The Political Economy of Faith

An prescient excerpt from *The Myth of the Rational Voter*

I wrote these words about 20 years ago. They seem especially apt these days.

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Leaders have been known to inspire blind faith. Michels (1962: 93) refers to "the belief so frequent among the people that their leaders belong to a higher order of humanity than themselves" evidenced by "the tone of veneration in which the idol's name is pronounced, the perfect docility with which the least of his signs is obeyed, and the indignation which is aroused by any critical attack on his personality." Many totalitarian movements insist upon their leaders' infallibility. "The Duce is always right," was a popular Fascist slogan. (Gregor 1969: 120) Rudolf Hess waxed poetic about the perfection of Hitler's judgment:

With pride we see that one man remains beyond all criticism, that is the Führer. This is because everyone feels and knows: he is always right, and he will always be right. The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Führer that does not ask for the why in individual cases, in the silent execution of his orders. We believe that the Führer is obeying a higher call to fashion German history. There can be no criticism of this belief. (Modern History Project 2005)

Democratically-elected leaders rarely claim anything so outrageous. But they seem to enjoy a milder form of unreasoning deference. (Zaller 1992) The most charismatic President may not radiate infallibility to anyone, but that does not stop people from choosing to believe that he is honest in the absence of rock solid evidence to the contrary. As an exasperated Paul Krugman (2003: 196) writes:

Mr. Bush has made an important political discovery. Really big misstatements, it turns out, cannot be effectively challenged, because voters can't believe that a man who seems so likable would do that sort of thing.

Even a colorless politician might find that his title makes his words credible. It works for the Pope. Why not the President?

One striking instance of unreasoning deference: Shortly after 9/11, polls strangely found that the nation's citizens suddenly had more faith in their government. (Langer 2002) Can you "trust the government in Washington to do what is right"? In 2000, only 30% of Americans said "just about always" or "most of the time." Two weeks after 9/11, that number more than doubled to 64%. It is hard to see consumers trusting GM more after a major accident forces a recall. The public's reaction is akin to that of religious sects who mispredict the end of the world: "We believe now more than ever."

Still in print!

A close relative of blind faith is the ability to change men's minds with mere rhetoric. Think about it: People modify their view of the world because a current or aspiring leader redescribes the facts. With normal faith, the audience says "I believe because he said it." Faith inspired by verbal ability is a slight variation: "I believe because he said it so well." Perhaps the most extreme illustration is the political influence of great poets like Pablo Neruda. Common sense snaps "What does he know? He's a poet," but many would rather listen and be swayed by the beautiful words.

What happens to democracy if the public puts a degree of irrational faith in its leaders? The most obvious effect is to give leaders slack or "wiggle room." Though they have to conform to public opinion, public opinion becomes partly a function of the politicians' own choices. If doing A gives the public faith in the wisdom of A, and doing B gives the public faith in the wisdom of B, then a politician can choose either A or B ad libitum. It is arrogant for a leader to snicker that "The people will think what I tell them to think," but that does not make him wrong.

Faith helps explain politicians' tendency to dodge pointed questions with vague answers.[i] How can refusing to take a position (or changing the subject) be strategically better than candidly endorsing a moderate position?[ii] Put yourself in the shoes of a voter who opposes the moderate view but has a degree of faith in a candidate's good intentions. If the candidate announces his allegiance to the moderate view, faith in him dissolves. But as long as the candidate is silent or vague, it does not tax your faith to maintain "He's a decent man, he must agree with me." From politicians' point of view, the critical fact is that voters on both sides of the issue can "reason" in the same fashion.

The downside of quasi-religious faith in the powers-that-be (or want-to-be) is plain. Cushioned by the masses' credulity, an elected official could shirk to their detriment. (Burstein 2003; Bender and Lott 1996; Bernstein 1989) Recall that the simplest way to keep politicians in line is to harshly punish them when you catch them misbehaving. (Becker 1968) An electorate with faith in its leaders spares the rod and spoils the child.

Machiavelli (1952: 93) notoriously urges leaders to take full advantage of leader worship: "But it is necessary... to be a great feigner and dissembler; and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived." A corrupt politician can use faith-based slack to cater to special interests, a ideologue to push his agenda. Regardless of what one thinks about the war on terror, it is hard to deny that George Bush would have enjoyed comparable support if he made fairly different choices. If he decided that invading Iraq was not worth the effort, how many of his supporters would have balked? Since some of Bush's options were better for his financial backers and cohered more with his ideology, he faced temptations to shirk. The only question is whether he gave into temptation.

Still, one should not ignore the upside of political faith: its ability to neutralize the public's irrationality. A leader who understands the benefits of free trade might ignore the public's protectionism if he knows that the public will stand behind whatever decision he makes. Since politicians are well-educated, and education makes people think more like economists, there is a reason for hope. Blind faith does not create an incentive to choose wisely, but it can eliminate the disincentive to do so. Whether this outweighs the dangers of political faith is an open question.

The same goes for faith in experts. It opens up a low road and a high road. The low road is for experts to take advantage of the public, promoting their personal finances and/or ideology. The high-road is for experts to help the public in spite of itself. Suppose the public has faith in the FDA. Its drug policy experts could take the low road, telling the credulous public that it is "in the public interest" to test drugs for efficacy as well as safety, ignoring the lives lost from years of delay. (Klein and Tabarrok 2001; Tabarrok 2000) But sometimes experts take the high road instead. The public might be sure that Thalidomide should be totally banned, but defer when the FDA approves it as a treatment for leprosy. (FDA 1997)

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[i] For a rational model of this and related phenomenon, see Alesina and Cukierman (1990).

[ii] It is logically possible — though implausible — that voters are simply risk-preferrers. They would rather have a gamble whose expected value is the moderate position than receive the moderate position with certainty. Howitt and Wintrobe (1995) uses the opposite assumption to explain why politicians avoid raising issues in the first place: they prefer the status quo with certainty to the gamble of a fresh political contest.