Against Democracy by Jason Brennan

In Against Democracy, Jason Brennan, a professor of strategy, economics, ethics and public policy at Georgetown, argues just that: that democracy, the system we’ve all been raised to cherish and revere, really isn’t that great. He discusses a litany of problems with the institution, and advocates for epistocracy, “rule of the knowers,” as an alternative.

What’s wrong?

First and foremost, voters are incredibly stupid. Brennan spends the first two chapters piecing together the grim picture painted by surveys of voter knowledge. A few findings that he lists:

• During election years, most citizens cannot identify any congressional candidates in their district.
• Citizens generally don’t know which party controls Congress.
• In 1964, only a minority of citizens knew that the Soviet Union was not a member of the North Atlantic treaty Organization (Yes, that’s right: NATO, the alliance created to oppose the Soviet Union.) Keep in mind this is just a short time after the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the United States almost went to (nuclear) war with the USSR.
• Seventy-three percent of Americans do not understand what the Cold War was about.
• During the 2000 presidential election, while slightly more than half of all Americans knew Al Gore was more liberal than Bush, they did not seem to understand what the word liberal means. Fifty-seven percent of them knew Gore favored a higher level of spending than Bush did, but significantly less than half knew that Gore was more supportive of abortion rights, more supportive of welfare state programs, favored a higher degree of aid to blacks, or was more supportive of environmental regulation. Only 37 percent knew that federal spending on the poor had increased or that crime had decreased in the 1990s. On these questions, Americans did worse than a coin flip. Similar results hold for other election years.

He cites many more examples and assures us that the literature is overflowing with others. One might wonder whether knowledge of this kind is really relevant to and necessary for making informed voting decisions, but Brennan mentions that basic knowledge of politics, civics, and the social sciences is correlated with having the correct stance on issues that elections tend to revolve around. And yes, according to him, many political questions have right and wrong answers - he gives examples such as, price controls are bad, not doing anything about climate change is bad, and heavy restrictions on immigration are bad (the consensus among economists is that this is very detrimental to gross world product). I agree with the assertion that there’s oftentimes a correct answer, although it sometimes seems throughout the book that he forgets that not all political questions are of this nature. Another good point he makes on this topic is that, when some of the things voters are clueless about include what percentage of the federal budget is spent on x versus on y, how can they be expected to allocate resources appropriately? This is a whole category of information that the majority of voters is ignorant about – most people have a terrible sense of relative spending, and therefore, they’re likely to prioritize the wrong things.

Worth noting is that he divides citizens into three different categories: hobbits, those who have little to no knowledge of politics due to lack of interest; hooligans, who do have some knowledge but process this knowledge in a very biased way, and are essentially “cheering for their team,” much like sports fans; and vulcans, who process information rationally, are able to fairly articulate both sides of an argument, seek out evidence that contradicts their worldviews, etc. The vast majority of Americans are hobbits and hooligans; vulcans are few and far between.

Also in these first two chapters (the second of which is fittingly titled “Ignorant, Irrational, Misinformed Nationalists”), he covers the many different kinds of bias that voters - well, hooligans in particular -  fall prey to: confirmation/disconfirmation bias, availability bias, framing effects, and several others. Of course, none of this is news to readers of this blog.

Irresponsible voters are a lot like irresponsible drivers, Brennan believes. They unfairly burden innocent people with risk of harm. In the case of driving, we protect people by requiring that drivers have a license; as I’ll discuss further below, the author thinks we should have a similar mechanism to guard against the risk associated with voting. He also uses the analogy of air pollution from cars, which might be more accurate because, just as in the case of votes, one polluter doesn’t cause any non-negligible damage (one bad driver does, on the other hand). Yet the aggregate of these polluters causes a real problem, one that no single person is responsible for, and no single person can do anything to ameliorate. It works the same way with voting. No one person’s vote carries any perceptible weight, but the sum can have devastating consequences. Just as we need regulatory laws to limit pollution, we need laws to limit reckless voting as well.

