The Wise Vote

The word democracy was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (Kratos) "power"[1]. This is a political system in which the people are supposed to have the power.

It used to be said that only three things were definitely true of the Holy Roman Empire: it wasn't holy, it wasn't Roman, and it wasn't an empire. Similarly, two things are definitely true of representative democracy: it isn't democracy and it isn't representative.
~Gerard N. Casey

Let's see in practice: who has the power in a modern representative democracy? Obviously the one wielding the power is the state. But isn't the state controlled by the people? After all, they get to vote for people who decide on what laws are passed and so on.

But not everybody gets to vote. Most countries don't let children vote, even though children are a part of the people. This seems obvious to many, but in principle it's arbitrary exclusion. Children do not get to vote, because the grown-ups have decided(and passed laws) that children(in many cases defined as 17 years old or less) are not mature enough to make wise decisions.

What if these grown-ups picked some other group and did exactly the same thing? For example it could be rationalized that it's not wise to let the rich vote, because they are blinded by their greed and cannot look a the big picture. They are selfish and do not care for their fellow man, so why should they get to decide anything? I mean, that's just common sense. Obviously you could also argue that the poor shouldn't get to vote, because if they can't even handle their own money, how can they be put in charge of society?

Sure that sounds crazy, but the principle is the same. So to say that "the people" get to decide is inaccurate. Only adults get to vote, because in their opinion only they should get to vote.

If it is to be tenable, representative or indirect democracy requires a clear, robust, and defensible conception of representation.
~Gerard N. Casey

So what is representation? If someone represents me, then he is to do as I have instructed. He will stop representing me if I so demand. My representative is responsible to me and to some extent I am now responsible for my representative's actions.

Political representatives do not, and in fact, they cannot do as we instruct them to do. They do not know most of those they are supposed to represent. Even if they knew the wishes of all, then whose wishes will they listen to? People have different opinions on different things.

Political representatives do not stop at our command. They might not get re-elected, but before election day there's nothing one can do. On election day one can vote for someone else, but that is all.

Political representatives are not responsible to us. In fact without careful monitoring most of the things political representatives do in our name go unnoticed. We certainly aren't responsible for what they do.

Welcome To Democratic Utopia

In the Never-never land of perfect political competition, people do some pretty crazy stuff. Before voting people do extensive research on all kinds of different candidates. They vote for the one that they agree with the most. If the candidate they voted for does something they don't like then they vote for someone else.

In the real world people don't really care that much. In the marketplace people trade money for services and goods. Economic calculation is easy, ex post evaluation of their actions(should I have bought that or not? Etc...) is relatively straightforward and so on. What about voting? In the eyes of one person does that vote mean anything at all? Is it possible for him to evaluate if he should've voted for someone else or not? Can he in any way sense the change he's made in the world by voting?

These questions answer themselves. This lack of feedback leads to people feeling detached from the real impacts of the political process; thus they do not use much time when they decide who they're going to vote for. This is a completely rational thing to do. People economize time, too.

People also have a psychological tendency to vote for those who are more likely to win, even though they actually agree more with another candidate.

To be continued...

[1] Wikipedia Democracy