Hayes puts forward a simple theorum: That people are innately socialistic in our instincts regarding economic policy largely because we are hard-wired in our psyches with a belief in the importance of economic fairness. This translates most obviously into society's perennial support for redistributive economic policies, as evidenced by our progressive tax code (although it has become substantially less progressive after six years of Republican control of the Legislative and Executive branches), the continued public support for intergenerational redistributive programs like Social Security as well as Medicare.
In other words, despite the GOP's sustained campaign against the Middle Class in recent years in which they used tax and fiscal policies as their weapon of choice, the American people still instinctively understand the importance of redistributing resources from the wealthy to those who are barely making ends meet amidst the economic inequality and insecurity that permeates our society at the highest levels in recent history.
And then, of course, there is the policy Democrats pushed in their midterm elections last November, as Hayes notes:
This central tension between laissez faire capitalism and the redistributive whims of a democratic electorate isn’t discussed much. But it can poke through the surface during moments of clarity, such as the last election, when minimum wage increases passed in every state—red and blue—where they were on the ballot.
Hayes the takes the discussion to an important but rarely explored direction. He asks whether democracies produce optimal policies for its citizens and whether democracies produce policies that accurately reflect the will of the majority? It's hard to answer these two questions definitively because (1) voters are notoriously ignorant of the policy platforms of the candidates they are choosing between, (2) people tend to vote inconsistently and (3) voters dont even know what they want in terms of economic policies being implemented, much less which policies would work in their favor.
The article is, on its surface, a book review and critique of economist Bryan Caplan's recent The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, which basically supports Public Choice Theory, but it touches on many larger, important topics as well. For example, to what extent are the public's views on economic policy reflected in the politicians they elect to represent them in Washington, and how important is it for these political elites to heed to wishes of the less-educated masses they represent? According to Caplan, for instance, democracy fails as a system to produce good economic policies precisely because it reflects the "irrational" will of the majority.
Hayes quotes Caplan as arguing that “If people are rational as consumers and irrational as voters, it is a good idea to rely more on markets and less on politics.”
Hayes goes on to point out that:
Caplan’s willingness to embrace the darkness, however, is what makes this book so important: It articulates in lurid detail the obscene id of Chicago-school, Grover-Norquist-style, free market fundamentalism (a term Caplan spends a chapter rebutting). Given a choice between democracy without free markets or free markets without democracy, many conservatives would gladly choose the latter. Hence Milton Friedman advising Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the Bush administration’s support of a coup in Venezuela. (emphasis added)
In the end, I think it is worth the time to read Hayes' relatively short piece, as well as the introduction to Caplan's book linked to at the beginning of this paragraph. Make up your own mind - although if you're like me it will probably be an opinion formed after quite a bit of time in order to digest all of the implications.
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