(h/t Instapundit)
Ilya Somin reviews Bryan Caplan’s new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, at the Volokh Conspiracy.
The gist of this work seems to fly in the face of the notion of the “wisdom of crowds” as put forward by James Surowiecki. If you have any interest in democratic theory these two links are well worth your ten minutes.
In passing I’d like to also note that both Somin and Caplan (who apparently have a working relationship) overlook the point that there is already a scenario in place for “transferring more political power to knowledgeable experts”, being the existing liberal democracy. Of course, Caplan qualifies his idea with the label “non-political” but anybody who hasn’t spent their life under a rock knows that the rarity of non-political bureaucrats (see “hen’s teeth”) makes the proposition odious at best.
Martin wrote:
Sorry to say. Caplan’s book is full of illogical and contradictory arguments, mangled terms, cultural prejudice, and a whole lot of other weaknesses. It’s also pretty scary when you really think about what he is arguing for. Like a lot of cloistered academics, he’s hermetically sealed inside his own thinking and theories, and totally unhinged from the real world… past and present. I won’t recap the whole list of objections here… but it’s on my site. (literalmayhem.com)
Posted on 21-Sep-07 at 8:56 pm | Permalink