Ignorant people should not be voting

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In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results―and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse―more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government―epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable―may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out.

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