What's wrong with voting against your self interest?

Great Debates
81

Here’s one:
[A 2012 McClatchy-Marist] poll found 52 percent of registered voters saying they want all the tax cuts extended, including the tax cuts for incomes above $250,000, while 43 percent want the cuts extended just for incomes below that threshhold.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24732793.html
A lot of this goes back to the Reagan policies of the 80s – remember the infamous Laffer curve and the “trickle-down theory” of tax cuts for the wealthy, aka “voodoo economics”? These beliefs also strongly align along party lines. The majority of Democrats and independents reject them, but even today (according to a recent YouGov poll) the majority of Republicans support trickle-down tax cut policy even when it’s posed to them in those very words: “according to the trickle-down theory in economics, lowering taxes for wealthy groups and individuals – corporations, investors, and entrepreneurs – can stimulate the economy, leading to economic growth and greater wealth for everyone, even poorer people”. Self-identified Republican voters agreed with this by a ratio of 50-30. Do these people then proceed to the ballot box and vote against their own economic interest? To quote a well-known Republican intellectual, “You betcha!”

I’ve already talked about the huge and growing problem of income disparity. It’s so bad that you can’t even meaningfully talk about economic growth any more without taking it into account. In the 2009-2010 recovery, for instance, overall incomes grew by 2.3%, which isn’t great but not awful, so why all the economic gloom during that period? Because, as is happening more and more often, the recovery was hugely lopsided. Income increased by just 0.2% for 99% of Americans, but jumped a whopping 11.6% for the wealthiest 1%. This is now the story of our times. Thomas Piketty – and many others – have written entire books about it. No wonder the wealthy are always optimistic about the economy, but few others are!

In summary – and I’m sure you’ll correct me if I get it wrong – you think the PR industry is “great” – which in this context must mean that you think it makes a positive contribution to the democratic process, a process which requires informed voters. Do you believe that this is why voters are so well informed about the major issues of the day? Why did so many believe that the ACA would bring “death panels” and “government take-over of health care”? How about climate change? Never mind the science itself – how come only 10% of Americans even know that there’s a scientific consensus on AGW? (Cite: Yale Project on Climate Communication). A study I’ve cited below shows that very few Americans are even aware of the extent of the income disparity that exists in this country, let alone the problems it’s causing. Is this kind of rampant ignorance conducive to a functional democracy?

Which brings me to your second point. No, this is not my “arrogance” in not recognizing different “values”. Ignorance isn’t a “value”, yet due to the spin industry working on behalf of the wealthy and the corporatocracy we have outcomes like the ones I described in my response to John Mace about which few could be happy. I find it hard to believe that anyone could be happy about the kind of lopsided economic “recovery” I just described unless they were in the top 1%, and surely no one could be happy that the US has the largest income gap in the first world unless they themselves were at least in the top 20%, if not the top 1%. Or, for that matter, the series of reductions in top marginal tax rates that have driven CEO salaries to obscene levels with no increases in productivity and no benefit to anyone.

And the fact is that this is borne out by independent research. Aside from the fact that the IMF recently identified income inequality as a huge economic problem and called for a policy of wealth redistribution, I want to mention an interesting 2011 study conducted by behavioral economist Dan Ariely at Duke and Michael Norton at the Harvard Business School. Americans were shown unlabeled charts of the wealth distribution in the US, where the top 20% has 84% of all wealth, and Sweden, where the top 20% has 36% of the wealth. When asked which system they would prefer to live in, 92% of respondents picked Sweden. In subsequent activities respondents were asked to define their ideal of wealth distribution, and they built a model even more equitable than Sweden, with just 32% of wealth going to the top tier. This seems to be what average people want, but it’s not what they get when they buy what Republicans are selling.

Here’s the abstract with a link to the full paper:
Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of “regular” Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to “build a better America” by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups – even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy – desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.
http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf

Yes, Bone and John Mace are good spokesmen for respectively different degrees of conservatism, but as for “liberal message board”, I thought that this was actually a board in which a bunch of generally well-informed people participate in “fighting ignorance” about a wide variety of subjects. It’s certainly provided me with some of the most informed discussions I’ve had on any general-interest Internet board. If it’s your sense that it’s “vastly” on the “liberal” side of US politics, it may be instructive to try to understand why that is.

82

I look back with great fondness to my local stations GM making his little editorial with the disclaimer, and then some other time the citizen coming on with a different view.

I would love to see what “Fox News Network” would look and sound like if there was these obligations. Maybe impossible but the end of the doctrine proved to be the enabler of a lot of bad information. It may feel like a lot of fun to be a Rebuplican and watch Fox but I don’t think it’s going to work out as planned. It already seems to be coming apart.

