Which summarizes the poverty of the rat-choice behavioral model. In the same vein, one may wonder why people (or at least Catholics) go to church every sunday, confess their sins & repent - when the sinful life followed by a summary confession on their death bed would yield much higher utility: free of remorse, pleasurable life PLUS a place in heaven. Or, for that matter, why people leave tips in reastaurants to which they are unlikely to return.
Of course, one has no problem explaining that type of behavior by ditching the rat-choice model in favor of the institutional one: people's behavior follow institutionalized norms and expectations. Hence peple will go to this or that church, vote for this or that political party, and throw rice at their weddings because they consider that proper things to do, even though the marginal utility of their actions is close to nil.
That, BTW, is a bad news for the proponents of "the worse - the better" approach to politics. People may be worse off, but they have no sufficient information to make a causal conncetion between their individual interests and broad policy programs proposed by politicians. They will vote for the candidate who will say the "right" things and make the "right" appeals - which in this country almsot inevitably means "turn to the right."
wojtek