How concerned should we be about voter irrationality?

I heard Gary Gray, a minster in the Australian government, hold forth last week about the 1.5 million Australians who have a right to vote but are not on the electoral roll. He referred to this as ‘a blight on our electoral roll and the integrity of our system’. Such comments may be understandable within the context of the compulsory voting system in Australia, but does compulsory voting make sense? Would it not be more sensible to discourage people from voting if they do not see exercising their political rights as having sufficient importance to take the simple steps necessary to enrol and vote?

As I noted in a recent post it can be rational for voters to cling to irrational beliefs on political issues because the cost is low - there is a miniscule probability that the vote of any individual will be decisive in changing the result of an election. This explains the persistence of a wide disparity between views of voters and experts on many issues and why views of voters are often internally inconsistent e.g. simultaneously supporting reductions in government spending while supporting increases in many individual areas of spending.  It seems reasonable to expect that people for whom politics has no importance would be most prone to cling to such irrational positions.

How likely is it that people who have no interest in politics could have a decisive impact on election results? Figure 1, constructed from World Values Surveys in the period 2005-07, suggests that it is very likely. A considerable percentage of people in high-income democracies say that politics is not at all important in their lives. The percentages are relatively high in Italy, France and Britain, and relatively low in Sweden, Norway and Japan.

There is no reason why everyone should view politics as having some importance in their lives. You might expect, however, that people would be unlikely to vote unless forced to if politics had no importance to them. Figure 1 suggests, however, that a relatively high proportion of these people do vote in most of the countries shown.

Some people might suggest that it probably doesn’t make much difference if people vote even when politics has no importance in their lives because random votes would tend to cancel out. Unfortunately, however, there is evidence that the votes of such people are not random. Figure 2 suggests that those for whom politics is ‘not at all important’ are more likely than others to say that ‘the government should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for’. Just think about that for a moment. How can they expect governments to take on more responsibilities if people like themselves have little interest in politics, which is largely about holding governments accountable for the way they exercise their responsibilities?

Perhaps some readers might be thinking that the people who say that politics is not at all important in their lives might actually take some interest in politics, particularly at election time. After all, some of us sometimes show some interest in sports on TV that we would claim are not at all important in our lives. The results of the World Values Surveys shown in Figure 3 suggest, however, that the extent to which voters are interested in politics is closely related to its importance to them. The Figure has been constructed from responses for the countries shown in Figure 1. (The columns add to 100% on the depth axis.)

Voters who say that politics is not at all important in their lives tend to have relatively low confidence in political parties – 43% saying that they have no confidence at all in political parties, versus 19% for all voters. That might make some readers wonder whether their desire for governments to take on more responsibility could be explained by relatively high confidence in the civil service. While the percentage with a great deal of confidence in the civil service is higher than the average for all voters – 4% versus 3% - the percentage with no confidence at all in the civil service is substantially higher – 18% versus 9%.(The data are for the countries shown in Table 1).

Some other characteristics of voters who say that politics is not at all important in their lives might be of interest. Their self-positioning on the left-right political spectrum is not markedly different from that of other voters. They are less likely to say that democracy is absolutely important (47% versus 60% for all voters) and more likely to say that it is good to have experts make political decisions.  They tend to be disproportionately either young (15-24) or old (65 or older); less well educated; and female (57%). They are less likely to rate the state of their health as very good (24% versus 30% for all voters) and more likely to rate it as poor or very poor (33% versus 24%). They tend to be conservative in their views on social issues (divorce, abortion, homosexuality and prostitution).They have a greater tendency to rate the fight against crime as an important goal (29% versus 19% for all voters). They are less likely than other voters to be members of religious, sport or recreation, or charitable organizations and are less likely to rate friends as very important. They are much less likely than other voters to agree that ‘most people can be trusted (29% versus 46%)

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Should restrictions be introduced on the right to vote in an attempt to exclude people who have no interest in politics? It is not obvious how this could be done. Removal of compulsory voting requirements would make sense in Australia as a step in that direction. The experience of other countries suggests, however, that making voting voluntary would not do much to discourage people who have no interest in politics from voting.

