Über die Freiheit / de libertate

This counterintuitive bit of advice was introduced to me by economists. As a student of history I have constantly been told that one must perform their civic duty. As such I have voted in every federal, provincial and local election since I turned 18. Funnily enough, the candidates I’ve voted for have all won their respective elections. Interestingly not one of the elections I participated in was decided by one vote. Thus, merely from this simplistic analysis, not of my votes have been relevant.

2006 Canadian Federal Election
Liberal: 8,956  NDP: 9,467 Conservative: 14,176 Green 1,035
2006 Regina Civic Election
Pat Fiacco: 42,946, Jim Holmes: 7,401 Wayne Wagner 364, Darcy Robillard: 353
2007 Saskatchewan Provincial Election
Sask Party: 4,302 Liberal: 1215 Green: 256 NDP: 4047

As Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame states, “Not very many economists vote.” Since I put a lot of credit in economists, I decided that it must be a good idea. This idea is based around one main idea best summarized by Steven Landsburg four years ago:

 We might be headed for another close election, which means your vote could really matter this time, right? Wrong. Your vote didn’t matter in 2000, it never mattered before 2000, and it’s very unlikely to start mattering now.

Thus voting only matters in the event of a tie or a one vote discrepancy. And even then if it’s that close there will probably be a recount and a few more votes will magically appear. In a paper from 2000, economists Casey Mulligan and Charles Hunter shows the likelihood of the “pivotal vote”. “Roughly one of every 30,000 elections with 100,000 votes are decided by one vote. For elections with 5,000 or 20,000 votes, the frequencies are 1/1500 or 1/6000, respectively.” So while it’s technically possible to cast a deciding vote, it’s highly unlikely.

Economist Patricia Funk argues in the opening of a 2005 paper that a “rational individual should abstain from voting.” I’m a big fan of rationality. Her paper goes on to show that the main indicator of voting is implicit ‘social norms’. Thus the man function of going to the polls was to signal that you are participating. This is demonstrated by the fact that mail in voting decreased the number of ballots cast. On the flip side, this reduction in the quantity of votes might also increase the quality of votes, something Bryan Caplan would be happy to see.

Steven Levitt does, however, attempt to mildly defend voting. “Voting” he states” is no crazier than playing the lottery in the sense that the lottery is a bad investment, but it’s fun.” This has limited appeal since I consider the lottery to be an incredible waste of time. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have fun doing it. I also don’t it quite works. It is crazier to vote because even if your candidate loses, you still get a feeling that you are doing your civic duty. When you play the lottery and lose you don’t think (unless perhaps it’s a charity) that you’ve made any significant contribution to society.

Whenever I mention this idea to anyone the immediate reaction is “well if everyone thought like that, democracy wouldn’t work.” First, as discussed above, less voting is probably a good thing. And secondly, Steven Landsburg has an immediate rejoinder: “So what? Everyone doesn’t think like that. They continue to vote by the millions and tens of millions.”

Moving beyond the structural reasons not to vote, there is the legitimate concern that the available candidates present no viable option. Can democracy really be defended by imploring people to vote for the least of the available evils? Surely no civic good comes from that.

This certainly the case for me nowadays. Canadian politics presents 5 large political parties of which 4 are actually national and only 3 of which have a realistic shot at being elected in the near future. Yet none of these three parties present anything useful. The Conservative Party is probably the most libertarian of the parties, especially considering the economy, but it lacks in important areas such as drug enforcement, criminal justice and social tolerance (though by no means anywhere near the Republican Party). The Liberals are so concerned with straddling the ‘centre’ that they have no backbone. Though they are certainly better generally in the abovementioned areas, they are willing bend to pressure in order to be elected. Likewise their economic policies are reflexive and malleable. The NDP, well they’re an honest to goodness democratic socialist party, so I don’t think any commentary is necessary.

With this in mind, who should a libertarian vote for? Should it be based on the economy? Social tolerance? War? I think looking at all three major parties (and discounting small parties and independents due to their obvious uselessness) there is no choice that is perfect or even good.

Another way to look at this issue comes from a blog post about the UK general election in 2005:

This is a howling fallacy. If you were to ask Gordon Ramsey whether he preferred McDonalds or Burger King, and he replied “they’re both shit”, would you infer that he was apathetic about food? Why, then, infer that I’m apathetic about politics.
It’s not apathy I feel. It’s contempt.

I agree. Implying that I must vote for the sake of the institution is a lazy canard. I’d argue that I’m much more knowledgeable about Canadian politics than the typical voter who votes based on guttural instinct. Indeed it’s the fact that I do pay attention which leads me to refrain from voting.

When you combine all of these issues with the fusionist parliamentary system, I think it’s best to not bother voting. The best hope for Canada is another minority government-Canada’s gridlock.