Against Democracy - By Jason Brennan | Between The lines

I approached Jason Brennan’s Against Democracy after hearing the author's argument, hoping for a serious challenge to democratic norms. The book posits that democracy is fatally flawed due to widespread voter ignorance and irrationality. While the evidence presented for this cognitive deficit is clear, the case was not compelling enough to persuade me that these issues are truly terminal.

Frankly, the content didn't convince me to seriously doubt democracy, but the book served a powerful, invaluable purpose: it was a phenomenal thought-stimulator. I found the proposals for Epistocracy—the 'rule by the knowledgeable'—particularly smart. The concept of an Epistocratic Veto, where a panel of experts can check the decisions of elected officials, strikes me as a genuinely practical mechanism to mitigate the risks associated with an uninformed public. Ultimately, Against Democracy didn't force me to reject the system, but it did force me to think much harder about how we can build a more competent government.