The “good government” crowd tells us that voting is a “civic duty.” When I hear that type of nonsense, it makes me want to deliberately stay home.
But I did actually vote today, in part to avoid lines on Tuesday and in part because I leave that morning for a speech in Florida. But why did I bother? The odds of my vote making a difference in any race are so infinitesimally small that there’s no logical reason to vote. But that’s if you view voting as an “investment good” – i.e., you vote in hopes of influencing the outcome.
Voting only make sense as a “consumption good.” In other words, you do it just for the sheer joy of voting against someone (or, in very rare cases, because you actually want to vote for someone).
Some libertarians argue that voting is wrong, for any reason, because it legitimizes the current system. This is the sentiment that motivates this t-shirt, and it also is the title of P.J. O’Rourke’s new book. But that argument, while superficially appealing, doesn’t make sense. Does anyone actually think that the corrupt crowd in Washington will suddenly stop stealing our money and trying to control our lives if fewer people decide to vote? I don’t think it would have the slightest impact on their behavior.
I’m not saying people should vote, but don’t delude yourself into thinking that you can escape the predations of the political class if you opt out. Pericles, way back around 430 B.C., supposedly said that, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
I’m not sure if that’s a real quote, but it sure is accurate.
[…] a matter of logic, I can’t really argue with the notion that voting is a waste of time. Nonetheless, I hope the right people in certain states will be […]
[…] definitely not in the same league as P.J. O’Rourke or Mark Steyn, but I thought I was being at least halfway funny and somewhat […]
[…] guessing P.J. O’Rourke will get first place in this category, though Robert Higgs and Charles Murray also are […]
[…] you choose not to vote because you either reject your choices or even the entire principle of […]
[…] you choose not to vote because you either reject your choices or even the entire principle of […]
[…] a rational perspective, the logical choice is not voting. After all, the odds of your vote making a difference are infinitesimally […]
[…] a rational perspective, the logical choice is not voting. After all, the odds of your vote making a difference are infinitesimally […]
There’s a simple way to improve the voting system.
List None Of The Above as the last name under all the others on the ballot paper. Then if None Of The Above gets a majority of the votes, then NOBODY fills the position and it’s left vacant. Naturally, all those who don’t choose to vote for any of the people standing should automatically have their vote counted for None Of The Above. see:
http://www.lifestrategies.net/secret-of-success/approach-to-life/are-you-cynical/
Yes, wishful thinking indeed!
[…] And the gap between Republican rhetoric and Republican performance probably explains why just about every prominent libertarian is ignoring the GOP and voting for Gary Johnson, according to this survey by Reason. Unless, of course, they think voting is a waste of time. […]
[…] This election comes very close to debunking my cranky post from last year saying that voting was theoretically a waste of time since no single vote would ever decide an […]
Democracy is a myth, its just like a magician show.
Watch closely what thr right hand is doing with so much flash while everything is happening with the left.
Every comission every scandal that pop up is a way to divert attention from the real things happening.
As long as you give people the feeling they can change stuff that they are “deciding” you can get away with everything.
Its not the puppet or the party that you vote for that rule, its the ones managing evrything in the dark, the one that no one can vote for or against …THEY ARE THE $Y$TEM.
The key for me is to stay away as much as possible from the $y$tem and not catch its attention too much.
Every $y$tem will fail as personal agenda will always prevail…its in the human nature since its begining its a survival instinct.
I agree however that its easier to create your own bunker and to be a pacific anarchist when the other around you continue to act like sheeps…
Good for you, I will walk my way…
i live in Australia and we are supposed to be a free country but here if you do not vote in a county or state or federal election you can be fined , why should you be forced to vote if they all lie and you dont believe in any of them? seems like a dictatorship to myself and many others, then if they have a referendum on a subject they are not binding so whats the point of having one in the first place, everything is being privatized, our power bills are skyrocketing as is food and everything else, the politicians do not work for us they are bought and paid for by the corporations it seems .Democracy seems like a con we really have no say just the illusion that we have
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage….”
