Measuring up: testing the pretensions of market research and polling. . - Culture and Reviews - book review

Reason, May, 2003 by Brian Doherty

He's tough about it too. Not for him the pat-on-the-head doctrine of "rational ignorance." That's the widely accepted notion from the public choice school of economics that says it makes perfect sense, given the high cost-benefit ratio of public policy savvy, for citizens to have only dim notions of what the hell is going on in government.

Economists have gone even further in explaining/excusing public sloth in regard to political beliefs and actions. George Mason University economist Bryan Gaplan recently has posited the appropriateness of rational irrationality, whereby we choose an optimal amount of absurd and counterfactual things to believe based on what it costs us to hold these unrealistic beliefs.

Caplan's concept would have helped clarify Weissberg's findings, which show that people seem to credulously accept the endless possibilities of government goodies, believing they will all deliver exactly the benefits they promise. Weissberg argues that most polls are systematically biased toward manufacturing a vox populi that clamors for an evergrowing welfare state.

To test this thesis, he designed and executed a pair of surveys that he thinks provide a more sophisticated and accurate way of gauging an intelligent, informed decision-not just an ignorant wish. He used these polls to retest public support for a couple of Clinton-era government expansions: shrinking public school class size by hiring tens of thousands of new teachers, and increasing government-supported day care.

Weissberg found exactly what he was looking for (and one wonders how often that happens in social science research--there's a poll whose results I'd like to see). If you give longer, more detailed polls that demand citizens balance costs within a necessarily limited total budget, and inform them of both the possibilities of failure and the real dimensions of the problem allegedly being solved, previous apparent support for government action and spending quickly fades. For example, if respondents were told that the new teacher program could lead to cutbacks in other school programs, 71 percent of the support evaporated; when informed that an expenditure of $1.2 billion would lower average class size only from 17.8 to 17,43 percent of supporters changed their minds.

Underlying Weissberg's argument is the dire hint that, to the extent that politicians speak and act in reaction to polls, we are in effect living in a plebiscitory democracy. His larger point is that the people are far too stupid to be heeded by politicians.

Weissberg is openly contemptuous of democracy, falling back on Bell Curve-type arguments about the invincible thick headedness of many people. He forces the average would be active citizen to choke down that sour persimmon, then feeds him the ripe plum that "surrendering one's voice is perhaps the surest path to advancement among those outgunned when politics is reduced to hyperindividualism....Powerful interest groups--energetic pluralistic democracy, if you will-offer one sensible alternative....The pretence of grassroots vitality and input would now be sacrificed to tangible accomplishment. Gone are the endless survey consultantions...Ordinary citizens pay dues and obey orders." This is the way he thinks it should be.