Many more optimistic political philosophers advance the notion of deliberative democracy, or democracy in which the participants engage in various forms of deliberation in order to arrive at the best solution. Such deliberative sessions could be held prior to elections. The idea is that the citizens involved would gather in groups, learn from each other, and cooperate to arrive at a consensus. They would come out of the experience more informed, more understanding of and compassionate towards their peers, and having contributed, via their newly-honed political decision-making skills, to the formation of a more just society. However, Brennan dashes their hopes by explaining that…well… the literature does not show that deliberative democracy works. Even in idealized experiments, participants tend to have less empathy during and after deliberation for those belonging to outgroups, and their ideologies tend to become more extreme rather than more moderate. Deliberation actually makes people more aggressive, tribal, and irrational – the opposite of what we’d like it to do. Presumably when it fails under such perfect conditions, it would fail even more awfully in real life.

Now, despite this dumpster fire, Brennan notes that democracy seems to perform better than we’d expect it to. Why might that be? It turns out that that’s likely because it’s not working as it was intended to. Several factors impede the electorate from getting their way. Checks and balances, bureaucracy, frequent elections, and the fact that politicians are more informed than the electorate are among these. Additionally:

… [Martin] Gilens measured how responsive different presidents have been to different groups of voters. He finds that when voters at the ninetieth, fiftieth, and tenth percentiles of income disagree about policy, presidents are about six times more responsive to the policy preferences of the rich than the poor… Gilens is in some ways horrified by results like these, but he admits there’s an upside. Voters at the ninetieth percentile of income tend to be significantly better informed than voters at the fiftieth or tenth percentile, and this information changes their preferences.

So, just because democracy is performing at an (arguably) acceptable level doesn’t in any way vindicate the institution: these factors seem to be pretty at odds with the underlying reasons why most people support democracy.

Interestingly, there are a few mathematical theorems (the miracle of aggregation theorem, Condorcet’s jury theorem, and the Hong-Page theorem) that have been applied in defense of democracy, each of which draw upon the general claim that, since voters will be wrong in different ways/parameters, their choices will average out to the right choice. But Brennan quickly dismisses them by pointing out that they do not apply when systematic errors are in question, and in the case of US voters, they very much are. Less informed voters consistently lean a certain way; they do not have randomly distributed preferences. For example, they tend to be “more in favor of protectionism, abortion restrictions, harsh penalties on crime, doing nothing to fix the debt, hawkish intervention, and so on” (and this is after controlling for demographic factors).

A key part of the book is Brennan’s so-called “competence principle,” which states that:

It is presumed to be unjust, and to violate a citizen’s rights, to forcibly deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property, or to significantly harm their life prospects, as a result of decisions made by an incompetent deliberative body, or decisions made in an incompetent way or in bad faith. Political decisions are presumed legitimate and authoritative only when produced by competent political bodies in a competent way and in good faith.

He starts constructing this principle by considering a defendant’s rights in a jury trial, and then extends them to form this general rule. Using this more formal assessment to judge democracy, he decides that it falls short.

But isn’t that totally unethical and elitist?

Actually, no. Above, I’ve addressed above several defenses of democracy that are presented in the book - now I’ll discuss the most significant one, the elephant in the room. Namely, many people believe that democracy is inherently just, that properties such as equal representation are necessitated by the fact that all humans are of equal value and deserve a certain degree of respect. Brennan devotes multiple chapters to the dismantling of these so-called “semiotic,” or symbolic, arguments for democracy.

On a fundamental level, there is no reason to associate the right to vote with one’s value as a human being. We tend to do that in the societies we are accustomed to today, but this is not a necessary feature of civilization and one can easily imagine societies in which we do not ascribe any value to the right to vote.

The proper way to view the right to vote, argues Brennan, is like a license. He frequently makes use of the analogy of doctors earning medical licenses, or plumbers earning plumbing licenses. A doctor is not superior to you or to me by virtue of having a medical license; nor are we superior to him. Similarly, a plumber is not superior to you or to me by virtue of having a plumbing license; nor are we superior to him. Possession of such a license simply indicates that the individual in question has trained adequately in order to be able to reliably and effectively execute a particular task. Such should be the case for voting – having obtained the right to vote simply means that one has demonstrated they have the appropriate knowledge and/or skills to perform the task of competently selecting political candidates or policies. And, just as you would not trust a surgeon without a medical license to perform surgery on you (regardless of how indignant he may be that he cannot perform surgery without a license), you would not trust or feel comfortable with unlicensed citizens making political decisions for you (regardless of how indignant they may be that they cannot vote without a license).

