Tangientially, this post assumes that there are only two reasons to vote: to affect policy directly, or to signal/express affiliation. But what about structural voting?
More important to me than any specific political issue is my desire to live in a country roughly like the US and the rest of the industrialized world: rich, relatively well-administered and safe, and not dictatorial. Of course there are relative strengths and weaknesses of different countries and different political factions, but these are all overshadowed by the fact that we all think it’s pretty great not to be North Korea.
Civic engagement of various sorts probably helps keep that fate away. On the margin, your vote contributes practically nothing to preventing your home country from looking like North Korea. But a political/structural catastrophe would be so very bad that voting might be worth it on those grounds alone.
(This is related to Eliezer’s point in “The American System and Misleading Labels” where he argues that the voter’s real power is to threaten to throw the bums out, or even foment revolution. The vote doesn’t give you a great deal of power to enact your favorite legislation; it does provide a rough sort of check against any politician doing something ridiculously, impossibly awful. Prevention of “ridiculously awful” behavior is much more important, in my view, than fine-scale policy manipulation.)
Of course there are relative strengths and weaknesses of different countries and different political factions, but these are all overshadowed by the fact that we all think it’s pretty great not to be North Korea.
I think you’re underestimating the potential difference in effect between two (or more) different political policies. For example, I think it’s pretty great not to be Detroit.
Tangientially, this post assumes that there are only two reasons to vote: to affect policy directly, or to signal/express affiliation. But what about structural voting?
More important to me than any specific political issue is my desire to live in a country roughly like the US and the rest of the industrialized world: rich, relatively well-administered and safe, and not dictatorial. Of course there are relative strengths and weaknesses of different countries and different political factions, but these are all overshadowed by the fact that we all think it’s pretty great not to be North Korea.
Civic engagement of various sorts probably helps keep that fate away. On the margin, your vote contributes practically nothing to preventing your home country from looking like North Korea. But a political/structural catastrophe would be so very bad that voting might be worth it on those grounds alone.
(This is related to Eliezer’s point in “The American System and Misleading Labels” where he argues that the voter’s real power is to threaten to throw the bums out, or even foment revolution. The vote doesn’t give you a great deal of power to enact your favorite legislation; it does provide a rough sort of check against any politician doing something ridiculously, impossibly awful. Prevention of “ridiculously awful” behavior is much more important, in my view, than fine-scale policy manipulation.)
I think you’re underestimating the potential difference in effect between two (or more) different political policies. For example, I think it’s pretty great not to be Detroit.