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A while back I questioned the value of public protesting and suggested handwriting a letter instead. I've also questioned the value of voting, the most traditional way of citizen involvement. I certainly don't think voting is worthless, but I do have a different understanding of why I and others really vote (even for a third party). Not only is the probability of your vote making a difference in national election statistically impossible, voting also has another huge flaw, everybody only gets one. No matter how how passionate/apathetic and educated/uneducated you are, all voices count the same. This is simultaneously democracy's greatest strength and weakness. Luckily, citizens have created other ways to influence government, some better than voting:
"One man one vote" is not always optimal. I reported a few days ago that technocrats can under some conditions take better decisions than a referendum could. The point there was about information and heterogeneity of preferences.
Surajeet Chakravarty and Todd Kaplan use similar arguments to compare simple voting and shouting matches. In the latter, those caring more about the outcome put more effort into shouting. Thus, if there is a lot of variance in opinions, shouting better reflects marginal utility and yields something closer the social optimum.
How is this shouting concretely expressed? It should be a signal that is costly and in some way wasteful. In France, it is demonstrating on the streets. In the United States it is donating to political campaigns. In Thailand it is erecting barricades. Usually seen as major inefficiencies, all these can actually be good.
Greece seems to have their own, less conventional method. This is why I was happy with the Supreme Court case earlier this year that struck down limits to campaign finance. I've done a lot of research on the topic and it seems to be one of the most efficient ways for citizens to show their preferences for government. Criticizing the equality in voting probably makes many very uncomfortable, but that only confirms to me that voting is less about producing an effective government and more about satisfying a citizen's desire for participation.
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Comments
05.30.10
wow. these are exactly the actions of the teapartiers and the congress that get their donations from oil/wallstreet/etc.
and you believe in this?
you must be a CEO of something! life sure must be a happy place for you.... LOL
see you at the voting booth
05.30.10
Not sure I understand what you mean by "actions of the teapartiers". My guess is they would probably be encouraging more regular people to vote.
I don't believe voting is bad (I always vote) per se or that donating to political campaign is good (never done it), I was just pointing out one of the flaws of democracy.
Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a CEO, just a lowly high school history and economics teacher.
Here's why I vote:
http://harrisonbrookie.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-i-voted.html
And why I think other people vote:
http://harrisonbrookie.blogspot.com/2010/03/involvement-is-consumption-n...
I'm curious, why do you vote?
05.30.10
i vote because i believe my vote does count. also, i have been an activist for 40 years, since the very first earth day when i was 16. i do both for my 4 grandchildren. i believe in protest obviously, have been a part of many. in my experience, shouting only presents anger which diminishes the impact, especially when it is backed by corporate money. that is who the teapartiers represent (to me). they are being led against their best intrest by lobbyist for corporations who want more more more for the top people....(and the trickle down theory remain a theory!)
05.30.10
i vote because i believe my vote does count. also, i have been an activist for 40 years, since the very first earth day when i was 16. i do both for my 4 grandchildren. i believe in protest obviously, have been a part of many. in my experience, shouting only presents anger which diminishes the impact, especially when it is backed by corporate money. that is who the teapartiers represent (to me). they are being led against their best intrest by lobbyist for corporations who want more more more for the top people....(and the trickle down theory remain a theory!)
05.30.10
oops didn't mean to send x2
mea culpa
05.30.10
But statistically your vote doesn't count. You have a 1 in 60 million chance of being the decisive vote in a the presidential election. Imagine if you could take back every vote you ever cast, every march you joined, every homemade sign you ever made; would the outcomes of those events be any different? For the last 40 years your political involvement has made no difference. BUT that doesn't mean they were worthless.
You vote for the same reason I vote, because you want to, because it connects you to your community, because it gives you political season closure, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that.
Also, by the title of the post wasn't meant to suggest we should be yelling. It was just a figure of speech. For someone who doesn't place much value on their vote, I'm certainly not going to yell at someone about it.
One final note: I'm not a tea party member by any means. I appreciate their desire for less government spending, but that's about all we have in common. And I doubt these middle class protesters in the tea party "want more more for the top people". I think, like you, they want more for their grandchildren.
Enjoying the conversation Suzan!
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