It might be desirable to promote a cultural change away from the view that voting is a civic duty towards the view that people should refrain from voting unless they have some interest in politics. Policy outcomes would probably be worse than at present, however, if the political field was left to be fought over by people who are strongly interested in politics because of their links to narrow interest groups. A battle among interest groups could be predicted to benefit the groups that able to marshal their members effectively at the expense of broader community interests.

In order to work satisfactorily, democracies need a substantial proportion of citizens who do not have strong links to narrow interest groups to inform themselves about public policy issues, to take part in public discussion of such issues and to encourage others to do likewise. To the extent that this is happening it can probably be most readily explained in terms of public-spirited identity perceptions – i.e. individuals who see themselves as being the kind of person who does that kind of thing and gaining satisfaction from acting in that way. How could more people be encouraged to do this? 

Should the media be 'fair and balanced' or 'free and transparent'?

Wayne Swan appeared to be speaking like a statesman when he recently said:

‘Nothing could be more important to the quality of our political debate and our national conversation than having fair and balanced reporting.

And to have fair and balanced reporting you do need a degree of independence at the editorial level to make sure that it is not unduly influenced by commercial considerations.’

Swan was discussing whether Gina Rinehart, now a substantial shareholder of Fairfax, should be required to sign a charter of editorial independence as a condition for representation on the Fairfax board of directors. He was fuelling concerns that Rinehart might seek to trash the reputation of the big city dailies – perhaps the Sydney Moaning Herald could become the Sydney Mining Herald – or to close down these loss-making ventures. It seems more reasonable to speculate that Rinehart’s objective is simply to profit directly from her media investment while, at the same time, redressing what she would perceive as editorial bias. 

However, the question that needs to be considered is whether there is some kind of public policy issue involved here, as Swan seems to imply. Alternatively, should politicians view this as a matter for resolution between Rinehart and representatives of other shareholders, taking into account the possible impact of their actions on the reputation of their papers and the views of the journalists’ collectives only to the extent that they consider such matters are relevant?

I think John Roskam, executive director of the IPA, clarified the issues masterfully in the Financial Review (the best masthead owned by Fairfax) this morning:

‘Swan is wrong. Dead wrong. There is something more important than fair and balanced reporting – and that’s free reporting. Let’s be absolutely clear.

Swan’s “fair and balanced” reporting has never existed, doesn’t exist and never will exist. Fairness is entirely in the eye of the beholder. It’s a travesty of the historical record to claim that democracy needs a fair and balanced media’.

A free media involves freedom of ownership, freedom of owners to run their business, freedom of conscience for editors and journalists, and freedom of speech. Everyone should have the freedom to buy and sell shares in media outlets as they wish. The owners of media should have the freedom to dictate editorial policy (or to leave editorial policy to the editors they appoint) irrespective of the wealth of the wealth of the owners or the interests that they represent. Editors and journalists should have the freedom to seek employment with media owners whose views are compatible with their own, or to set up their own media outlets. Owners of different publications should have the freedom to criticize the outputs of other publications.

It is remarkable that some of these freedoms are already restricted in Australia and others are being threatened by the current government.

If there ever was a case that particular media outlets have market power that enables them to exert undue influence on public opinion it has surely evaporated with the internet now providing access to multiple sources of information and opinion. In particular, the influence of media moguls with particular industry or political interests is moderated by the scrutiny of other media players looking for evidence that editorial opinion could be biased. In my view that is a much healthier situation than exists with respect to publicly owned media such as the ABC, where ruling class groupthink thrives despite obvious efforts to promote the appearance of fairness and balance. Media freedom promotes transparency; media regulation promotes opacity.

I wonder whether Wayne Swan would be expressing a similar opinion about the importance of editorial independence for the quality of political debate if the AWU, or some other trade union, attempted to take a controlling interest in Fairfax or some other media company. 

When is a sense of entitlement justified?

I have been having a discussion with Jim Belshaw about the meaning of entitlement, stemming from my recent post ‘What are Australians angry about?’  On Saturday Jim wrote:

‘It seems to me that that word entitlements has become, to use an ugly but useful modern term, a code word for a much broader ideological debate. Entitlements used to mean the fact of having a right to something or the amount to which a person has a right. This is the neutral meaning. Now it has acquired a heavy semantic overload’.