-Alexander Tyler
After looking at this subject a little more, this is some of what I found. I still obviously have a ways to go to fully understand this subject.
I wrote about ballot initiative in my book. Let’s just summarize. Arizona’s sales tax has gone from 6.7% when I moved here in 1986 to 9.3% today. This was not done by the legislature. It was done by the voters. Every single one of those tax increases was on our ballot and passed. We did block a few, but not enough. Just in May, we voted for a 1% sales tax increase. Do ballot initiatives work?
From my book:
The Greek historian Polybius warned that “democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence” as the people grow more “accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others.” [Polybius, The Histories 6.9.7-8.]
” “Not everyone can get to know each representative personally in order to understand what and why they will do something.” Yet each person will be informed on every issue? Unlikely!”
Well, obviously not. I wasn’t trying to say all people would be informed on every subject matter, I was saying that it would cut out the corruption of the middle man.
But, after discussing this subject with a friend a little more and after your comment, it is hard to say that using a Referendum would be more beneficial to conduct legislature or run a government. It would have no checks and balances. I made the mistake of looking at only the positive aspects of the referendum system without putting any thought into it.
Huh? “Not everyone can get to know each representative personally in order to understand what and why they will do something.” Yet each person will be informed on every issue? Unlikely!
The Founders had a severe dislike of democracy. I’m not sure why you guys want to move toward it.
Thank you for answering my question, I feel that many people don’t distinguish enough between our current system in the US and a Referendum system (at least I didn’t). I must agree with you that this would be a better system, one that cuts out the uncertainty of the “middle man,” I guess you could say. Not everyone can get to know each representative personally in order to understand what and why they will do something. Especially when each “representative” is going to look out to prolong their own career in office. Which is not always (if ever) conducive to what we as the people want or need.
Sorry, by mistake I published this post before it was adequately corrected. PLEASE ignore my previous post which is this same post but that previous post has lots of grammar and style errors. Thanks
Mr Product17:
Of course there are better political systems: REFERENDUM. Now the political class decides. We must waste our time learning what politicians think because they, and not us, decide legislations. If we could reject, by referendum vote, any law or regulation that the political class imposes on us, then we would not have to waste so much time finding out what those politicians think because the decision would be on our hands and not on theirs.
If one agrees that the politicians that do the most damage are those who are driven mainly by two vices, sadism and spending other people’s money, then, through REFERENDUM, we can limit a lot the destructive power that politicians give to themselves in order to be able to indulge in those utter powerful vices.
The passion for having more power and control over our lives, for restricting every day more our lives and our freedoms, for being able to punish us and to make us suffer and for being everyday more able to prohibit us more things is a form of sadism often found in politicians.
The quintaessential sadist politician (he was a total absolute slave of his vice of sadism) was Joseph Stalin; his regime murdered about 41 million people to which you must add about 20 million dead in wars that Stalin forced the people to fight. If you study Stalin you will see how he was a total slave of his devastating “sadism” vice. I think George Orwell, in his masterpiece “1984″ http://www.orwelltoday.com/, did a superb job showing the sadistic nature of the regimes of total power – communism was the quintaessential regime of total government power.
The people voting on referendum will not be a sadist with the people because sadism is the pleasure of inflicting pain and control ON OTHERS, not on oneself. And, moreover, people usually do not like pain. One may say that one “class” of the people will want to opress other “class”. Well, that may happen, you may have some point, those that have “less” may want to take more money from those that have “more” bringing a redistributive tax hell but Switzerland, where referendum is ubiquitous, is not known as a socialist redistributive tax hell as France or Germany may be, Switzerland is famous for being a tax haven.
The people, voting on referendum, would decide how to spend their own money and not other peoples money while the policital systematically spend other people’s money. So here you can curb a lot that other vice.
Of course there remain problems as a majority taxing a minority and a majority spending a minority’s money and some similar problems but I think referendum works better than the US system and certainly referendum works much better than the “socialist aristocracy” political system that exist in socialist tax hells like Germany and France.
