They Aren't Puppets; We Are
Politicians don't just absord ideas from the public. They themselves affect public opinion. Politicians give speeches, they are interviewed by the media and so on. Even if we subscribed to the ridiculous idea that politicians hold the same ideas as the voters when they get elected, what about afterwards? Society is in constant flux and new situations arise. Politicians don't then go and ask the people what they think about this new situation and what should be done about it. Instead, the politicians themselves get to influence public opinion on this particular issue. It doesn't matter whether it's human rights abuses, a natural disaster or a school shooting. The media is quick in getting the opinions of the hottest political figure of the day. Obviously it is in their interest to mold public opinion in a way that is beneficial to them. It's not like you'll ever hear a politician tell you that they screwed up.
One of the easiest ways to control public opinion is obviously through schools. What a coincidence; schools have positive externalities and have to be socialized to prevent "market failure" in education. What a coincidence!
Destructo-Denialist Optimism
The fact that people tend to look at history as a continuous march on the road of progress towards eternal bliss doesn't help at all(a bloated exaggeration, I admit). Everything old is seen as suspect, even if most people aren't self-conscious enough to notice this tendency. It's futile to point out for example that before the implementation of social welfare program X, there was no real problem to be solved there and that the program never accomplished its stated goals. This doesn't persuade anyone. That was then, this is now. Now is better, we can't go back to then.
This is a great psychological defence, since seeing the modern state for what it really is leads to some very depressing realizations.
If some oppressive measure is proposed, people will look at it and often conclude that it's insane and tyrannical. But if that oppressive measure is carried out, people will be more willing to accept it. After all, why would it be implemented if it wasn't good for us? This mentality is persuasive, even if sound reasoning or a common sense of justice can't point to any good aspect in the policy. We can even go as far as to say that it distorts people's perceptions about what counts as sound reasoning or a common sense of justice.
After all, who hasn't heard the age-old argument that goes along these lines:
"But hey, X is ok because we're already doing Y and Z that are similar." What's wrong with collecting a fingerprint database? After all, the government already has databases on information categories X and Y so what's one more on that list?
The popularity of something is largely dependent on who proposes or backs it. If it's just some friend of yours, you're more likely to reject it because you're arguing with someone of no authority. Politicians and experts on the other hand have authority and people are in their ignorance often willing to "leave it to the experts".
The Myth of the Informed Voter
People are good at identifying problems. They aren't good at figuring out the causes of those problems. They see or hear about a problem in society. Or maybe they have a personal problem that needs to be fixed. Okay, let's vote and get some government program enacted.
First let's do an analysis on whether the problem is caused by the government, or is it something a new government program can fix. Then we'll check for all the unintended consequences that follow, if this new program is enacted.
Ummm, let's make this simpler. Let's just ask the experts, who offer ...opinions. How do we choose which experts to listen to? Besides, they usually look at overall costs and benefits and know nothing of our personal situation(what the expert recommends might be good for society, but not for you personally).
In reality people don't really know anything about these things. Even something as simple as taxes is confusing for many. Everybody knows about taxes affecting incentives(or I hope they know), but no one's going to know what you're talking about when you mention the negative effect taxes have on capital accumulation.
In fact people don't even know what their taxes do. Sure they'll know something general like how much goes to welfare or national defence, but what do they know about the specifics of how those things are carried out? How many agencies, commissions and czars are there? In how many ways do they regulate the economy? No one knows, not even any state bureacrat. That's because many agencies have a lot of autonomy when it comes to what they do(so even reading through all existing laws wouldn't be enough). Just look at what the FTC does. Do you know how many people your government employs? Do you know which firms operating in your country have contracts with the governments? Contracts about what? How was it decided that the contract was needed?
Someone might object by saying: "But you don't know how companies produce things people buy, so where's the difference?" The difference is; I don't have to know. I only need to decide whether I value something more than its price or not. No one forces me to buy it. Other people buy stuff with their own money, not mine. None of this is applicable to the state.
Most people devote very little time to careful political analysis. They vote for representatives that aren't really representatives. They couldn't identify all the negative sides of their policies even if they tried to. They probably don't even know that such a thing exists as the economics of the public sector.
No one would be foolish enough to think that one person could know how to organize society. So let's take a lot of people who are equally limited in their knowledge and magically it works. Great idea.
So don't vote. I don't. Or pick a great philosopher you agree with and write his name in. I've done that, too.
-Oh what a really great idea, what would you say if everyone else thought like you?!?
Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.