I agree. When I wrote: ‘I think the problem is the growth of a sense of entitlement to be looked after by governments’, I was referring to growth in what I see as an unwarranted sense of entitlement. 

It seems to me that we have almost reached a stage where people say: ‘I’m unhappy, so what’s the government going to do about it?’ Governments seem only too willing to encourage this. A recent government intervention in Australia involves screening kids for mental illness at three years of age. No doubt doctors will discover that a lot of kids are unhappy and then ‘aorta politics’ will take over. We will soon hear a lot more people saying ‘aorta’ be doing more to help us. 

However, people are sometimes justified in expressing a sense of entitlement – or righteous indignation - when something they value is taken away from them. It would probably be reasonable to guess that moral intuitions about natural rights stem from the efforts of our tribal ancestors to protect their food supplies. (Incidentally, this doesn’t seem to be covered by Jon Haidt’s schema of moral foundations discussed in my last post.) A sense of entitlement is also related to our sense of fairness and our desire to punish people (including political leaders) who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

It seems to me that the central issue in considering whether a sense of entitlement is justified is whether the expectations involved are reasonable. It might be useful to attempt to rank expressions of entitlement in terms of the reasonableness of the expectations involved.

Property rights deserve high ranking in terms of the reasonableness of expectations that they will be protected. There is even a constitutional provision, as readers who have seen ‘The Castle’ would know, that when the Commonwealth acquires property compensation must be ‘on just terms’. Property rights are constrained in various ways. Land owners do not usually own the minerals beneath their land in this country, so it is hardly reasonable for them to expect to be able to prevent mining on their properties. But it is reasonable for them to expect compensation for the costs and inconveniences they experience when mining takes place. I would have thought land owners could have a reasonable expectation of being able to do what they wish with trees growing on their properties, but governments have taken a different view.

Another area deserving high ranking in terms of reasonableness of expectations concerns contractual obligations entered into by governments.  Australian governments have a good reputation of meeting interest and repayment obligations when they borrow money (despite Jack Lang's efforts to tarnish this reputation in the 1930s). Australians can have a reasonable expectation that governments in this country will meet obligations to employees. Until recently, Australian governments also had a pretty good record in not raising mineral royalty charges beyond levels agreed with mining companies prior to mining, but sovereign risk has escalated since the Commonwealth government has acted to appropriate an additional slice of mineral rents. In my view mining companies have justification for their sense of entitlement to the rents that have been taken from them. It is reasonable for households who have installed solar heating in response to excessively generous incentive programs to expect government agencies to meet their contractual obligations. In my view, householders in New South Wales had justification to be enraged the plans of the newly elected O’Farrell government to renege on those contracts.

Further down the ranking in terms of reasonableness of expectations - although still deserving fairly high ranking in my view - are the political obligations accepted by governments over many decades for provision of various social welfare programs. Age pensions are a prime example. It would be unreasonable, however, to expect that governments would never under any circumstances reduce the benefits provided under such programs. The assistance provided must be limited ultimately by what the community can afford.

Further down the ranking there are programs like the provision of tariff assistance to industries. This arose as a result of rent-seeking by industry, misguided government planning and a view fostered by governments over many decades that assistance would be provided to all industries on a ‘needs basis’. It is the best example of a government-fostered entitlement mentality that I can think of in Australia. Yet, it is understandable that many of those who benefited from this assistance would feel a sense of grievance when it was withdrawn. The assistance regime stayed in place for many decades with little complaint – except for a few people in efficient export industries that were adversely affected, some academics and civil servants, and one politician (Bert Kelly). When assistance was reduced, the culpability of governments in fostering the unreasonable expectation that ‘infant industry’ and ‘temporary’ protection could last forever was recognized by making reductions gradual (over about half a century in the case of the car industry) and providing adjustment assistance in some instances.

As we go further down the ranking of reasonable expectations we come to incentive programs of various kinds. One example that comes to mind is the provision of taxation benefits to encourage investment in private superannuation. I noted in 2010 that this had resulted in total government support for retirees being remarkably similar across a wide range of income levels, despite means testing of pensions. The taxation arrangements for superannuation provide perverse incentives for people to retire early, splurge lump sums and live off accumulated wealth until they become eligible for the aged pension. There is no basis for anyone to have a reasonable expectation that such rorts would be allowed to continue indefinitely. It seems to me that those complaining about recent government action to limit the tax concession are showing an unwarranted sense of entitlement.

