If You Vote, You Have No Right to Complain
“After all the romanticizing about democracy and voting, in the end, we are still left with the sad fact that the worst always find their way to the top.”
“Most citizens are not doing us any favor by voting. Asking everyone to vote is like asking everyone to litter.”
—Jason Brennan, Against Democracy
“No, the title is not a typo: I mean the opposite of the quip many people use after elections: “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.”
“The romantic view of democratic government is the idea that we all come together, display our values and give our say, and through the miracles of aggregation we receive a responsible government that somehow reflects those values. And for the next four years, we can happily spend our time on what really matters in life, while our appointed representatives carefully and competently steward our shared public goods in the best interest of our nation.
If you didn’t sneer while reading the previous paragraph, you have either never participated in a democracy or you are in for a brutal shock once you lift your nose from that fairytale-like view. One most astute critic of democracy, Jason Brennan, opens his book Against Democracy by summarizing how his view differs from most others:
The overlooked flipside of democracy’s promise is that you—yes, you—might make things worse. For what do you know about tax rates or environmental legislation or how to structure healthcare or infrastructure needs or what ought to be taught in public schools? How could you possibly have any reasonable grasp of military procurement or how much the federal government ought to spend on x? (Well, the last one does have a reasonable answer: zero.)”