Homo Economicus can vote, but chooses not to

Interesting lecture, put out by the Adam Smith Institute, about The Lessons of Public Choice Theory. It turns out that democracy is a less efficient system than the free market.

For example, voters rationally remain ignorant because their input in the election is not correlated to their knowledge about the process and the candidates. When everyone’s vote counts the same, educational investment just doesn’t pay off.

Another example, regulation doesn’t always pay off. Because, information about the policies and analysis on their effects is politicized out of proportion. The free market provides more information about products through consumer feedback scores Amazon to a consumer, than any voter could ever hope to get about either the regulators and their objectives, or the policies and their potential effects. Lacking information and transparency, government regulation is nearly guaranteed to provide a less cost efficient and worse quality goods.

This lecture is the first time that I have seen the same tools of analysis applied to the economy also applied to the democratic system.