Democracy: Why bother?

Today’s thought-provoking post is on “Democracy: Should We Bother?” in which Prof Eric Morris questions this “seemingly unquestionable proposition”

Some excerpts below (emphasis added)…

The apparently sensible response to this arbitrary exercise of authority has been the rise of public power and participation, which is something of a mantra among transportation planners. But while this is great in principle, there are some severe problems in practice. 

The first is actually getting the public interested.

…public hearings …often attract attendees who can be counted on the fingers of one hand, despite herculean efforts to drum up interest. In such a situation, a handful of people…may have an outsized voice in making policy.

Meetings about near-term, specific programs often don’t have this problem—in fact, they are sometimes swamped with eager attendees. However, this raises another problem: a small number of committed citizens can, and often do, stymie projects that would have very great benefits for the public at large.

I say stymie projects, as opposed to promote them, because this is typically what happens. Economists have long noted that people are generally highly averse to change, no matter what that change is. They also hate losing much more than they enjoy gaining. Most people vastly prefer to avoid losing ten dollars than to get ten dollars, despite the fact that they are the exact same thing.

…In contrast to the hyperbole about the costs, the potential benefits receive scant attention, even when the residents who are complaining would be the biggest beneficiaries of the accessibility the project will generate.

Of course, the benefits of such projects may be large, even gigantic, in the case of things like freeways, subway lines, or port or airport expansions. …The problem is that few of those future travelers or residents of the region are going to turn out at public meetings or bombard legislators with emails and calls, because the benefits, though widespread, are hard to conceptualize.

…For the relatively small number of airport neighbors, however, the costs—or at least the imagined costs—are great enough to prompt energetic lobbying. In turn, their elected representatives are willing to focus all of their efforts on blocking these projects, and are willing to horse-trade their votes on other issues to bring other legislators onboard.

….But few stop to consider the mammoth cost of a world with no highways or airports. Their benefits are utterly taken for granted by most people, who grouse only about the system’s failings. Yet while I know of many passionate critics of the Interstates, I don’t know a single one who doesn’t travel on them. Past sacrifices were essential for today’s prosperity, but thanks to the current gridlock, we ourselves are now unwilling to make such sacrifices for future generations.

His conclusion is sobering:

“…in addition to blaming the easy targets of…parochial interest groups (read “vote banks” in the Indian context), and craven elected officials, it might behoove us to take a look in the mirror. The situation where the interests of the few are trumping the interests of the many exists because the rest of us are too uninformed and apathetic to participate in the process in an educated and energetic manner. 
Public participation can work, but only if the public actually takes the trouble to participate.”

Bottom-line: It only works if everyone participates. Read. Think.

While on this, have a look at Gurcharan Das’ excellent piece: Just one hour a week is the answer to our political discontent too.