IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mdl/mdlpap/0807.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Myth of the Myth of the Rational Voter

Author

Listed:
  • Dave Colander

Abstract

This paper argues that Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter overstates in case against democracy by not dealing with what might be called the historical/instrumentalist argument for democracy. It argues that the case for democracy that he attacks is primarily an academic exercise, which makes his argument against that case also an academic exercise. It further argues that the supposed policy choice that Caplan presents between the market and democracy is not the correct choice, and that his proposals that economists should be given more voting weight in the democratic decision process is inappropriate.

Suggested Citation

  • Dave Colander, 2008. "The Myth of the Myth of the Rational Voter," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0807, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0807.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colander, David & Klamer, Arjo, 1987. "The Making of an Economist," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 95-111, Fall.
    2. Colander, David, 2003. "The Aging of an Economist," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 157-176, June.
    3. Colander, David, 1993. "The Lost Art of Economics: Response," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 213-215, Summer.
    4. David Colander, 2001. "The Lost Art of Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2415.
    5. Robbins, Lionel [Lord], 1981. "Economics and Political Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 1-10, May.
    6. Colander, David, 2004. "Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism. By S. M. Amadae. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 401. $59.00, cloth; $19.00, paper," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 281-282, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Colander, 2007. "What Was “It” that Robbins Was Defining?," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0706, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    2. Colander, David C., 2009. "Economists, incentives, judgment, and the European CVAR approach to macroeconometrics," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-21.
    3. David Colander, 2009. "“What is so Austrian about Austrian Economics?”," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0910, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    4. Matthew Drennan, 2006. "Economics: Diminishing Marginal Utility," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 71-91.
    5. Andrew Mearman & Tim Wakeley & Gamila Shoib & Don J. Webber, 2011. "Does Pluralism in Economics Education Make Better Educated, Happier Students? A Qualitative Analysis," International Review of Economic Education, Economics Network, University of Bristol, vol. 10(2), pages 50-62.
    6. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2011. "Kaderschmieden der Wirtschaft und/oder Universitäten? Der Auftrag der Wirtschaftsuniversitäten und –fakultäten im 21. Jahrhundert," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(3), pages 317-337, August.
    7. Bordo, Michael & Istrefi, Klodiana, 2023. "Perceived FOMC: The making of hawks, doves and swingers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 125-143.
    8. Sheng Guo & Jungmin Lee, 2011. "Keeping Up With Fashion: Recent Trends in the Subfields of Study of Doctoral Students in Economics," Working Papers 1101, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    9. Scott Alan CARSON, 2018. "Lanny Ebenstein, Chicagonomics: The Evolution of Chicago Free Market Economics," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 111-114, March.
    10. Colander, David, 2003. "The Aging of an Economist," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 157-176, June.
    11. Hendrik P. van Dalen & Kène Henkens, 2012. "What is on a Demographer’s Mind?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 26(16), pages 363-408.
    12. David Colander & Jessica Holmes, 2007. "Gender and graduate economics education in the US," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 93-116.
    13. Spahn Peter, 2009. "The New Keynesian Microfoundation of Macroeconomics," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 60(3), pages 181-203, December.
    14. Dave Colander, 2008. "Economists, Incentives, Judgement and Empirical Work," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0806, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    15. Robert F. Garnett, Jr., 2009. "Rethinking The Pluralist Agenda In Economics Education," International Review of Economic Education, Economics Network, University of Bristol, vol. 8(2), pages 58-71.
    16. Kogut, Bruce & Macpherson, J. Muir, 2011. "The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1307-1320.
    17. Chwieroth, Jeffrey, 2012. ""The silent revolution": how the staff exercise informal governance over IMF lending," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 46623, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Klaus Mohn, 2010. "Autism in Economics? A Second Opinion," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 39(2), pages 191-208, July.
    19. Ahmadi-Esfahani, Fredoun Z., 1990. "An Open Model of Curriculum Content Knowledge in Agricultural Economics Master's Degree Programs," 1990 Conference (34th), February 13-15, 1990, Brisbane, Australia 144904, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    20. Lourdes Espinoza & Carlos Gustavo Machicado & Katia Makhlouf, 2007. "La Enseñanza de Economía en Bolivia y Chile," Development Research Working Paper Series 10/2007, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0807. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vijaya Wunnava (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.