Supporters of democracy also point to the supposed ability of the democratic process and political liberties to empower people. But, it is brought to our attention that for any individual, the power they gain from casting a vote is essentially zero. It is, of course, a near statistical impossibility for one person to sway an election. Citizens really don’t have that strong of an incentive to vote (which, by the way, is one reason why they act so irrationally, Brennan suggests – there is no consequence to them or to anyone else if their one vote goes towards bad policies); it doesn’t do anything for them. It empowers collectives, or groups of people, but not any individual person.

Speaking of groups of people, one might object that if we were to restrict enfranchisement to just those who, for example, passed some sort of political knowledge test, then some groups of people would fare worse than others on this test. In particular, given what we know from surveys, minorities such as black women would have much lower rates of passing these exams than, say, white men. So, we’d be left with a country in which white men (especially middle aged, upper class white men) hold significantly more political power than racial minorities (especially black women). This seems on its face deeply problematic. It seems like epistocratic mechanisms would put already marginalized groups into an even more disadvantaged position. But, fear not, says Brennan. These worries are predicated on two unfounded assumptions. First, they assume that voters vote for their own self-interest instead of voting sociotropically, i.e., for the national wellbeing. Studies show this to be incorrect. Voters mean well, even if they usually do not know enough to support the policies that would facilitate measurable improvements in national wellbeing. Second, these concerns assume that black women and other minorities would, if permitted to vote, be informed enough to back policies that would improve their condition. This, too, is incorrect, given the plethora of data on voter knowledge and how it correlates with demographics. So, although realizations of epistocracy would likely leave minorities with a less-than-equal share of power, this would just be another of the many symptoms of systemic racism. It’s better to address the upstream cause, and restricting voting to those who are more informed would likely accomplish just that in the long run.

Finally, some make the point that voting is an important means of self-expression, but this too is questionable at best. What exactly is one expressing by voting for one candidate as opposed to the other(s)? Options, especially in the US, tend to be highly limited, so voting for one candidate (say, the Republican nominee for president) as opposed to their opponent does not say that much about your preferences. It’s possible that you dislike both candidates but have a slight preference for the Republican, it’s possible that you strongly agree with every position espoused by the Republican, it’s possible you agree with some of his policy proposals and not others, etc. A vote for one candidate or another does not, in reality, provide us with a meaningful opportunity for self-expression. There exist far better avenues for this, such as writing, creating videos, or volunteering for a campaign.

So, rather than thinking about what our political system symbolizes, we should concern ourselves with how well it works (and as we saw earlier, it does not work very well). We should assess its value as we would a hammer’s, not as we would a painting’s. It is only as useful as the results it produces. This is sometimes referred to as instrumentalism, whereas proceduralism refers to concerns with the intrinsic characteristics of the political system.

What should we do instead?

As is probably clear by now, Brennan believes we ought to institute some form of epistocracy in order to alleviate us of all this trouble. He acknowledges that epistocracy is likely to be imperfect as well and that, since we have not yet seen it in action, we do not know what those imperfections are, nor how serious they may be. However, he maintains that, given everything we know about democracy and given all the reasoning laid out in the book thus far, epistocracy is likely to perform better than democracy, so, assuming the cost of transitioning is not too high, we are morally obligated to try it.

Several different types of epistocracy are then outlined. In one version, perhaps the most classic, we have restricted suffrage. “Everyone begins as an equal in this system,” explains Brennan. Until you pass a voter qualification exam, which would be open to all citizens, you would by default be unable to vote or run for office. While recognizing that no such test could be perfect, he notes that there are ways to keep it “objective and nonideological,” by for example including only basic facts and uncontroversial findings of social science. Plural voting regimes are similar but rather than starting with zero votes, everyone could start with one, and more importantly, it would be possible to acquire more votes. Ways to do this could include passing a voter qualification exam, earning certain academic degrees, or simply reaching a certain age.