83

Exactly the same, because Fox News isn’t a broadcast network. The fairness doctrine was a condition of licenses granted to TV and radio stations.

84

WolfPup,
I was going to say: This is not a liberal board. The idea that it is is just more pulling to the right. The views are limited to what you are arguing. And these arguments are limited in that they are not discourse but like really long tweets. You can’t make a progressive argument that way.

85

So I wouldn’t like to see it?

86

It’s great to the extent that free speech is great. Yes, I think free speech makes a net positive contribution to the democratic process.

You can define it away, but the US as a democracy functions quite well. I don’t think it’s a requirement that voters be well informed about climate change, let alone the Gini coefficient. Personally, I care absolutely zero about income inequality. You make it out to be some huge bugaboo, but again, this is an illustration of completely different values. You can call out the disparity all day long and it won’t be the least bit persuasive. So you may find it hard to believe as you say, but this runs parallel to the same idea I’ve been trying to impress upon you - not everyone thinks like you. People place different values on different elements of their lives. You continue to try and swing your criticism back to economic issues, but for a lot of people, they may value other things greater.

In summary, I think the criticism that people vote against their interests can only be leveled if in fact they were fooled, mislead, or defrauded in some way. So before the criticism is leveled, consider first that they instead voted the way they did on purpose. You certainly do, right? Why would you assume that other people did not do the same?

…and I do not self identify as Conservative. Neither does John Mace, IIRC.

87

Tru dat, bro. I am, like, the USA’s worst conservative. I laugh when folks here call me that. I’d repeal the 2nd amendment in a second if it were up to me. I’m pro-SSM, pro-legalized drugs (all of them, not just pot), anti-war (I wasn’t even in favor of Gulf War I, much less Gulf War II), would love to strengthen the 1st amendment to make it really about separation of Church and State (none of this “ceremonial deism” bullshit), voted for Obama twice, haven’t voted for a Republican in at least 10 years.

But, if you don’t hate Republicans with every fiber of your being on this MB, you’re a conservative.

88

You are assuming that the tax cut actually does benefit the country as a whole.
Now, as I’ve said before, when a person has an accurate view of the benefits of various policies, and chooses a candidate who supports a mix of policies which they feel benefit them in the aggregate even if a particular one does not, they are not really voting against their interests. For instance, if I vote for higher school taxes because better schools increase the value of my house, I’m making a rational choice.

In the example I gave however, the people asked to support tax cuts they don’t get are told that these cuts will help the feared job creators, increase employment, and lead to a better job or higher wages. If you assume this is bull, then the poor voting for lower taxes for the rich are voting against their self interest in all respects.
The struggle here is not to compare the cost to them in reduced services versus the benefit in jobs, but to educate them that the supposed benefit is illusory.
One can make similar conservative arguments of course, this isn’t a left right thing but an education thing.

89

People may vote out of habit, prejudice, ignorance, anger, fear, projection, or lots of other things. It is not all utility out there in the real world of politics, any more than it is in any other area.

We know that Hollywood liberals may vote social issues and be willing to pay more taxes. But I wonder what social utility outweighs economic utility on the right. What issues there are which make this up. Because we know that some of these are wedge issues, and these are always centered around fear in some way.

Love to hear some actual experiences and not just theories.

90

All of this sounds right to me. The thing I’ve been focusing on is when the criticism is leveled, there are two implicit assumptions:
[ol]
[li]The target of the criticism is being misled, or are misinformed, and[/li][li]They would support or vote otherwise if they possessed similar information as the person leveling the criticism[/li][/ol]

Combating the first item is great. But for the second - even with the exact same information people often come to different conclusions. From this, I conclude that it is not simply the possession of the same information that would lead to similar results. People very widely in what motivates them. I don’t assume #2 because IMO, that would be exhibiting arrogance thinking that they would, if they knew what I knew, support what I support.
I grant that there are people that would meet both of the above criteria.

91

Why would it be “arrogant” asking why people vote for some talking points? Is it “against the people”?

Whenever I hear that trope I hear echoes of exactly the thing that they are supposedly against.

Does it mean something about higher education too? Because at least in theory that should be where these questions get asked freely. At least it’s not going to happen anywhere else. It is not happening here.

Why? Because it would be “arrogant”?

92

This is the best I’ve got:

93

That sounds reasonable. I agree that different people, given the same information, come to different conclusions, but you have to allow for their individual circumstances.
That many people would change their minds if presented with the correct information is demonstrated by the fact that there is incorrect information presented or claimed. Examples: gay parents are not as effective at child rearing as straight ones. ACA has been a disaster. I’m sure there are examples from the left also.
Of course the correct information is out there, as well as the incorrect, and changing this situation would involve more education in logical reasoning - as well as more inherently logical people. Or banning “incorrect” information which is a far worse thing than leaving things be.

