“Democracy fails because the results are what voters want.” This is a paraphrase of something Dr. Bryan Caplan author of The Myth of the Rational Voter (for an essay version see here) said this morning in an interview on CBC radio. The subject of the interview was fascinating.

According to most, the average voter is not as informed as they ought to be before making up their political mind. According to many, people vote emotionally rather than rationally. According to some, there ought to be some sort of political competency test before allowing people to actually vote. According to I’m-not-sure-how-many, the whole idea of “one person, one vote” — the usual set-up for participatory democracy — could stand to be re-examined. According to Dr. Bryan Caplan, democracy fails (to be “good”, “effective”, smart, based in any sort of policital/social/economic rationale) because the results reflect what voters want (even if or exactly because most of us don’t trust other voters).

So… if “most” don’t trust other voters to vote from an informed, rational political mind, why do we spend so much time (media and discussions) on the candidates and so little time on the voters themselves? Is low voting participation such a bad thing seen this way? And, if many of us vote emotionally rather than rationally, the studies saying that who someone votes for is highly predictable based on which television news they watch, make sense. (I’ll be interested to see how virtual social network participation factors into this.)

Much to think about. And maybe the least of it is that in Canada, with the election weeks away, candidates are not yet confirmed in many/most ridings.

(Interestingly enough, I heard another quote yesterday about being open “enough” to truth to disregard/counteract/get-around/test personal opinion. I’m still not sure why this relates but it does.)