Election promises are at the bottom of my ranking of reasonable expectations. However, some election promises do appear to encourage reasonable expectations of what a government might do or not do. For example, Julia Gillard’s promise that ‘there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead' did not sound like a ‘non-core promise’ (to use a phrase made famous by John Howard). At the very bottom of the ranking of reasonable expectations, in my view, are the expectations fostered by a statement by Barry O’Farrell that his party had ‘no plans’ to privatise various things. Rather than a promise, that form of words seems intended to convey a refusal to make a promise.

Having completed this ranking, I now wonder whether election promises deserve higher ranking. The ranking provided above is largely in terms of what seems reasonable to expect on the basis of experience. Political promises probably deserve higher ranking in terms of the standards it should be reasonable to expect of our politicians. I don’t think that people are displaying an unwarranted sense of entitlement when they express disgust with politicians who break promises. 

Does moral foundations theory support the concept of rational irrationality?

I think it does. And I think an understanding of why it does sheds some further light on the difficulty that democratic governments have in dealing with complex economic issues. So, if you don't already know about moral foundations theory and rational irrationality, you might be about to learn something worth knowing.

Jonathan Haidt explains moral foundations theory in ‘The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion’, 2012.  His basic idea is that the virtues that are found in many cultures are related to adaptive challenges of social life that have been identified by evolutionary psychologists. While moral foundations are innate, they are expressed in differing ways and to differing extents in different cultures and by different political groups. Policy concerns of different political groups can be explained to a large extent in terms of the moral mentality of their members.

The concept of rational irrationality was developed by Bryan Caplan in ‘The Myth of the Rational Voter’, 2007. Caplan provides evidence that the views of voters on economic issues differ substantially from those of economists. He attributes this to irrationality. He argues that people actually have a demand for irrationality – that many have an almost religious attachment to irrational beliefs and tend to cling to them until the cost becomes too high. In the political arena an ongoing attachment to irrationality is a predictable response because the cost of clinging to irrational political beliefs is low. There is a miniscule probability that the vote of any individual will be decisive in changing the result of an election. For the individual, voting is likely choosing from a menu and getting the same dish whatever you order.

My reaction on this blog a few years ago was that I didn’t think ‘rational irrationality’ would provide as good an explanation of voter behaviour as some less extreme concepts, such as ‘bounded rationality’ used by Douglass North. My views have changed, however, since I started thinking seriously about moral foundations theory.

The idea of linking moral foundations theory and rational irrationality is not original. Christian Galgano, an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, has published an article entitled: ‘The Righteous Mind of the Irrational Voter: Why good people choose bad policies’, ‘The Oculus’, 10(1). Christian develops what he refers to as a Haidt-Caplan model to explain why voters are rationally irrational. I think he deserves high praise for linking these ideas.

I am not sure how pleased Jon Haidt would be that one of the messages people are taking from his book is that moral concerns lead people to cling to irrational policy positions. He wants readers to understand that we are all deeply intuitive creatures whose gut feelings tend to drive our political reasoning. His aim is that this understanding should help us all to recognize that our political opponents are good people whose beliefs flow from genuine moral concerns. I agree that that is desirable, but is unlikely by itself to result in better public policies.

So, how do moral concerns lead people to hold on to irrational political beliefs? First, as already noted, there is no incentive for individuals to go beyond sloppy intuitive thinking when their individual views are unlikely to be decisive in changing government policy. Second, as Jon Haidt argues, identification with groups tends to blind people to the wisdom of people outside those groups. Third, even when individuals expect to be held to account for their beliefs, this does not necessarily lead them to dispense with irrational beliefs. In this context, Haidt refers to research by Phil Tetlock about the effects of asking people to justify their beliefs to an audience. As might be expected, this makes individuals think more systematically, but often in a one-sided attempt to rationalize their existing views. They give a more even-handed consideration to alternative points of view only if they do not know the views of the audience and believe that it is well informed and interested in accuracy.

What does moral foundations theory suggest about potential sources of rational irrationality? Haidt identifies six moral foundations:

·         Care/harm makes us sensitive to signs of suffering and need.

