The Rich Should Decide

Proponents argue for replacing democratic voting with market-based decision mechanisms. Traders would bet on policy outcomes rather than voters choosing representatives. Government automatically implements whatever policy the market prices as most likely to achieve target metrics.

Traders, investors, analysts, and algorithms collectively participate in price discovery through buying and selling decisions. The profit motive drives participants to incorporate all available information into their trading strategies.

British economist Charles Goodhart formulated this principle while analyzing monetary policy failures. The pattern appears across institutions—hospitals, schools, governments—whenever performance metrics carry high stakes.

Traders with large positions in policy outcome markets face dual incentives: win the policy decision and profit from market bets. A trader betting $10 million against lockdowns could lose the policy vote but still profit by manipulating death count definitions.

The critique frames democracy as chaotic: uninformed voters, money-driven campaigns, theatrical politics, competing narratives. The Founding Fathers explicitly designed institutions to prevent “democracy breaking out”—public deliberation threatening property holders who feared one-person-one-vote majority rule.

Wealthy interests cannot purchase votes directly in democracies, unlike market systems where capital directly determines outcomes. This forces translation of wealth into political power through narrative construction, media spending, campaign financing, and agenda-setting—buying storytelling capacity rather than decision rights.

Campaigns and political organizations learn that money cannot guarantee message adoption. George Bush’s attack ads backfired, producing negative effects on Bush himself rather than opponents. Stories require resonance beyond purchased exposure.

Retail investors on social media platforms coordinated around a shared investment thesis without institutional backing or funded campaigns. Individual investors sharing analysis, streaming commentary, and building community around a stock position.

Twelve random citizens without special expertise deciding questions of guilt or innocence, with someone’s freedom or life at stake. Jurors hear contradictory evidence and competing narratives funded by opposing sides with significant resources.

Markets and democracies serve fundamentally different social functions, processing information through incompatible mechanisms. Conflating these systems creates category error—applying descriptive tools to normative problems.