Ignorance is said to be “rational” when the cost of learning about a subject adequately to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. If politicians increase the number of issues that a person needs to consider in order to make a rational decision between candidates, they can level the playing field by encouraging single-issue voting, party-line voting, and other habits that tend to ignore a candidate’s actual qualifications for the job.
As peoples’ lives get busier with work and family is it no wonder that the time to find out about an issue and vote on it is not worth the benefits it will bring. The fact that apathy exists is in my opinion rational and not irrational. As for the cry that I often hear, that my vote doesn’t matter. Turns out that could be true on one level.
"Public choice theory, developed by George Mason University Professors Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan, recognizes that the probability of any voter’s ballot making any difference in the outcome of any election, including last year’s Florida election, is essentially nil. In other words, the only way my vote changes the outcome of an election is if my vote breaks a tie and the probability of a tie is close to zero.
Politicians exploit rational ignorance by conferring large benefits on certain constituents whose costs are widely dispersed and borne by the general population. Take the sugar industry. It pays the owners and workers to organize and tax themselves to raise money to lobby Congress for tariffs on foreign sugar. If they’re successful, it means millions of dollars in higher profits and wages. Since they are relatively small in number the organization costs are small and the benefits are narrowly distributed. The Fanjul family, who owns large sugar farms in the Florida Everglades, capture an estimated $60 million annually in artificial profits.
What about the costs? As a result of price supports and import restrictions, millions of American sugar consumers pay a few dollars more per year for the sugar we use. The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates that Americans pay between $1 and $2 billion a year in higher sugar prices. Forget about finding out and doing something about these costs. After all how many of us are willing to board a plane or train to Washington to try to unseat congressmen who made us pay $5 more for the sugar we bought last year? It’s not worth it; it’s cheaper just to pay the $5 and forget it. For workers and owners in the sugar industry it is worth it to descend on Washington to try to unseat congressmen who refuse to support restrictions on foreign sugar. It’s worth $1 or $2 billion to them, and who do you think congressmen will listen to: your complaining about higher sugar prices or the sugar industry complaining about foreign imports keeping their prices, profit and wages down?
You say, “What’s the grief, Williams? Five dollars won’t kill you.” Washington is home to thousands of business and labor union lobbyists looking for a leg up here and a handout there. After a while $5 here and $4 there adds up to real money. According to some estimates, restrictions of one kind or another cost the average American family $5,000 to $6,000 a year in higher prices…"
gmu.edu/departments/economic … rance.html
In the USA, much of the empirical support for the idea of rational ignorance was drawn from studies of voter apathy, which reached particularly strong conclusions in the 1950s. However, apathy appeared to decline sharply in the 1960s as concern about issues such as the Vietnam War mounted, and political polarization increased. This suggests that voters’ interest in political information increases with the importance of political choices.
This could be one of the reasons for low voter turnout in the UK. Labour, traditionally a left-wing party has moved to the right and the Conservatives have moved more to the left. This leaves all three of the major parties now in the center. The incentive to vote therefore has been taken away. Whoever you vote for, the outcome will be almost the same. If you are a socialist, who can you vote for? The only socialist parties are the BNP and Respect, who while small are growing. If large parts of society have no choice when voting, then why would they vote? Traditionally, young and poorer people tend to vote for left parties, these are now the groups with the lowest voter turnout. Could there be a connection?
Education has a role too to play in helping people become interested in politics. Many young people consider it to be boring and dull, yet ask many about politics and they won’t know much about what goes on. Why bother to learn about the Tudors and Stuarts, when you could be learning about Bush and Blair. These are the things that affect peoples’ lives today. The Tudors have their role in history; I have never quite understood the education system though. I learnt at school that Japan’s trade surplus increased by X amount after WW2. I thought then and still do that, most of what I learnt at school was useless nonsense. I will skip my thoughts on education here, but to say that politics and society should be deemed higher priority then some subjects.
Considering that your vote counts for little in an election and the fact that the parties are similar, but not the same. In some areas the difference are quite big, like proportional voting. The solution is to make politics more accessible via making more information available to the public and teaching more relevant topics in school which are related to society today and which impact peoples’ lives. Politicians could try to make themselves more accessible via the language they use and the documents they write. At the end of the day though the responsibility to make politicians more accountability lies with YOU the voter. If you want to remain ignorant to politics, while rational, it does not serve the society in which you live any purpose. Businesses who are interested will lobby the politician while the people will remain silent. This gives the politician an incentive to serve them and not YOU. So next time you bitch about the fact your country is going down the plug hole. Ask yourself the questions; what have I done to improve the situation? What do I know about my local MP, what has he done? These are the only ways to improve society. Don’t rely on anyone else to do it for you. Voting while important doesn’t change much. If you want labour to be socialist again you must change that by doing something, if you want fewer subsidies to be given to big business you must actually do something. Voting every fours years and then walking away won’t change anything.
PS: A republic and a democratic state are not the same.