·         Fairness/cheating is concerned with reciprocity. It makes us sensitive to issues relating to trustworthiness, opportunism and punishment.

·         Loyalty/betrayal makes us sensitive to group interests.

·         Authority/subversion makes us sensitive to issues relating to rank and status.

·         Liberty/oppression makes people notice and resent signs of attempted domination by bullies and tyrants.

·         Sanctity/degradation evolved to help us meet the challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. It makes it possible to invest objects with irrational and extreme values, which in turn helps to bind groups together.

Irrational beliefs about sanctity seem to me play a large role in public opinion about economic policy in Australia. The collection of poll results posted by Possum Comitatus on Crikey a few days ago provides some good examples. For instance, the percentage of the population opposed to privatisation of Telstra, Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank still far exceeds the percentage in favour, many years after these ‘icons’ were sold. There also seems to be massive opposition to sale of Australian farm land to foreign companies.

What basis do I have to say that such positions are irrational? My only basis (apart from my disagreement with them) is that they are probably contrary to majority expert opinion. Furthermore, in my view, if you put a random sample of people in a situation where they were given the information they need to make informed decisions and ask them to justify their beliefs to an audience whom they could assume to be unbiased and interested in accuracy, then I think many of them would be likely to change their minds.

The main problem I have with moral foundations theory as presented by Jon Haidt is that it doesn’t seem to provide a basis for judging any particular moral feeling to be superior to any other. What basis do we have to say that it is silly for people to cling collectively to a set of irrational beliefs that is impoverishing them? What basis do we have to say that the sense of self-transcendence that a person might feel while engaging in meditation is superior to that which some other person might feel while taking part in a lynch mob? Haidt clearly doesn’t think all moral sentiments are equal, but there is nothing in his model that requires him to give calm philosophical reasoning a higher status than unprocessed emotions.

In my view, while social intuitionism tells us a great deal about morality, we should not disregard the importance of reason and rationality. In Steven Pinker’s discussion of these issues in ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature’ (pp 622 -642) he comes out in favour of Alan Fiske’s taxonomy which allows for a rational-legal  mode of social legitimation – a system of norms that is worked out by reason (utilitarianism plays an important role) and implemented by formal rules. Pinker argues that rational-legal reasoning can enable us to strategically deploy moral intuitions in benign ways.

The question that remains to be considered further is how we can employ our reasoning to deal more effectively with the problem of rational irrationality.

Postscript 1:

I have been having second thoughts about my statement that there is nothing in Haidt’s model that would cause him to give calm philosophical reasoning a higher status than unprocessed emotion. This might be an accurate statement, but it probably isn’t appropriate to criticize social psychology on the grounds that it doesn’t help people to make ethical judgements. I imagine that moral foundations theory might provide fairly accurate predictions of how different people would rank different self-transcendence experiences in terms of moral considerations. It also predicts that people are unlikely to cling to irrational beliefs that impoverish them when they have adequate incentives to seek the truth.

However, it seems to me that the role played by reason and rationality is sufficiently important for it to be recognized separately. Perhaps the evolutionary challenges faced in human evolution caused greater respect to be given to those who had a coherent set of moral intuitions, beliefs and behaviours (practical wisdom). There might be reproductive advantages in displaying practical wisdom (the virtue of prudence). In addition, tribes whose leaders showed greater practical wisdom might have adopted superior norms that would have given them an advantage in the struggle for survival. The story still remains essentially Humean or Hayekian, rather than a story about humans consciously constructing the building blocks of human progress.

Postscript 2:
I have also had further thoughts on the circumstances under which beliefs about sanctity could be said to be irrational.  The concept of irrationality seems to apply in relation to beliefs rather than personal values. For example, it might be possible for an individual to value a state-owned enterprise as a national icon without holding any irrational beliefs about it. 
However, Jon Haidt’s studies suggest that our values are likely to have a strong impact on our beliefs. People who view a state owned enterprise as a national icon would be more likely to hold irrational beliefs about what might happen if the enterprise is privatized. For example, they might over-estimate the potential for the enterprise to disappear once privatized, and under-estimate the potential net economic benefits arising from sale of the enterprise.


Some implications of moral foundations theory for social cooperation are discussed in a later post.