Why Rowlatt Satyagraha? A blog refuting the statement that “Voters are the best judges of policy”.
Rowlatt Act: The Rowlatt Act was an act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on March 10, 1919, indefinitely extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War.
Motivation: It is important to understand that Gandhi’s argument against democracy was more nuanced than a blanket statement that “people are stupid”. He believed that people were intelligent enough to make decisions about their own lives but not about other people’s lives. He believed that this is because most people don’t have a wider perspective and hence cannot look at the long term consequences of their actions. And he also believed that this is exacerbated by our inherent tendency towards short-termism (which makes the system even more unstable).
The main reason for his opposition to democracy was that he thought it was inherently unstable and self-destructive as it encouraged short-term thinking and demagoguery. This is because it forces politicians to make promises in order to get elected which they cannot possibly keep (to win elections, politicians have to promise things which sound great but in
This is an age-old saying, but it has its own problems. People who say this have a hidden agenda that they do not want to disclose publicly.
It is true that people are the best judges of policy and there are many examples of this also. The most recent example is the farmers’ agitation in Punjab and Haryana, where farmers forced the government to roll back the farm reforms. Another example is the ongoing farmers’ protest against three new farm laws. The government had passed these laws without taking into consideration the opposition’s concerns regarding farmers and their livelihoods. These recent instances show that people are indeed the best judges of policy and can make governments absolutely accountable for their policies by going against them.
But we cannot ignore another side of this argument. A large part of India’s population still lives below the poverty line, which means they don’t have access to education or employment opportunities, and they don’t have a source of income to sustain themselves or their families. This deprives them of the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about policy and how it affects them personally. They just vote for whoever gives them money; they don’t think about how these leaders will serve them in times of need.
Voters are the best judges of policy!
This statement sounds like a logical fallacy and it is.
To know voters are the best judges of policy, we need to know what policies are. Policies are sets of rules that are enforced by governments in order to achieve certain results. These results can be economic, political, social or military in nature. For example, a government may institute policies that make it illegal for teenagers to drive cars, because the government believes this will reduce the number of traffic fatalities involving teenagers. Or a government might institute policies that make it illegal for businesses to pay their employees less than a certain wage, because the government believes this will increase the number of jobs available and improve the economy.
Now, how do you decide whether or not a policy is good? You need to look at what the goals of that policy are and then you need to examine whether or not those goals have been achieved by the implementation of that policy. If you believe that reducing traffic fatalities and improving the economy are both good things for your country, then you would also believe that these two policies I just mentioned are good policies. But if you don’t agree with those goals, then you probably don’t think these two policies mentioned above would be very good ones either.
So
We believe that the voters are best judges of policy but we have to look at a few things before making a statement.
Are all voters educated?
Do they have strong political knowledge?
Do they have economic knowledge?
Do they know what is good for them and what is not?
Do they know how a policy affects other people, including future generations?
If the answer to all or most of these questions are no then we cannot say that voters are the best judge of policy. And if this is the case then we should also examine who is the right person to decide policy, who should be held accountable for it and who should be responsible for implementing it.
“Voters are the best judge of policy” is a common argument, often used in parallel with this one: “If I don’t like the policies implemented by a representative, I can always vote against him or her.”
I strongly object to both of these arguments. They are bad because they are based on false assumptions, and they are dangerous because they promote an insular political culture.
Let’s begin with the first one. The idea that voters should be left alone is based on two assumptions: 1) We live in a democracy where the majority rules; 2) We have rational voters who vote for their best interests. Neither of these assumptions is true, but for now let’s ignore this fact (I will come back to this later).
In a democracy where the majority rules, each voter has a responsibility to make sure that he or she chooses policies that would benefit himself as well as others in society. However, it is impossible for every one of us to be an expert on every subject. Even if you are an expert in your field, you don’t know what kind of impact your expertise will have on other fields. Also, there may be externalities that we need to consider while choosing policies — things that we do not see immediately but which may have
The best judge of policy is the voter. Voters elect representatives who create policies that they believe will best serve the interests of the people. The policies are then implemented. If the voters are dissatisfied with any aspect of these policies, they can vote to bring new people into power in the next election.
This procedure is obviously flawed, but it’s the best system we have at present. A democracy relies on trust; if you don’t trust your fellow citizens, a democracy won’t work very well. No system is perfect, but the one we have right now has served us quite well so far.
The problem with trying to keep up with all the details of policy debates is that it’s not possible for most people. As everyone knows, there are only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week (except during leap years). In fact, most people don’t even have that long because they need to work to support themselves and their families. They don’t have time to learn about all these complex issues so they can make informed decisions; that’s why we elect representatives who do this for us.
In addition, it’s easy for an individual voter or small group of voters to be swayed by emotional appeals rather than rational arguments. For example, take someone who
Voters don’t have enough information to make informed judgments about policy.
Consider a very simple example. Suppose I tell you that I’m going to pick between two policies:
Policy A: Flatten a mountain and build a factory that produces 1,000 widgets per day.
Policy B: Don’t flatten the mountain and the factory will produce only 500 widgets per day.
Now, suppose I tell you that Policy A costs $5 million while Policy B costs $1 million. Which policy do you prefer?
If you’re like most people, you prefer Policy A because it produces more stuff and therefore seems like ‘the right thing’ to do. But what if I tell you that some scientists think that widget factories are polluting the environment, killing off local wildlife and harming human health? Suddenly, things don’t look so clear cut anymore. Now, instead of just looking for the policy with the highest number of widgets produced, we need to take into account other factors like environmental damage and human health. How much environmental damage is acceptable? How many deaths are an acceptable cost for producing 1,000 widgets instead of 500? These questions are not simple or easy to answer
