Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare, called voters stupid for falling for Obamas sales pitch. The word stupid strongly implies low intelligence. If youre stupid youre not going to be very good at anything that requires intelligence. But I know people, and you probably do too, who are quite intelligent and yet routinely fall for paper-thin political propaganda. Seeing how terrible the average persons political views are I used to think most people must be stupid or evil. Thats not a valid conclusion. Whats really in play here is rational ignorance and rational irrationality. Since an individual typically has very little say in political outcomes he has negligible incentive to be informed on political issues (rational ignorance). The individual actually has more incentive to indulge his own biases for self satisfaction than to pursue whats politically best, since the former is is within his power and the latter isnt (rational irrationality). Its a fact that politicians take advantage of rational ignorance and rational irrationality. It was crucial to the passage of Obamacare. And pretty much everything that gets passed. This doesnt mean voters are stupid or evil. It means that by nature they are poorly suited for collective politics, and particularly vulnerable to it.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 23:55:58 +0000
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