether John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are qualified to be president. The voters are expected to decide, but are they qualified to do that?
How would voters know who is up to this job? They might try to make a judgment on the basis of character. But that won?t get them far since most of what they know about the candidates? characters is the result of the theatrics we call campaigning. Voters get their impressions through the careful efforts of image consultants and media experts who make liberal use of focus groups.
Considering that political platforms consist of unkeepable promises, no candidate should score high in the character category anyway.
But character isn?t the only criterion people use. Competence is another one. Here the theory of representative government really runs into trouble. A president today is expected to ?run the economy.? How would voters know if a candidate -- any candidate -- is competent to do that? Does being a senator, governor, successful business person, or an effective campaigner demonstrate one?s capacity to manage a $15 trillion economy?
To answer that question, the voters would have to know something about economics. Uh-oh.
Most voters know nothing about how markets work -- or even that they work -- and how government tends to sabotage them. As I?ve noted before, Bryan Caplan?s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, well documents the widespread ignorance about economic principles. Public-opinion surveys unfailingly demonstrate that most people believe, as articles of faith, that 1) profitable market exchange is a zero-sum activity (one person?s gain is another person?s loss), 2) foreigners bearing goods and services are threats, 3) job preservation is good and job destruction bad, and 4) bad economic news counts more than good economic news. The inconsequential nature of a single vote and the costlessness of casting a feel-good vote guarantee that most individuals will have no incentive to examine their economic biases before voting.
Here?s the problem for democratic theory: If most people hold these demonstrably incorrect views, how can they be qualified to elect a president? They have no way to sort destructive or impossible promises from reasonable ones.
As long as presidents have the power to meddle in the economy (which means meddle with us) and are expected to do so, voters ignorant of economics are unlikely to make good decisions. Incompetent voters assure incompetent candidates and officeholders.
Most of the promises candidates make are about economic matters. Two candidates today promise to obstruct trade across the Mexican and Canadian borders because consumers? freedom to accept the best offer allegedly has eliminated manufacturing jobs in Ohio. (The candidates of course are not candid enough to blame consumer freedom, but that?s what they mean.)
If voters don?t understand markets, economic incentives, and the perverse dynamics of government interference, how can they judge those promises?
The answer is they can?t. Enthusiasts of representative democracy typically assume the existence of informed voters. But being truly informed means more than regularly watching the news, reading a newspaper, and browsing the candidates? websites. It requires more than ?caring.? Being informed means understanding basic economics*grasping, for starters, the contents of Henry Hazlitt?s Economics in One Lesson, Leonard Read?s ?I, Pencil,? and Fr?d?ric Bastiat?s ?What Is Seen and What Is Unseen.?
In other words, a truly informed person must understand that no one can be qualified to be president because no one can do what a president is expected and empowered to do.
Until that sort of informed person predominates, I will shudder at ?get out the vote? campaigns.
<hr>
Local-government efforts at revitalizing downtowns have been astounding*if their goal was to create commercial ghost towns. J. H. Huebert reports on an all-too-common urban phenomenon.
The free market can be counted on to penalize firms that prefer rigid bureaucratic management to entrepreneurial dynamism. But what happens when government intervention tilts the field in favor of bureaucracy? Kevin Carson looks at the consequences of the mixed economy and what might have been.
States are beginning to outlaw payday-lending businesses. Do the bans protect the poor from predatory lending or merely deprive them of one of the few options they have left? George Leef isn?t surprised by the results.
The lust for power has been present in every age, even during the American founding and early years of the republic. Joseph Stromberg has some overlooked facts about a romanticized age.
In this era of pervasive government, it?s good to be reminded that people working outside the political realm can do some amazing things. James Payne has one such reminder.
Civil contempt of court is a charge that few people give any thought to. But as Wendy McElroy reports, it?s responsible for the revival of the debtors? prison in America.
Why are the opponents of free markets so much better at making their case visually than libertarians are? Joseph Packer has a wake-up call for the freedom movement.
The conventional wisdom says countries import, reluctantly, so they can export. That?s ridiculous, says Norman Van Cott. Our columnists have brewed up the following: Richard Ebeling revisits the postwar German ?economic miracle.? Donald Boudreaux explains why he won?t vote. Stephen Davies looks at the role of migration in history. John Stossel says no president can manage an economy. David Henderson shows how markets minimize irrational discrimination. And Gene Callahan, reading the claim that we will have to lower our living standards to help the poor countries, ripostes, ?It Just Ain?t So!?
Our dogged reviewers scrutinize books on globalization, the modern libertarian movement, guns in America, and Europe?s economic history.
http://www.fee. org/publications /the-freeman/ article.asp? aid=8262
By Sheldon Richman
The big political buzz is over whether John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are qualified to be president. The voters are expected to decide, but are they qualified to do that?
