The GMU Crowd

If the point of elections is to keep the masses quiet while the elite rule, then restricting the franchise is going to be every destabilising. It would give those who are unhappy no outlet other than armed revolt.

We already have license requirements for driving a car - based on the premise that you can hurt others. Why not licensure for voting? Bad policies certainly cause damage.

mjh: So...who gets to write and grade the test?

Arnold, the idea of fending off revolution - in my mind, in at least one manifestation implies that a democracy signals the coming death and decay of a culture and/or nation-state.

"It would give those who are unhappy no outlet other than armed revolt."

Well, no.

Elections are primarily about getting rid of incumbents - but most of politics happens during the life of governments, between elections, and consists of many tupes of lobbying and pulic opinion brought to bear on goverment to influence policy.

Exclusion from elections does not imply exclusion from power, and (especially) vice versa.

As an (extreme) example, voting members of the House of Lords in the UK government cannot vote in general elections.

Mensarefugee: I don't know. Ask Bryan. It's his idea. I'm just saying that if there were such a test, I don't see why it would cause any more revolt than licensing requirements to drive a car.

I read the article, in which "interesting economics" is mentioned as a research agenda.

I like "useful economics" as a research agenda better.

I think it's better to judge value of the scientific contribution not on the feeling of surprise caused in the reader, but rather in its potential use to make the game of society "better".

of course, if you can enhance the understanding of economics of the normal layman by "interesting" research, that's a good thing in itself and might have beneficial longterm effects on economic policy in the long run over the voting mechanism.

but one could ask whether one could not achieve this "teaching" effect by writing about relevant problems as well.

but "pirates"?...

another interpretation of the motivation of this research agenda of "interesting economics" would be that its main goal is not to contribute to the solving of societies relevant problems, but rather to raise interest in the authors themselves, in order for them to get better jobs/more citations.
I think that the real motivation is quite obvious.

mjh wrote:

Really? Why wouldn't they just have incentive to get educated enough to pass the franchise joining test? Or is this only a one shot deal?

Clearly you've never read a civics textbook. Armed revolution, with all its risks and hardships, may be a more rational choice than wading through one of those.