The Myth of the Rational Voter

Bryan Caplan's argument that voters are not merely ignorant but systematically irrational — holding biased beliefs about economics that democracy selects for because the personal cost of wrong political beliefs is zero.

Rational irrationality: it is individually rational to hold irrational political beliefs because the probability that your vote is decisive is near zero, so there is no personal cost to being wrong. Voters indulge their biases — anti-market, anti-foreign, make-work, pessimistic — because it's psychologically satisfying and costless. Democracy doesn't select for truth; it selects for popular beliefs. The implication: economists should have more influence on policy, not voters. One of the most important books in political economy.