Why Non-Egoistic Individuals Would Vote Rationally
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probability that your erroneous policy beliefs cause unwanted policies is approximately zero” (131). The chance that one affects an election by casting the decisive vote is so small as to be negligible, or just zero. There are many problems with this view. First, under a rational model, which Caplan seems to accept, individuals do not employ rough heuristics when making cost-benefit calculations. For example, Caplan, in considering whether slight psychological benefits can have an effect, writes “everyone chooses to be irrational, because the private benefits ever so slightly exceed zero” (146). As Caplan affirms here, ifan individual only has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance ofaffecting an election, p = .000001, not 0. These are not the same. There are numerous cases ofimportant political elections having been decided by one vote or coin toss (ifthe vote is a tie), including a New York Congressional election (Dubner 3). IfD is large enough such that P [D] outweighs B, and Caplan admits that B could be very low, the cost-benefit analysis could easily cause the individual to revise her views to conform with reason. Second, in affirming rational irrationality in regards to voting, Caplan implicitly accepts the self-interested voter hypothesis, which he explicitly, and convincingly, rejects later. The SIVH states that individuals always vote in their self-interest, or perceived self-interest. Though intuitively plausible, the SIVH has not stood up to empirical verification; it simply does not seem to be the case that individuals vote in their self-interest. This is not only to say that individuals do not vote in their own best interests because they also consider the interests ofthose with whom they have close ties, like their family and friends. On the contrary, individuals seem to vote, as a whole, for what they think is best for the country. This means, for example, that young people are just as likely as seniors to support senior citizen social welfare programs, like Social Security and Medicare (149). Caplan puts it succinctly: “contrary to both economists and the man in the street, voters are not selfishly motivated. The self-interested voter hypothesis—or SIVH—is false” (148,149). Ifvoters, as an empirical matter, are not egoistic, there are strong subjective reasons (and I think objective reasons) for individuals to vote.
IV. Non-Egoistic Rationality and the Inflationary Argument Let us consider Caplan’s tariffexample. He presents this case in his first thought experiment, in which voters are the same in all respects, including their egoism. But consider cases in which voters have varying levels ofegoism. In this example, voters want to irrationally believe that “the best tariffrate for people like themselves is not 0%, but 100% … a 100% tariffcould reduce per capita income by $10,000 a person, and each person could put a $1 value on fealty to antiforeign bias” (145). However, this bias leads to a stark collective action problem, “as long as the probability ofvoter decisiveness is under 1 in 10,000, each voter sticks to his beliefin the glory ofthe 100% tariff… the 100% tariffwins hands down, inflicting a net loss of$9,999 per capita” (ibid). Ifindividuals are egoistic, Caplan is correct that voters will collectively act against their own interests. But what ifindividuals are not egoistic? Let us consider the opposite side ofthe spectrum, in which voters are welfare maximizers. Compared to the egoism model, this model is actually more likely to track how individuals vote. As Caplan writes, “Most voters disown selfish motives. They personally back the policies that are best for the country, ethically right, and consistent, and consistent with social justice” (150).