I agree that voting is a Tragedy of the Commons—but in the exact opposite way to how you frame it. Because people don’t fully internalise the costs and benefits of their votes, but value self-expression, (1) it is very cheap for the ill-informed to use their votes to signal expressively, and (2) there is little incentive to become a well-informed voter. For a given level of political ignorance, we get far too much voting.
To my mind, voting is analagous to pollution and should be taxed as such.
I agree that voting is a Tragedy of the Commons—but in the exact opposite way to how you frame it. Because people don’t fully internalise the costs and benefits of their votes, but value self-expression, (1) it is very cheap for the ill-informed to use their votes to signal expressively, and (2) there is little incentive to become a well-informed voter. For a given level of political ignorance, we get far too much voting.
To my mind, voting is analagous to pollution and should be taxed as such.