“It is irrational to vote.” This phrase, uttered by my economics professor, caused a stir in the previously sleepy classroom. It certainly piqued my interest, and I listened in carefully as he explained.
In economics, the theory of rational abstention asserts that your individual vote only matters when there is a perfect tie when your vote would be the tiebreaker. Because the possibility of your vote being the tiebreaker is so statistically unlikely, it is simply not worth the time and effort to vote.
However, for many of us, it is rational to vote because we don’t strictly adhere to the “rules” of traditional economic thinking. But this got me considering how many voters don’t act rationally enough.
A classical example of this is voting for a third party. Under the current system in the United States, voting for RFK, Cornel West or any other third-party candidate is a wasted vote. It’s common sense: multiply the benefit you’d get from each outcome by the likelihood of the outcome. Since the chance of a third party winning is tiny, you’re better off voting for Harris or Trump, even if you dislike both.
And rationality isn’t just limited to voting for the new President. According to Bardach’s Eightfold Path—or the “Bible of public policy,” as I like to call it—policymakers should weigh outcomes according to quantitative metrics like feasibility and political legitimacy. The latter of these two, which is essentially the likelihood of getting one version passed, is often used in politics.
So, political legitimacy is essential to passing a bill. Some might argue that this opens up the door to incrementalism, in which many small policies are enacted over time to gradually implement a bigger change. Incrementalism often carries a negative connotation; however, it opens the door to future negotiations and mitigates some of the inaction so common in politics, especially in a divided Congress. If more voters and policymakers internalized this, we’d all be better off.
Overall, the intellectual benefits of fringe ideologies are important. However, since political legitimacy is essential to enact a policy, incrementalism shouldn’t carry a negative connotation.
Acknowledgment: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author.
Comments