Who Isn't Afraid of Democracy?

Writing in the "progressive" In These Times, Christopher Hayes asks the provocative question, Who's Afraid of Democracy?

I am. So, almost certainly, is Hayes, although he is unlikely to admit it. You should be, too.

Hayes's article focuses on George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. The issue Caplan addresses is how it can be that individuals acting as consumers and producers behave as the sort of rational, self-interested actors classical economics both presumes and predicts and yet as voters can and do frequently favor political policies such as, for example, minimum wage laws, that are clearly irrational from an economic perspective. Caplan's position as described by Hayes is that people act rationally as consumers because they directly and visibly experience the consequences of their decisions, whereas acting as voters they are rationally aware that their individual votes are inconsequential and thus feel free to vote for objectively irrational policies. Whether that is an accurate description of Caplan's position or not, it is a rational position.

Hayes's problem with that position, however, is that "it quickly leads to some very dark places," such as considering a requirement that people pass a basic economics test as a prerequisite to vote. Given that Hayes considers a recent bit of economic research suggestive "that we are all, more or less, intuitive socialists" and describes Caplan as being willing "to embrace the darkness [and] articulate in lurid detail the obscene id of Chicago-school, Grover-Norquist-style, free market fundamentalism," the prospect of Hayes, himself, voting suggests to me that there may be something to this notion of an economic literacy test after all.

Hayes also indulges in some muddled counterargument about economic consensus and the comparative value of public opinion versus economic expertise almost too silly to bother mentioning. Here, in any case, is Hayes's real objection. He writes, "Given a choice between democracy without free markets or free markets without democracy, many conservatives would gladly choose the latter."

Hayes is obviously happy to include libertarians without qualm or qualification into his over-broad definition of conservatives, but insofar as his topic is the sort of economic "conservativism" that is the hallmark of libertarianism versus "progressive" economic theory, perhaps that isn't unreasonable or unfair. The critical point, however, is not whether there is some per se ideological preference for markets over democracy insofar as they might lead to different results, but whether democracy is itself an intrinsic or a merely instrumental good. If democracy is an intrinsic good, well then, that's that. If merely instrumental, however, then it is entirely appropriate to ask what the limits of its instrumental value are and whether there are better alternatives. There is a reason why, for example, neither Mr. Hayes nor I decide what to order in a restaurant by a show of hands from the other customers.

Restaurants aside, without speculating too much about Hayes's own political or economic views, I suspect it is fair to assume that he, too, would contend that there are serious problems with democracy understood simply as majority rule. Even liberals and progressives understand the tyranny of the majority problem, perhaps better than many conservatives do, though far worse than libertarians do. So it simply won't do for Hayes to tut-tut the notion that at least some things are too important to us as individuals to permit a mere majority of others to vote them away. And if we are agreed at least to that extent, then we end up, as the old joke goes, merely haggling over the price; that is, Hayes's list of inalienable rights might differ from yours or mine, but unless he is willing to embrace the non-"elitist" notion that a majority (or even super-majority) vote to, say, reestablish slavery would be just hunky-dory, then he too must at least in principle fear unmitigated democracy.

If so, then how do we decide which rights are inalienable? Obviously, majority vote won't do. At least the "economic conservative," i.e., the libertarian has an alternative solution; namely, to the maximum extent possible, leave individuals alone to decide for themselves what to do with their liberty and their property. Surely, that is at least part of the background from which Caplan might well suggest that market solutions are often preferable to political solutions.

It is not, of course, an entirely unproblematic solution. But one might still ask what sort of solution Hayes thinks is preferable and how he ethically justifies his preferred solution. Perhaps intuitively?