94

There is enough dodging and deflection there to make my head spin! :slight_smile: Do I have the following assertions correct?

[ul]
[li]That the bamboozled voters who can’t answer a single factual question when asked by pollsters are not ignorant, they are highly informed fact-based rational voters who merely have values different from mine;[/li][li]That the specific examples I cited of major policy-relevant facts that voters either don’t know or have all wrong are all categorically “not important”; [/li][li]That high-priced PR companies spinning bullshit and inundating the public with fear tactics and misinformation on dozens of different fronts on behalf of their paying masters are great for democracy even when they drown out the facts and turn voters into clueless unwitting dupes;[/li][li]And that when the kinds of negative outcomes I cited inevitably occur – as a direct result of reckless policies enacted by venal politicians – those outcomes are really what the voters wanted all along![/li][/ul]
And the Duke-Harvard research I cited that proves my points with respect to income disparity – conveniently ignored by you without comment. The Princeton study I cited that suggests the above factors are so egregious that true democracy is barely functioning any more in America – ignored without comment.

In short, repeating over and over again that all these things are “values differences” doesn’t make it true. Of course there are values differences between conservatives and liberals. But the overwhelming evidence is that this isn’t what’s happening here.

I believe that the unlimited dominance of money in electioneering creates a dominance in the public mindset of the interests and viewpoints of those who have the most money to spend, which is always linked to the interests of the biggest corporations and the wealthiest donors. The “free speech” label in this context is a ruse, a pretext for surrendering the public dialog to the dominance of the moneyed interests and, ironically, actually works to suppress the free speech of voices representing the public interest by drowning it out with high volumes of expertly crafted spin from the well-financed purveyors of special-interest bullshit. And that’s only half the problem. The other half is the direct purchase of political power through election funding, as we saw when the Kochs and Adelson were interviewing and vetting their preferred flunkies among the presidential candidates. This is not a casual happenstance but a deeply ingrained systemic problem, and the results are all around you.

OK. 'nuff said and I guess we’ll leave it there.

And I don’t self-identify as “liberal”.

95

Based on my (admittedly vague) recollections of prior conversations, I would have pegged you as a conservative-leaning moderate though more likely to be an independent than a Republican. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”, to quote Seinfeld on a different topic! And indeed I have certain conservative leanings myself – I’m culturally a traditionalist, and when it comes to government, I’m a fiscal conservative who believes governments should be efficient, budgets should be balanced, and that running up public debt is irresponsible – except for the federal government to provide stimulus during recessions, because Keynes was right about that.

Governments should be no larger than they need to be to provide essential public services. But, I hasten to add, I don’t go off on wild flights of fancy about governments being arbitrary small as a matter of ideology, or have fantasies like Grover Norquist about drowning them in bathtubs. I don’t share the pathological distrust of government that seems to afflict the right. I have a distrust of any great concentration of power, and if not for government, that power will be consolidated in the unaccountable and self-serving private sector, as indeed it was with the robber barons before the great trusts were broken up. Not to mention that our environment and public safety and health would all be at risk.

Respectfully, and in my defense, you’ve made arguments right here that seemed to me to be defending conservative thinking, among which are:

[ul]
[li]in #38: I’d really like to know how many “ordinary people” support tax cuts for the rich, thinking those tax cuts will help them.[/li]And as I pointed out in several posts, most recently in #81, there appear to be lots of them.
[/ul]
[ul]
[li]in #46: And that article [“GOP passes massive tax break for millionaires, billionaires”] is quite deceptive, saying the GOP “passed” that bill when all it got was a yes vote in the House. No way is that going to get thru the Senate.[/li]How is it “deceptive”? A House newly packed with Republicans passed it. Whether or not it gets through the Senate is a whole different issue that is irrelevant to the point. Or maybe it will get through Senate and Obama will veto it. Also irrelevant. What is relevant is who the newly installed politicians in the House clearly represent. It ain’t the average voter.
[/ul]
[ul]
[li]*in #60: As for “flat tax”, that is not a tax cut only for the rich and it needn’t shift the burden from the rich to the poor. *[/li]Except that’s exactly what it does, and that’s why the rich are in favor of it. I understand the point you made about deductions, and the standard personal deduction, but it still makes the super-rich far better off than with progressive taxation. Hence the terms “progressive” and “regressive” taxation. Such a misguided policy has considerable costs to society, but no apparent benefit. Which is why no advanced nation that I know of has ever done it.
[/ul]

