The behavior that I’m talking about is where Bill Gates gives $100 million for AIDS prevention in India. Or where most customers in the US tip 15% for normal service, even if they never expect to be served by the same waiter/waitress again. Or where consumers buy a hybrid engine car which costs $3000 more than a similar car without the hybrid engine, and the gas savings will never reach $3000 over the lifetime of the car.

All of these things are things that I would do (I’m not Bill Gates, but I do give to charity, I tip 15% and I am seriously thinking of buying a hybrid). None of them make any economic sense.

Is voting the same, or is it slightly different?

What would society look like if everyone behaved rationally?

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A digression on Dan’s “for instance” about how “unpleasant” economic rationality might be: what if the toxic wastes cause 10,000 premature deaths, but the cash payment received for taking the waste saves 20,000 lives?

You might still find the idea abhorrent, but if that’s the actual tradeoff, we wouldn’t be doing a poorer nation any favors by denying them the option of taking the wastes.

And lest you think this example is hopelessly contrived… it seems largely equivalent to the deal we offer, and developing nations accept, when we buy our electronics (and other high-toxic-byproduct goods) from jurisdictions with weaker worker and environmental protections. They’re taking a health hit, but also receiving an income (and indirect health) benefit, but only hard-headed economic rationality can tell us (or them) if the trade is worth it.

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(I’ll eventually have more on the benefits of rational voter disengagement at my blog…)

The other bizarre aspect is the “spoiler” problem, and whose sensible
alternative is Instant Runoff Voting. In the 2002 US Presidential Election,
if you want to vote for Ralph Nader and your second choice is Al Gore and not
George W. Bush, who do you vote for? Or in the 1992 US Presidential Election,
if you want to vote for Ross Perot and your second choice is George Bush and
not Bill Clinton, who should you vote for? In the current broken system, a
vote for Nader or Perot is effectively a vote for Gore and Clinton, your worst
choice. Instant Runoff Voting will fix this where your 2nd and 3rd choice
votes do matter.

These aren’t hard to implement and they’re not that controversial, but it does
fly in the face of entrenched hide-bound tradition, which is always stronger
than common sense.

I found some web sites that go into more details about this:

Californians for Electoral Reform
http://www.fairvoteca.org/

California IRV Coalition
http://www.calirv.org/