Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

Economists believe people are perfectly rationalthe Clapham omnibus, he cannot possibly know the variedpreferences of every citizen.Consider how politicians come to wield power in thefirst place. They are elected, generally with less than halfof the popular vote, 4 by an electorate that is not entirelyrational and is largely ignorant of politics and economics.Bryan Caplan argues that it would not greatly matter ifthe majority of voters were ignorant and irrational sincethey would vote in an essentially random manner in whichtheir votes are cancelled out, leaving an informed minorityas kingmakers who would swing the election towardsthe candidate with the best policies. However, he says thatthe situation is even worse than that. Voters are not justignorant, they are misguided and systematically biasedtowards bad policies.Over a period of many years, voters have been shown tosupport a range of policies which economists from acrossthe political spectrum agree are costly and counter-productive.A worrying number of non-economists continueto hold beliefs which Caplan describes as ‘positively silly’such as the notion that technology destroys jobs and thattrading with other countries is bad for the economy (thelatter objection usually being framed in terms of ‘jobsbeing sent overseas’). It is not unusual, even in broadsheetnewspapers, to be told that crime and disease are goodfor the economy because they create work for those who4 In 2005, the Labour government had a large working majority witharound 35 per cent of the popular vote and with just over 20 percent of the electorate voting for it.31