Democracy And Political Ignorance

It had been a while since I visited the Adam Smith Institute (until I visited Volokh today) but I'm glad I did today.

Now I know why so many dimwits so susceptible to coercive action run the show. A bunch of dumbasses who deserve a kick in the ass from Red Foreman are electing them.

The power of 'X'!

The public is ignorant about politics and lacks even the basic facts that it would need to make sound judgments about political issues. A new poll by Ipsos-MORI shows just how deep this ignorance is. Among other things, the poll found that:

• 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn)
• 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year.  More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn)
• the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales.
• people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+.  In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.

I'm pretty sure it's the same story in Canada and Australia.  The pension (and entitlement) thing they have no excuse for. This is fact. You're not allowed to be this clueless and if you are, sad face. My buddy, a pension fund analysts, tells me horror stories - ho-ro-ror.

My own good friend who earns well over 180k believes we have 'unregulated markets.' (he works in pharma), 'great social programs that are inexpensive' and thinks we don't have a spending problem and if we do it's because of our 'consumerism' and 'artificially driven demand.'

Apparently someone forces him to buy an $8000 Rolex.

He has a Political Science degree. Sorry FLR. Someone has to save you.

The problem with my buddy is this: His education stopped in 1999. He hasn't kept up and clings to the old narrative taught in school and surmises nothing much has changed. He certainly is exploring ideas or investing in books to notice there's a whole new set of thought - classical liberal revival for example - that legitimately questions what we have been taught to assume is great for the 'greater good.'

Naturally, I'm a pro-American, right-winger in his eyes.

Sigh.

Sooo.

Who's to blame for this sad, sordid state of ignorant anarchy?