Problems of Majority Voting

How a classic paper by Gordon Tullock explains Kevin McCarthy’s unruly caucus

In 1959, Gordon Tullock wrote the paper “Problems of Majority Voting”. I think it explains everything that Kevin McCarthy faces today, and why the breakdown of party strength will lead to sclerotic government. Let’s jump in. 

There are two basic conditions under which majority voting can occur; with trading, and without trading. The latter is obviously inefficient, because it does not take into account intensity of preferences. In a modern day example, if all development were to be put up to a vote most of it would be voted down; it would give massive benefits to not too many, and slight inconvenience to everyone. It would be better if voters could exchange favors so that everyone is made better off by the bill. This bargaining is not all that practical on the scale of the nation, but it does describe the workings of congress.

Let us imagine, as Tullock does, a community of 100 farmers. All of them have a road which they wish to be repaired, with the repairs to be paid through taxes which fall evenly upon all farmers. In an ideal world, each farmer would envision the level of disrepair needed to pay for repairing the road, and then vote for each road below that level of quality, not taking into account whether or not they benefit from it personally. He calls this the “Kantian” scenario. 

It is not an equilibrium, however – every farmer can make their tax bill smaller by voting against every road which is not theirs. Indeed, if at least 51 are selfishly maximizing, they can get their roads perfectly repaired, with the remaining 49 never having them repaired. This too, however, is not an equilibrium! Suppose all 100 farmers are selfishly maximizing. The 49 in the minority could give favors to two from the majority, and be in the majority themselves. There is no stable coalition – every single combination of voters has another one that defeats it. 

Parties exist, in part, to obtain a stable majority. If you are a troublemaker who defects to the other side, then they can deny you the nomination, and in all likelihood, re-election. If the parties are weak and cannot punish defectors, then they are incapable of effectively governing – their bills will have to be overburdened with concessions. Further, because of transaction costs, beneficial bills are more likely to not be passed at all.

This is the cost of extending democracy past the elections themselves, and into the nomination of candidates themselves. To solve this, I believe there are two main paths. The first is to have the nominating group resemble the electorate more — we could have a “jungle primary”, where everyone votes in the primary and the top two advance; or we could use some version of ranked choice voting to remove the incentive to converge on one candidate. Alternatively, we could get rid of voting primaries. Because parties want to win, the general election keeps the party honest and makes them nominate candidates which voters will accept.

Democrats must also take care that the same not happen to us. Behavior like Krysten Sinema’s is incredibly dangerous, and, no matter whether a Republican or Democrat win in Arizona, she must not. She is like the Joker with vest full of grenades — if she can get away with it, then anyone can, and the party will be unable to govern.