Why government fails

Since each voter has a negligible chance of affecting an election, voters do NOT watch their watchers. This problem is sometimes expressed as "informed voting is a public good," but the problem is deeper: Not only does an individual's informed voting do her little good, it does no one much good; even someone with the public interest at heart would stay uninformed. Democracy fails to economize on knowledge, and therefore it also fails to economize on goodness--we are left to rely on the goodness of the government. Classical liberals agree with Churchill that democracy is the worst political system except for all the others, and only add that, while democracy is best for those decisions that must be political, we should whenever possible take decisions out of politics and into capitalism.

The two pillars of the modern liberal orthodoxy are capitalism and democracy. Many people think the problem with capitalism is that it is not democratic enough. But classical liberals think capitalism is better than democracy.

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This page maintained by Steven Blatt. Suggestions, comments, questions, and corrections are welcome.