# The "Freakonomics" guy on voting. . . **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 7, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903 "2005-11-07T14:13:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/1 "2005-11-07T14:13:10Z")
[Link](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/06freak.html) to article in New York Times magazine yesterday. And, a particularly relevant excerpt. . . > [@](#): > > . . .voting exacts a cost - in time, effort, lost productivity - with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty.” As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.” Just, you know, trying to fight ignorance and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/2 "2005-11-07T14:20:16Z")
I see voting as more akin to buying a lottery ticket: there’s a very small chance of your vote making a very big difference. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/3 "2005-11-07T14:35:25Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > I see voting as more akin to buying a lottery ticket: there’s a very small chance of your vote making a very big difference. He addresses that too. . . > [@](#): > > But there is a more important point: the closer an election is, the more likely that its outcome will be taken out of the voters’ hands - most vividly exemplified, of course, by the 2000 presidential race. It is true that the outcome of that election came down to a handful of voters; but their names were Kennedy, O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. And it was only the votes they cast while wearing their robes that mattered, not the ones they may have cast in their home precincts. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/4 "2005-11-07T14:48:20Z")
I made this exact same argument in GD a few years ago. Didn’t go over too well. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/5 "2005-11-07T14:52:21Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > I made this exact same argument in GD a few years ago. Didn’t go over too well. 🙂 It never does. That’s why I’m attempting an “appeal to authority” by bringing in Steven D. Levitt. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/6 "2005-11-07T15:12:53Z")
I’ve made the same argument a number of times and never had any trouble with it: [(Gaderene’s) News Flash: We’re ALL throwing our votes away!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=43626) [Is choosing to vote a rational decision?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=169497) [Is voting for the president worth it?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=169497) It’s come up a lot more than that. Be careful though. This is not an argument against voting. It’s not an argument that says voting is irrational. Just that it’s not instrumental. ---
**Author:** ![JerH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@JerH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerH)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/7 "2005-11-07T15:32:07Z")
They neglect to address the benefit of feeling superior when you self-righteous proclaiming “I told you so!” after the no-good scum that you voted against gets elected and immediately starts doing dastardly and corrupt things. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/8 "2005-11-07T15:34:17Z")
They also left out the part where you magically forfeit your “right to complain”. I suspect he couldn’t see the keys through the tears of laughter. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/9 "2005-11-07T16:41:59Z")
> [@](#): > > “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.” > **Heinlein** Civilization must be maintained, dammit! At least _pretend_ that you are interested! ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/10 "2005-11-07T16:44:58Z")
> [@hawthorne](#): > > It’s not an argument that says voting is irrational. Indeed, and reading that piece has seriously reduced the chance of me purchasing Levitt’s book. He could have at least hinted that economic rationality regards the shape or pattern of preferences (and choices) rather than pure self-interest. One key element that wasn’t addressed regarding the mail-in votes was the cost of voting and how it relates to one’s feelings for it. Social psychologists have found that when a task is more costly, and doesn’t come with rewards, we eliminate the cognitive dissonance by liking the task more. (That’s why you get someone to do a favor for you if you want them to like you.) It makes sense that voter “turnout” would drop when the act of voting is made easier. ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/11 "2005-11-07T16:46:35Z")
My all-time favorite bumper sticker: “Don’t vote–it only encourages them!” ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/12 "2005-11-07T16:53:07Z")
Good grief, this is a very standard political/economic argument, and the quoted “economist” has it backwards. This model is so old its underwear has whiskers. In the most stripped-down single-dimension spatial vote model, the platforms of both parties converge to the preferences of the median voter, no one votes at all, and the election is decided by a coin toss. The conclusion is **not** “a rational person should therefore abstain from voting.” Economic rationality should _never_ be normative. What a more responsible economist or political scientist should have argued is “the standard one-dimensional model fails to explain voter turnout”. Much ink has been spilled on this issue, and suffice to say, there are much better models that _do_ explain voter turnout. Some theorists model “constrained rationality,” others believe that individuals receive ego rent whose payoffs follow some distribution, while others model in a multidimensional issue space. I’m not gonna buy that book, either. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/13 "2005-11-07T17:12:25Z")
> [@hawthorne](#): > > It’s not an argument that says voting is irrational. Just that it’s not instrumental. That’s missing his point, a little. Really, what he’s looking at is this: given that voting is irrational within the NORMAL reasons we say that we vote, why do people still vote? Why is voting irrational within the normal reasons? Well, what they’re saying is that when you weigh the NEGATIVES of voting (cost, as measured in lost time, lost productivity, and effort) against the BENEFITS of voting (getting your issue passed) that it’s irrational to go to the poll. So, huh? Why do we vote? They form a theory: if we make it easier to vote, voter turnout should INCREASE. They test the theory: let’s look at the Swiss experiment. Voter turnout didn’t inrease. New theory. They needed to consider that there are OTHER reasons people vote. Still under the assumption that people act in their own self-interest, they hypothesize that people actually vote because of the social pressure asociated with it, not really because they think it will have an effect on them. I hardly see how anything they wrote is worthy of boycotting the book. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/14 "2005-11-07T17:21:51Z")