As for myself, I just want to be left alone. I am no US citizen and no US resident but IMHO the harder it is to implement a legislation the better and your US system of indirect vote IMHO has some qualites there; a country needs a minuscule amount of legislation but legislative bodies have enslaved us with humongous quantities of destructive and totally innecesary laws and regulations.
Mr Product17:
Of course there are better systems: REFERENDUM. Now the political class decides. We must waste our time learning what politicians think because they, and not us, decide legislations. If we could reject, by referendum vote, any law or regulation that the political class imposes on us, then we would not have waste so much time finding out what those politicians think because the decision would be on our hands and not on theirs.
If one accepts that politicians that do most damage are driven mainly by two vices -sadism and spending other people’s money- then with REFERENDUM we can limit a lot the destructive power they do in order to be able to indulge in those utter powerful vices.
Sadism is the passion for having more power and control over our lives, for restricting every day more our lives and our freedoms, for being able to punish us and to make us suffer and being everyday more able to prohibit us more things . The quintaessential sadist (he was a total absolute slave of the vice of sadism) of that kind was Joseph Stalin; his regime murdered about 41 million people to which you must add about 20 million dead in wars that Stalin forced the people to fight. If you study Stalin you will see how he was a total slave of his devastating viceif. I think George Orwell, in his masterpiece “1984” http://www.orwelltoday.com/, did a great job in showing the sadistic nature of the regimes of total power as communism was.
The people voting on referendum very unlikely be a sadist with itself since sadism is the pleasure of inflicting pain and control ON OTHERS. One may say that one “class” of the people will want to opress other class, well, you may have some point, those that have less will want to take away more money than those that have more but Switzerland, where referendum is ubiquitous, is not known as a socialist redistributive tax hell as France or Germany are, Switzerland is famous for being a tax haven.
The people, voting on referendum, would decide how to spend their own money and not other peoples money, as the political class systematically does. So here you can curb a lot that other vice.
Of course there remains problems as a majority taxing minority and a majority spending a minority’s money and some similar problems but I think that works better than the US system and certainly works much better than the “socialist aristocracy” political system fo socialist tax hells like Germany and France.
As for myself, I just want to be left alone. I am no US citizen and no US but IMHO the harder is to implement a legislation the better and your US system of indirect vote gas some qualites there; a country needs a minuscule amount of legislation but legislative bodies have enslaved us with humongous quantities of destructive and totally innecesary laws and regulations.
Assuming you are already informed, which you and I are, voting takes very little time and is therefore worth doing.
Vote or not, you’re still part of the system so might as well participate in it because it’s not going away any time soon.
“Some libertarians argue that voting is wrong, for any reason, because it legitimizes the current system. (…) But that argument, while superficially appealing, doesn’t make sense. Does anyone actually think that the corrupt crowd in Washington will suddenly stop stealing our money and trying to control our lives if fewer people decide to vote?”
As one of those libertarians, you’ve missed the point of the argument. None of us, I assure you, is under any delusion that not voting will result in governmental reform.
We’re purchasing an individual-level individual-level consumption good: namely, not stamping the imprimatur of legitimacy on, feeling morally bound to accept, or having to accept even the extremely diluted responsibility for, whatever grotesque violations of life, liberty and property the democratic process is going to vomit up *this* time.
Any collective result is incidental. But when you are one of us, you sleep better if you know you *personally* didn’t sign your name under the next four years’ worth of expropriation, forced labor, and other fine statist practices. Which is not something any voter can say.
You write this article as though you or someone has discovered a system that works better than what we have now. At least that’s what I get out of the comment, “Some libertarians argue that voting is wrong, for any reason, because it legitimizes the current system.” (I’m not bad mouthing libertarians, I agree with their policies, just not this line). How can we change or make this system better especially when the people with an opinion that supports the Constitution don’t vote.
What I feel is the problem with voting is that there is not enough people running for office that should actually be there. My uncle put it this way, “The people that want to be there shouldn’t be there and the people that should be there don’t want to be there.” We simply don’t have the right people to vote for to make a good difference.