John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DON PITTIS ON CBC NEWS
“Quebec vote shows it's no longer 'the economy, stupid'
“Politicians must reconsider the idea that a booming economy wins elections
“It is almost impossible to be sure exactly why Quebecers voted the way they did, says Ming Li, an economist at Montreal's Concordia University who has studied the psychology of voting.”
I think Li has it mainly right.
I've never felt that voting, as with almost any human activity you care to name, is wholly rational.
Indeed, the assumption that a reasonably good economy assures voter loyalty always reminds me of "economic man,” the theoretical construct that is one of the assumptions of economic theory itself, a construct many find highly artificial.
But in any case, politics is a considerably messier subject than microeconomic theory.
Politics is multi-dimensional. Indeed, while it has theories associated with it, it is not theory, as is the case with economics.
It includes a thirst for theater. It includes hopes that some little change may directly benefit you, and not necessarily in a monetary way. It includes a certain amount of idealism, however unwarranted. And it very much includes human fears, themselves certainly not always clearly defined.
