You’re making a big assumption in your analysis of the value of voting, that one’s preferred policy bundle is on the ballot to vote for in the first place. Anyone who feels more aligned with a 3rd party (in the us at least) has to a nearest approximation 0% chance of having their party’s candidate elected in even small local elections, much less national ones. And that candidate still likely doesn’t align 100% with their policy preferences. Recent polling shows reps and dems increasingly don’t like their party’s candidates either, they just really hate the other party’s, resulting in a lose/lose spiral of fielding ‘lesser of two evils’ candidates in lowest-common-denominator contests to drink each other’s tears. It hardly seems altruistic to me to perpetuate or participate in such a system, even if you have a small (basically 0) chance of moving one or two policies marginally in a less terrible direction (and remember: there’s no guarantee your candidate actually does move policy as you’d hoped once in office).
Incidentally, I did vote today; it’s a wonderful signal to my peers that I am a good and responsible member of society who doesn’t need any lectures on civic duty. Quite rational, though next year I might just order a roll of ‘I voted’ sticker on Amazon instead.
Yes, I didn’t get into more detailed arguments about the pros/cons of voting & voting systems; the Put A Number On It post I linked to has a quite good discussion of these, and I didn’t mention other reservations of my own (in particular I’m suspicious of multiplying very small probabilities by very large benefits).
But on your particular point, my brief thought is that not participating in a voting system doesn’t make it change (though organizing a mass boycott of it could do). And on my estimated numbers, in the same way that even a tiny bit of altruism makes it worth voting, if you have even a tiny preference between the two lead parties, and even if it’s very uncertain they will implement their policies, it is probably still worth voting to keep out the worse one.
If you’re locking yourself in to voting for one of the two major party candidates to even have a chance at moving the needle on policy, then I would argue you’re not multiplying a small probability by a large benefit because the major parties actually agree on almost everything and only clash on marginal execution issues (the occasional brexit type referendum notwithstanding).
For all the anti-war protests in the Bush years, Obama kept them rolling at pace for almost a decade; for all the tea party protests in the Obama years, republicans had no fiscal restraint when given the purse strings. These were just the noisiest issues on each side (and may be interesting to explore deeper in relation to the value of demonstration) but the list of policy more-or-less agreement between them is nearly endless. So the benefit in normal (non-brexit) elections is marginal at best.
Yes, but since on my numbers the benefits of voting are so huge, a tiny difference between parties can still justify it. E.g. near the end of the article I calculate that in a UK general election, if the difference between the two main parties equals 10% of government spending (in benefit to the country, not necessarily actual spend), that equals 7% of Brexit or about $7,000 to a marginal voter.
So even if it’s only worth 0.1% of government spending (e.g. a small confidence that one party will make a small execution improvement on a few policies), that’s $70 - enough to justify voting.
By most accounts Nixon was a really horrible president. At the same time Nixon went to China which might have been on of the decisions of a US president that produced the most counterfactual wealth creation ever.
It would have likely not been as easy for a Democratic president to do the same as Nixon even if the Democratic president would have wanted to do so.
It would have been harder for a Republican attorney general to go after the Associated Press the was the Obama’s Eric Holder did.
It’s easier for a Democratic politician to push through Republican policy and easier for a Republican to push through Democratic policies.
I.e. hence you can’t tell how effective a president will be from their party’s policies, because sometimes their most effective actions are following their opponents’ policies.
Yes, could be. It’s in line with the Putanumonit arguments that you just can’t tell which party will be better for the country.
I can’t think of particular instances of this in the UK, so I don’t know if this is more of a US thing. What quite often happens in the UK (particularly since Tony Blair) is parties stealing each others’ policies, even sometimes in stronger form than the other party. But presumably that’s just them trying to tempt voters across from the other side with occasional juicy little morsels. I.e. both parties converging on the median voter. [ADDED] Though similar to your point that the other party may implement your party’s policies, and perhaps more effectively, which makes it harder to predict which party would run the country better.
Thinking about this more in the shower the following occurred to me:
3rd party voting meets both conditions. As a vote, the potential gains are much larger both on nominal alignment and execution (as non incumbent parties are (I imagine) more likely to take action to disrupt the status quo if elected).
But 3rd party voting is also a form of demonstration, enticing mainstream parties to align more closely with your highest value positions (at least nominally) to win proven (and numerable) voters. E.g., if you’re a Democrat with special consideration for environmental issues, a vote for the green party probably has a bigger influence on democratic environmental policy than a vote for a moderate democrat (with no included signal that it’s environmental justice motivating your vote) paired with attending an earthday rally. Maybe?
I suspect that the chances of a 3rd party winning are orders of magnitude lower than a 1st or 2nd, so the expected value from you having the deciding vote would be too small. But in terms of policy influence, if the 3rd party does unusually well (without winning), I agree that can be significant. Indeed I recall an example of this happening in the UK in the 1990s, when in one national election the Green party (then the 4th or 5th party) did unexpectedly well, albeit still only getting a few % of the vote, which immediately made the major parties start saying how important the environment was and announcing new policies.