**Maegs:** > [@](#): > > Economic rationality should never be normative. …And it’s very frequently circular. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/15 "2005-11-07T17:29:04Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > That’s missing his point, a little. Really, what he’s looking at is this: given that voting is irrational within the NORMAL reasons we say that we vote, why do people still vote? > … > Still under the assumption that people act in their own self-interest, they hypothesize that people actually vote because of the social pressure asociated with it, not really because they think it will have an effect on them. That’s not what rational means to an economist, and when economists misuse the term they make it more difficult for John Q. Public to not only understand economic issues, but also to understand that economics is worth understanding. Even if voting did violate so-called self-interest, that still wouldn’t mean that it isn’t rational. Rational has to do with the character of our preferences over different options, not the content of our preferences themselves. I have an aunt who’s morbidly allergic to seafood, yet she eats it and gets terribly sick. Is that irrational? The question is irrelevant! Rational would be relevant in how her seafood consumption responded to a change in the severity of the allergy, for example. The question at hand, whether it’s rational to vote, is not even a coherent question. (What would be a coherent question would be to ask why the Swiss, when the cost of a good [voting] decreases, consume less of it. The answer given is not that they’re irrational, but that we’re not considering all the benefits that are comprised by the good—in this case, being seen in public when we cast our votes.) > [@](#): > > I hardly see how anything they wrote is worthy of boycotting the book. Well, if the book abuses the concept of rationality, then it is worth boycotting because of this. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/16 "2005-11-07T17:58:32Z")
Well, first of all, it wasn’t even HIM using “rational”. It was him quoting Dr. Patricia Funk. Still, I think he intended rational to be the “lay” usage. Look at the context > [@](#): > > Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost - in time, effort, lost productivity - with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty.” As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.” > [@JS](#): > > I have an aunt who’s morbidly allergic to seafood, yet she eats it and gets terribly sick. Is that irrational? The question is irrelevant! Rational would be relevant in how her seafood consumption responded to a change in the severity of the allergy This sounds pedantic to me. I suspect that it’s YOU, not Levitt who is making economics more difficult to understand for John Q. Because the behavior of your aunt is “irrational” in the way that everybody I know uses it, basically as a synonym for logical. (Well, it’s not irrational if you tell me, “her enjoyment of it exceeds the negatives from the allergies.” But you seem to be using a completely different, economics-specific defintion of “rational”.) ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/17 "2005-11-07T17:59:26Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > **Maegs:** > …And it’s very frequently circular. Mess with the bull and you’ll get the horns! ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/18 "2005-11-07T18:20:21Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > This sounds pedantic to me. I suspect that it’s YOU, not Levitt who is making economics more difficult to understand for John Q. Because the behavior of your aunt is “irrational” in the way that everybody I know uses it, basically as a synonym for logical. You are defending an incorrect definition of economic rationality, one that is misleading and inaccurate, and I’m the one making it harder to understand? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/19 "2005-11-07T18:25:27Z")
**Maeglin:** > [@](#): > > Mess with the bull and you’ll get the horns! 😃 And if I did, of course, knowingly mess with the bull, then it’s presumptively rational for me to have done so… ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903/20 "2005-11-07T18:40:16Z")
> [@js\_africanus](#): > > You are defending an incorrect definition of economic rationality, one that is misleading and inaccurate, and I’m the one making it harder to understand? :rolleyes: Yes you are. When you use a definition of “rational” that doesn’t seem to jive with our everyday usage of “rational”, you are making it harder to understand. This was your original stab at it: “Rational would be relevant in how her seafood consumption responded to a change in the severity of the allergy.” “How her seafood consumption RESPONDS to a change in the severity of the allergy” _That_ is supposed to further our understanding of the concept? Anyway, an economic glossary gives: > [@](#): > > from [Econterms](http://www.econterms.com/cgi.bin/glossary.cgi?query=rational) > > Definition: Rational is an adjective. Has several definitions: > (1) characterizing behavior that purposefully chooses means to achieve ends > > (2) characterizing preferences which are complete and transitive, and therefore can be represented by a utility function (e.g. Mas-Coleil). > > (3) characterizing a thought process based on reason; sane; logical. Can be used in regard to behavior. (e.g. American Heritage Dictionary, p 1028) She could easily be using it in the context of 1 or 3 (which is just a standard definition of rational, but I don’t know that I can trust you any more than I can trust “econterms”. I’m not fully down with #2, but it sounds like your utility function is some way of quanitfying the effect of ones actions. And that sounds like how Dr. Funk is using it. I assume that “rational” can be tied to some form of positive measure from the utility function. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-freakonomics-guy-on-voting/329903.md?page=2)