2min chapter

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Demons of Democracy

Hi-Phi Nation

CHAPTER

Does Democracy Always Do What's in the Middle?

Jason Brennan is a political philosopher at Georgetown University. He doesn't particularly like compulsory voting, or democracy, really. Do we want to do what the median voter supports? It really depends on whether you think the median voter knows what he or she is talking about. I frankly think the median Voter is highly ignorant and supports a lot of bad ideas.

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Speaker 1
Ultimately, that comes down to a judgement call about, is it good that democracy always does what's in the
Speaker 2
middle? Jason Brennan is a political philosopher at Georgetown University. He doesn't particularly like compulsory
Speaker 1
voting, or democracy, really. Do we want to do what the median voter supports? It really depends on whether you think the median voter knows what he or she is talking about. I frankly think the median voter is highly ignorant and supports a lot of bad ideas.
Speaker 2
It's a complaint about democracy that goes back to Plato, really. Governing a state should require a lot of knowledge and good thinking. But the people who do the voting just keep showing that they have neither.
Speaker 1
Basically, voters know almost nothing. Who's the president? Who's the vice president? Which direction is the unemployment rate going on? We're not asking them for very precise stuff. In the year 2000, they ask American voters, who tends to be more liberal? Al Gore or George W. Bush? And 57% get the right answer. That's already pretty depressing. But then they ask them follow-up questions. Okay, so slightly more than half of you know that Gore is more liberal than Bush. Who's more in favour of abortion rights for women? Who's more in favour of extending the civil rights of blacks? Who's more in favour of protecting the environment? For most of those questions, fewer than a third of people knew the answer and the same number of people got the answer wrong. So it's like they know that there's this word liberal that applies to Al Gore and they don't even know what
Speaker 8
the word means.
Speaker 1
And it's always been like that. In 1964, they ask American voters, is Russia part of NATO? And this is a year and a half after we almost had a devastating nuclear war with them and most Americans didn't know. So what's surprising is that ignorance has been stable over time. We have devices in our pockets now that are capable of accessing all the world's information instantaneously and nevertheless
Speaker 8
we don't know anything.

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