Abstract

Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter overstates its case against democracy by not dealing with what might be called the historical/instrumentalist argument for democracy. The case for democracy that he attacks is primarily an academic exercise, which makes his argument against that case also an academic exercise. The supposed policy choice that Caplan presents between the market and democracy is not the correct choice, and the notion that economists should be given more voting weight in the democratic decision process is normatively inappropriate.