[lbo-talk] The "Rational" Voter

[Michael McIntyre]

> Here's the supreme irony.  Those who won't vote for Kucinich  
> because they think he can't win justify that decision on the  
> grounds of "not throwing your vote away," "supporting someone with  
> a chance to win," or "casting an effective vote."  All of these  
> justifications reject voting as an expressive act ("the ballot as a  
> place to make a statement") in favor of voting as a causally  
> efficacious act.  But a moment's reflection will reveal that one's  
> individual vote has zero causal effect.  Not only is it  
> extraordinarily unlikely that an election will be decided by one  
> vote, but given the uncertainties of any vote-counting mechanism,  
> one's vote is necessarily within the statistical margin of vote- 
> counting error.  It is therefore IRRATIONAL to vote in order to  
> have an effect, an a fortiori irrational to vote (on grounds of  
> causal efficacy) for a candidate who has a chance rather than a  
> candidate who does not.  Ironically, those who invoke instrumental  
> rationality as the reason for voting as they do are the most  
> deluded of all.  The argument for not voting is very strong.  The  
> argument for voting as an expressive act is much weaker, though  
> perhaps viable.  But no one should vote because they think their  
> vote makes a difference, and no one should vote under the sway of  
> the flawed argument that voting for one candidate has an effect  
> while voting for another does not.

Michael McIntyre


>
>
> On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> Dennis Kucinich will be on the ballot in the DP caucuses and
>> primaries, but most "anti-war" DP voters won't vote for him.  I
>> conclude that they don't have the courage of their convictions.
>
> You make it sound like a moral failing, or some sort of other
> personal defect. Most people sympathetic with Kucinich's politics
> think he doesn't have a prayer - not merely of winning, but even
> scoring above 5%. Yes, that's self-fulfilling, but unlike a lot of
> leftists, many voters don't think of the ballot as a place to make a
> statement, but as a way of supporting someone with a chance to win.
> Until you can change that perception, which means changing reality to
> at least some degree, what you see as individual moral failings will
> keep repeating themselves.
>
> Doug