It’s interesting that you chose Brexit as the best example of a tight vote on a single issue with clear and massive advantage to one side—the best possible case for voting. And yet, even with Brexit it’s easy to make the case for discounting the apparent impact of voting.
$3 trillion gained by remaining in the EU.
$3 trillion gained to whom? A lot of people who voted “Leave” would probably agree that Brexit will lower GDP, but they clearly think that the benefits of leaving (in social cohesion, security, whatever) are greater than the GDP hit. You could say that they’re voting selfishly and that the lost GDP accrues to all Europeans and the narrow benefits only to them, but that’s a problematic argument—why didn’t the Europeans selflessly vote to safeguard the interests of rural Britons? As you noted, even pure altruism often (and unfortunately) stops at a nation’s borders.
The half of Britain who voted to leave think that the benefits of leaving to them, and thus to half of Britain, is greater than $3 trillion. If we could sum up actual utils accrued to people, rather than dollars accrued to some national accounts, how certain can you be that the number is even positive given that half the nation disagrees with you?
Many ‘Remainers’ who wish to stay in the EU want a second referendum on the matter; recently, hundreds of thousands of them marched through London to call for one.
So even in the cleanest possible case of a single-issue referendum, the decision that was voted on is yet to be implemented. And when you vote for candidates with a whole list of proposals, the chance that electing the candidate will get the actual proposal implemented is much lower still.
My argument is that doing the math on voting makes it look a lot worse than you’d naively assume, not that the math comes out against voting in every possible case. But this also means that just because the math may barely favor voting on Brexit it doesn’t mean that it will for other, dirtier cases.
If I understand you right, you’re saying that if Remain were to happen then Leavers would incur a large actual loss (relative to the Leave scenario), because they reckon the benefits of leaving in terms of social cohesion, security etc. will not occur.
Perhaps those aren’t the best examples, as arguably those are matters of fact, so Leavers could find out they were wrong if it turns out there is no loss in social cohesion & security by remaining; so they wouldn’t necessarily lose utils. A better example might be national self-determination, which a Leave supporter would value come what may, and a Remain supporter might put little value on. That is, Leavers aren’t merely predicting that leaving the EU would make things better for the UK, they are expressing a (non-falsifiable) preference for being out of the EU.
I haven’t thought of that, and that could be so—or perhaps more likely it’s a mixture of prediction and preference. In which case Leavers would only get some negative utils, still leaving tens of thousands of $ per extra Remain voter. (And still plenty enough to justify voting even after major shrinkage by the uncertainty that policies will turn out/be implemented as expected.)
Complicated by the fact that if Remain happens, Leave supporters would always feel things would have been better if Leave had happened, even if their predictions were unknowingly false, because they never get to try out & compare both scenarios. I.e. Leavers will never be satisfied if the UK remains, and Remainers will never be satisfied if the UK leaves, regardless of how the other possible world would have been. (Maybe that’s your main point here.) But I reckon that dissatisfaction is small compared with the economic harm caused by leaving (if the median GDP predictions are true).
By the way, I’m not convinced voting is rational (hence I have never voted in my life), and believed that it wasn’t, until the altruism calculation occurred to me a year or so ago. My current suspicion is about the validity of multiplying a very small probability by a very large benefit to get a justification; but I haven’t yet read/thought of a strong argument against this.
(PS Ah, you’re Jacob F—good to meet you! I enjoy your blog.)
It’s interesting that you chose Brexit as the best example of a tight vote on a single issue with clear and massive advantage to one side—the best possible case for voting. And yet, even with Brexit it’s easy to make the case for discounting the apparent impact of voting.
$3 trillion gained to whom? A lot of people who voted “Leave” would probably agree that Brexit will lower GDP, but they clearly think that the benefits of leaving (in social cohesion, security, whatever) are greater than the GDP hit. You could say that they’re voting selfishly and that the lost GDP accrues to all Europeans and the narrow benefits only to them, but that’s a problematic argument—why didn’t the Europeans selflessly vote to safeguard the interests of rural Britons? As you noted, even pure altruism often (and unfortunately) stops at a nation’s borders.
The half of Britain who voted to leave think that the benefits of leaving to them, and thus to half of Britain, is greater than $3 trillion. If we could sum up actual utils accrued to people, rather than dollars accrued to some national accounts, how certain can you be that the number is even positive given that half the nation disagrees with you?
So even in the cleanest possible case of a single-issue referendum, the decision that was voted on is yet to be implemented. And when you vote for candidates with a whole list of proposals, the chance that electing the candidate will get the actual proposal implemented is much lower still.
My argument is that doing the math on voting makes it look a lot worse than you’d naively assume, not that the math comes out against voting in every possible case. But this also means that just because the math may barely favor voting on Brexit it doesn’t mean that it will for other, dirtier cases.
[Response substantially edited:]
If I understand you right, you’re saying that if Remain were to happen then Leavers would incur a large actual loss (relative to the Leave scenario), because they reckon the benefits of leaving in terms of social cohesion, security etc. will not occur.
Perhaps those aren’t the best examples, as arguably those are matters of fact, so Leavers could find out they were wrong if it turns out there is no loss in social cohesion & security by remaining; so they wouldn’t necessarily lose utils. A better example might be national self-determination, which a Leave supporter would value come what may, and a Remain supporter might put little value on. That is, Leavers aren’t merely predicting that leaving the EU would make things better for the UK, they are expressing a (non-falsifiable) preference for being out of the EU.
I haven’t thought of that, and that could be so—or perhaps more likely it’s a mixture of prediction and preference. In which case Leavers would only get some negative utils, still leaving tens of thousands of $ per extra Remain voter. (And still plenty enough to justify voting even after major shrinkage by the uncertainty that policies will turn out/be implemented as expected.)
Complicated by the fact that if Remain happens, Leave supporters would always feel things would have been better if Leave had happened, even if their predictions were unknowingly false, because they never get to try out & compare both scenarios. I.e. Leavers will never be satisfied if the UK remains, and Remainers will never be satisfied if the UK leaves, regardless of how the other possible world would have been. (Maybe that’s your main point here.) But I reckon that dissatisfaction is small compared with the economic harm caused by leaving (if the median GDP predictions are true).
By the way, I’m not convinced voting is rational (hence I have never voted in my life), and believed that it wasn’t, until the altruism calculation occurred to me a year or so ago. My current suspicion is about the validity of multiplying a very small probability by a very large benefit to get a justification; but I haven’t yet read/thought of a strong argument against this.
(PS Ah, you’re Jacob F—good to meet you! I enjoy your blog.)