Dark Light
Illinoisans are not spineless apathetic wimps. We’re just Rationally Ignorant Voters. We’re RIVs, not FIBs.

Last summer, rock and roll legend Ted Nugent came to Illinois to perform at the Illinois State Fair. On a talk radio program prior to his performance, he voiced some of the harshest criticism ever spoken of Illinoisans … and I say that being a native of Wisconsin, where anti-Illinois slurs such as “flatlanders” and “FIB” appear on license plates and are written into children’s lullabies.

Spineless, Apathetic, Embarrassing

“Right now heads are hanging in embarrassment because the average Illinois resident could give a rat’s ass about where policy is determined,” Nugent told radio host John Cox. “They have no voice in ‘We the people.’ They are spineless, apathetic, embarrassing wimps.”

Worried that his listeners weren’t getting the point, Nugent went on. “Illinois people have become so sheeplike. How many people listening right now have called their senator or congressman or governor? How many people listening to John and I right now have ever talked to their elected officials?”

I share Nugent’s disappointment with the lack of public outrage over political corruption, waste, and constant spending increases. But I think he’s wrong about Illinoisans. We’re not spineless apathetic wimps. We’re just Rationally Ignorant Voters. We’re RIVs, not FIBs.

Rational Ignorance

Since its founding in 1984, The Heartland Institute has aimed to persuade opinion leaders and policymakers to embrace a “freedom philosophy” based on liberty, equality, and limited government. Almost immediately, we ran into a problem. People weren’t willing to take the time to read what we wrote or listen to what we had to say.

It wasn’t just our thoughts and ideas they ignored: They were ignoring people on the other side of the issues, too. They had decided it just wasn’t worth their time to listen to either side in the debate.

Economists call this behavior “rational ignorance” because people are making a rational choice to remain ignorant. People who are smart and well informed in many areas of their lives often choose to remain uninformed about lots of issues. After all, there are only so many hours in the day, and we’d rather spend them with family, watching cable television, or making money.

Politics and Ignorance

Big government, unfortunately, thrives on rational ignorance. Most government programs create small groups of beneficiaries while their costs are spread across much larger numbers of taxpayers. The potential beneficiaries have a financial incentive to overcome their rational ignorance and lobby for the program. Taxpayers, who stand to save only a few pennies or dollars if the new program is defeated, succumb to rational ignorance and do little or nothing to stop the program.

Politics also promotes rational ignorance by being time consuming and expensive for the average citizen. In order to influence political decisions, a voter must invest valuable time monitoring and understanding how his elected officials vote. Then he must call or write to the elected officials, or write letters to the editor, or resolve to vote for or against elected officials in the next election. But unless the voter who “does something” gets other people to join him, his single voice and vote are unlikely to make a difference.

So our motivated voter must talk to friends and associates and urge them to contact elected officials, too. He may need to make campaign contributions, or try to raise money from others, or volunteer to work on a campaign or recruit candidates to run for office. In other words, politics can get to be quite a lot of work.

Since the personal benefits and odds of success are so small while the personal costs are so large, it’s amazing anyone gets involved in politics to change public policy. It makes you wonder why all those people are involved in politics.

Using Images, Not Words

The good news is there are three ways of getting around the rational ignorance problem. The first is to use images rather than words.

For years, the preferred sources of news and entertainment in America have been evolving from the printed word to audio and visual media. Books, newspapers, and magazines have given way to television and radio, and more recently to cable and the Internet. Why? Because images convey complicated stories and situations more quickly and persuasively than can words.

I used to fear that the new information technologies, by trending away from the written word, would make it more difficult for people to understand why governments fail. I was half right–economic literacy in the U.S. is dismally low and falling. What I didn’t anticipate is that understanding why governments fail isn’t necessary to influence elections. We just need to communicate that governments are failing, and people can figure out the rest themselves.

John Stossel, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and thousands of libertarian “bloggers” on the Internet are telling us that libertarian ideas are more compelling than statist ideas when presented as (or accompanied by) images and sounds. When liberated from the printed page they seem to lose the counter-intuitive character that economists and philosophers delight in. That’s a good thing.

Political Branding

The second way around the rational ignorance problem is branding political parties and candidates. Brands allow busy shoppers to choose quickly between competing products by certifying the product’s content or performance. Brands, for example, allow me to know Microsoft products are better than those made by Apple, even though I don’t know why.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan succeeded in branding the Republican Party as the party of smaller government. He won the Presidency twice, turned his party into the majority party in American politics, and enabled Republicans to win both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

So branding works in politics, and opinion polls consistently show most voters still want smaller government and lower taxes. Problem solved? Not quite. Polls also show the public no longer believes Republicans are against bigger government. The Libertarian Party stands ready to appeal to voters who want smaller government and no longer trust Republicans, but its brand is tarnished too: Its candidates often get just 1 or 2 percent of the vote.

If the LP ever found its Ross Perot, it would give the Republicrats a serious run for their money. It’s a mystery to me why some Silicon Valley multimillionaire hasn’t mounted a serious self-funded campaign for President on the LP ticket. Maybe it is only a matter of time. Even with very little money, though, the LP is causing heartburn for the two major parties. By some estimates, in 2000 the LP’s Presidential candidate cost Bush two states, and its Senate candidates cost his party two seats in the U.S. Senate. That shows the power, and the promise, of brands in politics.

Tax and Expenditure Limitations

The third way out of rational ignorance is the constitutional amendment. It is unrealistic to expect most people to invest the time and energy necessary to track how their elected representatives vote, to vote regularly, and to support or oppose political candidates. It is not unrealistic, however, to ask them to vote once for a constitutional amendment permanently limiting the size and cost of government.

I won’t repeat the entire argument for tax and expenditure limitations here. You can read all about it in a three-part series on Heartland’s Web site. (Go to www.heartland.org and select Budget & Tax News from the list of publications on the homepage.) Suffice it to say that Colorado has shown how a state’s voters can cap spending at the rate of inflation and population growth and force elected officials to return to taxpayers any surplus tax revenues they collect. Other states and the national government can do the same.

Which brings us back, appropriately enough, to Ted Nugent’s uncharitable remarks about Illinoisans. Illinois doesn’t have a tax and expenditure limitation or even a process whereby voters can amend the state constitution to enact one. That leaves working with the new media and getting a political party to embrace the smaller government brand. Efforts are underway to do both, and they deserve everyone’s support.

Politics, not voters, needs to change if we are to return government to its constitutional role in America. It can be changed … indeed, it is changing already.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts
Capitalism couldn’t possibly be the cause of slavery, because slavery preceded capitalism as the dominant social order in virtually all parts of the world.

Capitalism and Slavery

Capitalism couldn’t possibly be the cause of slavery, because slavery preceded capitalism as the dominant social order in virtually all parts of the world.
The ban on importing prescription drugs wasn’t something Republicans dreamed up to punish the poor and senior citizens. It has been the law since 1987.

Politicians on Drugs

The ban on importing prescription drugs wasn’t something Republicans dreamed up to punish the poor and senior citizens. It has been the law since 1987.