How would voters know who is up to this job? They might try to make a judgment on the basis of character. But that won?t get them far since most of what they know about the candidates? characters is the result of the theatrics we call campaigning. Voters get their impressions through the careful efforts of image consultants and media experts who make liberal use of focus groups.
Considering that political platforms consist of unkeepable promises, no candidate should score high in the character category anyway.
But character isn?t the only criterion people use. Competence is another one. Here the theory of representative government really runs into trouble. A president today is expected to ?run the economy.? How would voters know if a candidate -- any candidate -- is competent to do that? Does being a senator, governor, successful business person, or an effective campaigner demonstrate one?s capacity to manage a $15 trillion economy?
To answer that question, the voters would have to know something about economics. Uh-oh.
Most voters know nothing about how markets work -- or even that they work -- and how government tends to sabotage them. As I?ve noted before, Bryan Caplan?s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, well documents the widespread ignorance about economic principles. Public-opinion surveys unfailingly demonstrate that most people believe, as articles of faith, that 1) profitable market exchange is a zero-sum activity (one person?s gain is another person?s loss), 2) foreigners bearing goods and services are threats, 3) job preservation is good and job destruction bad, and 4) bad economic news counts more than good economic news. The inconsequential nature of a single vote and the costlessness of casting a feel-good vote guarantee that most individuals will have no incentive to examine their economic biases before voting.
Here?s the problem for democratic theory: If most people hold these demonstrably incorrect views, how can they be qualified to elect a president? They have no way to sort destructive or impossible promises from reasonable ones.
As long as presidents have the power to meddle in the economy (which means meddle with us) and are expected to do so, voters ignorant of economics are unlikely to make good decisions. Incompetent voters assure incompetent candidates and officeholders.
Most of the promises candidates make are about economic matters. Two candidates today promise to obstruct trade across the Mexican and Canadian borders because consumers? freedom to accept the best offer allegedly has eliminated manufacturing jobs in Ohio. (The candidates of course are not candid enough to blame consumer freedom, but that?s what they mean.)
If voters don?t understand markets, economic incentives, and the perverse dynamics of government interference, how can they judge those promises?
The answer is they can?t. Enthusiasts of representative democracy typically assume the existence of informed voters. But being truly informed means more than regularly watching the news, reading a newspaper, and browsing the candidates? websites. It requires more than ?caring.? Being informed means understanding basic economics*grasping, for starters, the contents of Henry Hazlitt?s Economics in One Lesson, Leonard Read?s ?I, Pencil,? and Fr?d?ric Bastiat?s ?What Is Seen and What Is Unseen.?
In other words, a truly informed person must understand that no one can be qualified to be president because no one can do what a president is expected and empowered to do.
Until that sort of informed person predominates, I will shudder at ?get out the vote? campaigns.
<hr>
Local-government efforts at revitalizing downtowns have been astounding*if their goal was to create commercial ghost towns. J. H. Huebert reports on an all-too-common urban phenomenon.
The free market can be counted on to penalize firms that prefer rigid bureaucratic management to entrepreneurial dynamism. But what happens when government intervention tilts the field in favor of bureaucracy? Kevin Carson looks at the consequences of the mixed economy and what might have been.
States are beginning to outlaw payday-lending businesses. Do the bans protect the poor from predatory lending or merely deprive them of one of the few options they have left? George Leef isn?t surprised by the results.
The lust for power has been present in every age, even during the American founding and early years of the republic. Joseph Stromberg has some overlooked facts about a romanticized age.
In this era of pervasive government, it?s good to be reminded that people working outside the political realm can do some amazing things. James Payne has one such reminder.
Civil contempt of court is a charge that few people give any thought to. But as Wendy McElroy reports, it?s responsible for the revival of the debtors? prison in America.
Why are the opponents of free markets so much better at making their case visually than libertarians are? Joseph Packer has a wake-up call for the freedom movement.
The conventional wisdom says countries import, reluctantly, so they can export. That?s ridiculous, says Norman Van Cott. Our columnists have brewed up the following: Richard Ebeling revisits the postwar German ?economic miracle.? Donald Boudreaux explains why he won?t vote. Stephen Davies looks at the role of migration in history. John Stossel says no president can manage an economy. David Henderson shows how markets minimize irrational discrimination. And Gene Callahan, reading the claim that we will have to lower our living standards to help the poor countries, ripostes, ?It Just Ain?t So!?
Our dogged reviewers scrutinize books on globalization, the modern libertarian movement, guns in America, and Europe?s economic history.
http://www.fee. org/publications /the-freeman/ article.asp? aid=8262