You’re making a big assumption in your analysis of the value of voting, that one’s preferred policy bundle is on the ballot to vote for in the first place. Anyone who feels more aligned with a 3rd party (in the us at least) has to a nearest approximation 0% chance of having their party’s candidate elected in even small local elections, much less national ones. And that candidate still likely doesn’t align 100% with their policy preferences. Recent polling shows reps and dems increasingly don’t like their party’s candidates either, they just really hate the other party’s, resulting in a lose/lose spiral of fielding ‘lesser of two evils’ candidates in lowest-common-denominator contests to drink each other’s tears. It hardly seems altruistic to me to perpetuate or participate in such a system, even if you have a small (basically 0) chance of moving one or two policies marginally in a less terrible direction (and remember: there’s no guarantee your candidate actually does move policy as you’d hoped once in office).
Incidentally, I did vote today; it’s a wonderful signal to my peers that I am a good and responsible member of society who doesn’t need any lectures on civic duty. Quite rational, though next year I might just order a roll of ‘I voted’ sticker on Amazon instead.
Yes, I didn’t get into more detailed arguments about the pros/cons of voting & voting systems; the Put A Number On It post I linked to has a quite good discussion of these, and I didn’t mention other reservations of my own (in particular I’m suspicious of multiplying very small probabilities by very large benefits).
But on your particular point, my brief thought is that not participating in a voting system doesn’t make it change (though organizing a mass boycott of it could do). And on my estimated numbers, in the same way that even a tiny bit of altruism makes it worth voting, if you have even a tiny preference between the two lead parties, and even if it’s very uncertain they will implement their policies, it is probably still worth voting to keep out the worse one.
If you’re locking yourself in to voting for one of the two major party candidates to even have a chance at moving the needle on policy, then I would argue you’re not multiplying a small probability by a large benefit because the major parties actually agree on almost everything and only clash on marginal execution issues (the occasional brexit type referendum notwithstanding).
For all the anti-war protests in the Bush years, Obama kept them rolling at pace for almost a decade; for all the tea party protests in the Obama years, republicans had no fiscal restraint when given the purse strings. These were just the noisiest issues on each side (and may be interesting to explore deeper in relation to the value of demonstration) but the list of policy more-or-less agreement between them is nearly endless. So the benefit in normal (non-brexit) elections is marginal at best.
Yes, but since on my numbers the benefits of voting are so huge, a tiny difference between parties can still justify it. E.g. near the end of the article I calculate that in a UK general election, if the difference between the two main parties equals 10% of government spending (in benefit to the country, not necessarily actual spend), that equals 7% of Brexit or about $7,000 to a marginal voter.
So even if it’s only worth 0.1% of government spending (e.g. a small confidence that one party will make a small execution improvement on a few policies), that’s $70 - enough to justify voting.
By most accounts Nixon was a really horrible president. At the same time Nixon went to China which might have been on of the decisions of a US president that produced the most counterfactual wealth creation ever.
It would have likely not been as easy for a Democratic president to do the same as Nixon even if the Democratic president would have wanted to do so.
It would have been harder for a Republican attorney general to go after the Associated Press the was the Obama’s Eric Holder did.
It’s easier for a Democratic politician to push through Republican policy and easier for a Republican to push through Democratic policies.
I.e. hence you can’t tell how effective a president will be from their party’s policies, because sometimes their most effective actions are following their opponents’ policies.
Yes, could be. It’s in line with the Putanumonit arguments that you just can’t tell which party will be better for the country.
I can’t think of particular instances of this in the UK, so I don’t know if this is more of a US thing. What quite often happens in the UK (particularly since Tony Blair) is parties stealing each others’ policies, even sometimes in stronger form than the other party. But presumably that’s just them trying to tempt voters across from the other side with occasional juicy little morsels. I.e. both parties converging on the median voter. [ADDED] Though similar to your point that the other party may implement your party’s policies, and perhaps more effectively, which makes it harder to predict which party would run the country better.
Thinking about this more in the shower the following occurred to me:
3rd party voting meets both conditions. As a vote, the potential gains are much larger both on nominal alignment and execution (as non incumbent parties are (I imagine) more likely to take action to disrupt the status quo if elected).
But 3rd party voting is also a form of demonstration, enticing mainstream parties to align more closely with your highest value positions (at least nominally) to win proven (and numerable) voters. E.g., if you’re a Democrat with special consideration for environmental issues, a vote for the green party probably has a bigger influence on democratic environmental policy than a vote for a moderate democrat (with no included signal that it’s environmental justice motivating your vote) paired with attending an earthday rally. Maybe?
I suspect that the chances of a 3rd party winning are orders of magnitude lower than a 1st or 2nd, so the expected value from you having the deciding vote would be too small. But in terms of policy influence, if the 3rd party does unusually well (without winning), I agree that can be significant. Indeed I recall an example of this happening in the UK in the 1990s, when in one national election the Green party (then the 4th or 5th party) did unexpectedly well, albeit still only getting a few % of the vote, which immediately made the major parties start saying how important the environment was and announcing new policies.