A different setup is that of universal suffrage with epistocratic veto. This is exactly what it sounds like – an otherwise normal democracy with a “an epistocratic council, a formally epistocratic deliberative body.” This body would have the ability to strike down decisions made by the electorate if deemed excessively harmful or incompetent. It would not have the ability to create law. The members of the council would be ordinary citizens who had passed some entry requirement such as a competence exam. Details such as the size of the council, whether one portion of the selection process would be done via lottery, and what kinds of decisions/laws the council would have authority to overturn, can vary.

Another major alternative Brennan describes, and the one he is most in favor of, is “government by simulated oracle.” Here, he describes the possibility of simulating a being wiser than all of us, although not omniscient. In particular, he claims that:

…social scientists such as [Scott] Althaus have shown that we can estimate what the electorate would prefer if only it were well informed. We can administer surveys that track citizens’ political preferences and demographic characteristics, while testing their basic objective political knowledge. Once we have this information, we can simulate what would happen if the electorate’s demographics remained unchanged, but all citizens were able to get perfect scores on tests of objective political knowledge. We can determine, with a strong degree of confidence, what “We the People” would want if only “We the People” understood what we are talking about.

This is an interesting option that I’d never previously heard of, and assuming it works as planned, I can’t think of any criticisms of it.

Lastly, “values-only voting” is touched upon, although I wish he spent more time on this section, because as I mentioned earlier, it is crucial to recognize that not all political questions are objectively right or wrong. Here, he suggests splitting the “political labor” into two groups: citizens decide the goals, and legislators determine the optimal way to attain them, because it’s unreasonable to expect people to know enough to be able to do both. But Brennan doesn’t seem to like this system very much, because he has a few criticisms. First, if citizens don’t know enough to be able to identify the right means of achieving the goals, then why should we expect them to know enough to be able to determine whether the legislators did a good job? I think the latter would be more straightforward than devising the means of achieving goals, but even if it’s not, it’s not clear why it’s important that they judge the legislators properly. Are the legislators elected? Perhaps they could reach that position through other means, such as passing competence exams or having educational qualifications. Second, Brennan notes that it can be difficult to distinguish between values and ways to achieve them, that the real world is messy, and that different aspects of different issues are often intertwined with each other in ways that would make this complicated. This objection is fair in my mind. What he described in this section seems to be a modification of futarchy; I wish he had delved into the more classical futarchy, a system described by “vote on values, but bet on beliefs.” The idea, as I’ve seen it presented, is that people vote on their values (e.g., how many inches of sea level rise they are willing to tolerate), and make use of a prediction market to decide on the belief (e.g., what policies/actions are most likely to achieve this objective). This slightly different model resolves some of his complaints about voter and legislator shortcomings, but I suppose it doesn’t resolve the problem of entangled values and beliefs, if that were to indeed turn out to be a debilitating problem.

Regardless, there is virtually zero discussion of how we might, in real life, go about transitioning to these types of political institutions. Absent any suggestions of how we might make the shift, the book lacks practicality. Hence, the author’s desire to see a move to epistocracy remains just a daydream.

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed the book and recommend it. Brennan’s arguments and general position are for the most part very reasonable and hard to dispute. Among the few remaining criticisms I have is the fact that the book could have been a bit more concise; he tends to beat arguments over the head with additional, superfluous analogies and metaphors (which, while sometimes amusing, weren’t necessary to get his point across). Some of these run-on tangents were more useful than others – for example, he recounted several interesting results of social scientific experiments, such as the fact that employers are much more likely to hire candidates of the same political party, and that people are much more likely to cooperate in various games of trust when their partner is of the same political party. These were more facts than redundant analogies, and they at least served to bolster his point, in the last chapter, that politics drives people apart rather than bringing them together. (He argues in that chapter that the less people participate in politics, the better).

At only 245 pages, the book could have also been a bit longer - but filled with more substantive content. Early on, he states “In this book, I won’t try to convince you that there is for sure a better alternative [to democracy],” but it might have been better if he did go into details like that. Rather, he settles for convincing us that there is a good chance epistocracy is a better alternative.

Still, he does succeed in making a very compelling case for an unpopular, controversial position. Maybe it’s only controversial though because most people are, well, hobbits and hooligans.