That makes (70%-30%)1/(5 million)($700 billion) = $56,000.
These figures seem implausibly high if we are comparing to the best donations you can pick out. Trivially, the campaigns spend only a few billion dollars, with $700 billion you could use the interest alone to spend ludicrously on voter turnout and advertising in every election, state, local, and national going forward, for an expected impact greater than winning one election.
That is to say, voting yourself can’t be be worth more than $n if you can generate more than one vote with political spending of $n. And randomized trials find voter-turnout costs per voter in the hundreds of dollars. Even adjusting those estimates upward for various complications, there’s just no way that you wouldn’t be able to turn out or persuade one more vote for $56,000.
It’s just trivial that if voting is rational, political spending is even more rational. It’s not germane to use political contributions in proxy for charitable contributions.
“It’s just trivial that if voting is rational, political spending is even more rational.”
I clearly explained why this is wrong directly above. If your opportunity cost of time is $50 per hour, voting would take an hour, and it would cost you $400 to elicit a marginal vote of equal expected impact, then you are getting an eightfold multiplier on effort spent voting as opposed to earning money to influence other votes. You need to spend one hour instead of eight hours worth of effort to get the same result.
If your opportunity cost of time is lower, or the impact of money on elections is lower, the effect gets more extreme. If your breakeven point is anywhere in that range then voting can make sense for you even while political donation does not.
These figures seem implausibly high if we are comparing to the best donations you can pick out. Trivially, the campaigns spend only a few billion dollars, with $700 billion you could use the interest alone to spend ludicrously on voter turnout and advertising in every election, state, local, and national going forward, for an expected impact greater than winning one election.
That is to say, voting yourself can’t be be worth more than $n if you can generate more than one vote with political spending of $n. And randomized trials find voter-turnout costs per voter in the hundreds of dollars. Even adjusting those estimates upward for various complications, there’s just no way that you wouldn’t be able to turn out or persuade one more vote for $56,000.
It’s just trivial that if voting is rational, political spending is even more rational. It’s not germane to use political contributions in proxy for charitable contributions.
“It’s just trivial that if voting is rational, political spending is even more rational.”
I clearly explained why this is wrong directly above. If your opportunity cost of time is $50 per hour, voting would take an hour, and it would cost you $400 to elicit a marginal vote of equal expected impact, then you are getting an eightfold multiplier on effort spent voting as opposed to earning money to influence other votes. You need to spend one hour instead of eight hours worth of effort to get the same result.
If your opportunity cost of time is lower, or the impact of money on elections is lower, the effect gets more extreme. If your breakeven point is anywhere in that range then voting can make sense for you even while political donation does not.