I hardly think so. Certainly, speaking for myself, I have no vested interest in Democrats or anyone else, and if I seem to pick on Republicans it’s probably for the same reason that Bill Maher does – they’re so darned funny while simultaneously being seriously destructive, that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The best analogy I can think of is a 400-pound bear trying to ride a unicycle in a crowded park full of children – you laugh, but you just know that very bad things are going to happen! I mean, come on: Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Donald Trump, Scott Walker … this bunch attracts the best and brightest, don’t they? :smiley:

96

I’m going to echo what some have said already:

  1. A democracy in which every voter only voted for what was in their own interest would NOT be a good democracy. White voters might support racial discrimination/segregation if it favored their race, for instance. You WANT a democracy in which voters will vote for the common good even if it’s not in their immediate self-interest.
  2. When many people who complain that others ‘vote against their self-interest,’ what they really mean is, “Why don’t these ignorant voters think the same way I do?” Many pro-choicers, for instance, are confounded by the fact that there are many women who vote pro-life. “Why wouldn’t these women want abortion to be readily available???”
97

When I saw this the first time, I thought your kitty-cat ran on the keyboard, and ignored this nonsense. But since then we’ve evidence that even basic artihmetic can’t be taken for granted with some posters.
Here goes.

Holding spending and borrowing constant, total tax must also be constant. Your implication that taxes will be cut on rich AND middle AND poor AND businesses is sensical only if “Flat tax” to you means “cutting government spending.” Is this much clear, or do I need another cite?

So. I’ll assume you know that the FlatTax of 2015 isn’t imposed on businesses, investments, or foreign vacation spendings. It’s a 30% tax on personal domestic consumption. Guess how it redistributes wealth?
Please Google or use your senses, not just whine “Cite?” :smiley:

98

Not even close. I wonder why you feel the need to embellish in this fashion. “highly informed”, “categorically not important”, ‘misinformation being great for democracy’, and ‘negative outcomes being what the voters wanted’. Those are poor interpretations of my statements. I’m trying to think if you come to those through honest interpretation or if the mischaracterization is intentional. It does seem to be a trend.

Yes, I ignored the income disparity section. I stated why I did this. Because I don’t care about income disparity. Not at all. And if you think that a single study that suggests the outlandish claim that America is no longer a functioning democracy is persuasive, you are again, gravely mistaken. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Last I checked, we still count votes. Before you claim that the US is no longer an actual “functional democracy”, you may want to check if the cite ever uses the term (it doesn’t). That’s why I said you can define it away, but the US as a democracy functions quite well. It’s absurd claims like these that make it hard to take your points seriously. I mean, there may be material there worth discussing, questions of where the concentration of power should lie is interesting. But instead you choose to sensationalize the material and as a result there’s no value in addressing it.

My main point of the examples given, was to rebut this claim:

Do you still think this? You have conceded that you level the criticism quite a lot. What I’m trying to impress upon you, is that not only are their more than two sides, but it is simply not true or not knowable that in the vast majority of cases the different sides agree on basic values. I certainly share very little basic values with you, as we’ve illustrated.

Do you think you are immune to this phenomenon? If not, then aren’t you subjected to the same risk of being manipulated to vote against your own interests? If you are immune, why do you think others are not?

99

Let’s stop right there.

Can you show me, in your original post that I responded to, where you set that criteria up? I’ll save you the trouble. You didn’t. You just said said “flat tax”, which can be set up many different ways, as I outlined in my later response to Voyager. If you had some specific plan in mind, don’t blame me because you neglected to to say what it was.

Often, when someone proposes a new tax method, they will tout it as being revenue neutral. Makes sense, since they don’t want to sound too revolutionary. But revenue neutrality is not in any way intrinsic to “flat tax”.

100

I understand that this thread is all about why liberals dare to question the motives of the voting populace. As if that meant they were fascists who needed everyone to think the same. Or that they are arrogant or making accusations of ignorance.

C’mon. Democracy doesn’t need voters who vote for altruistic or common good reasons. But they are meant to be informed. It’s the way the republic was created.

How on earth do you know “What they really mean”? any more than you know what the voters really mean?

I get the buzzwords “Arrogant” “Condescending”, “He said you’re Ignorant” It’s really the same anti-intellectual stuff we got from the communists, McCarthy, Reagan, Pol Pot ad infinitum. Basically it’s “How dare you attribute meaning to these facts and events”? I would say the same to you:
How dare you attribute, to those who want to know something, the epithets of arrogance and condescension.

Look in the mirror: That’s not arrogant?

Anyway I’m glad that nobody’s taking this seriously. I mean really:
(Not the above dude but:)
The poster who said they are completely unconcerned with income inequality.
The poster who thinks that money is free speech.
What does this add up to? A serious conversation or something else.
Sorry, but anyone who doesn’t have a trust fund is more likely to speak truth than these people.