Walter Block in Lew Rockwell on Caplan, Bryan. 2007. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press:

“These charges that Caplan launches against the Austrians are very serious; very serious indeed. How is it then that they come accompanied by not a single solitary footnote, reference or citation? Caplan is a very careful researcher. His book contains only 276 pages, and no fewer than 56 of them are devoted to reference, citations and footnotes. Yet, he could not spare even one of them to buttress his wild-eyed accusations against the Austrians. Why is this? Our answer can only be speculative, but a plausible explanation is that Caplan is only venting his own quasi-religious views, which are similar in character to those of which he accuses the great unwashed, the ignorant prejudiced voting public. It is difficult to reject this hypothesis. As good logical positivists, we need an empirical “test” for this contention. Here is the evidence: Caplan is himself guilty of engaging in market fundamentalism himself, throughout his book. (For example, he accepts the concept of “economic truism”; this sounds like “market fundamentalism” to me.) This suggests that he is indeed guilty of harboring motivations of this sort. He is a self-hater, in other words, who benefits from condemning vices he sees in himself.

In the view of Caplan, “A person who said, ‘All the ills of markets can be cured by more markets’ would be lampooned as the worst sort of market fundamentalist.” I, myself, would never make such a statement. But this is because I do not see any “ills of markets” in the first place. Did I but, then I would gladly embrace this statement. But are not markets plagued by imperfect information? Not a bit of it. Rather, this is a characteristic of the human condition, not markets. But are not markets plagued by products such as pornography, prostitution, addictive drugs, and other harmful goods and services such as French fries, tobacco, race car driving, alcohol, etc? Not at all. Rather, the existence of these goods and services are eloquent testimony to the efficacy of markets. If blame there is for such items, it must be laid at the proper door: not markets, but the choices of human beings. All “markets” consist of is the concatenation of all voluntary commercial interactions. Market “fundamentalism,” then, consists of no more than an appreciation of the fact that free trade promotes economic welfare, and is the only system compatible with economic liberty. If this be “market fundamentalism,” let opponents make the most of libertarian support for this system of “capitalist acts between consenting adults.”

According to Caplan, “Imagine if an economist dismissed complaints about the free market by snapping: ‘The free market is the worst form of economic organization, except for all the others.’ This is a fine objection to communism, but only a market fundamentalist would buy it as an argument against moderate government intervention.” Say what? What is this? “Moderate government intervention”? One wonders how Caplan squares his advocacy of “moderate government intervention” with his well-known support for anarcho-capitalism? It is also difficult to see how he can reconcile his opposition to “market fundamentalism” with this statement of his: “… like all trade, international trade is mutually beneficial…” But that is all that constitutes markets: trade between people on a voluntary basis.

A final point on this topic, and this by far the most astounding. Caplan and Stringham won a $25,000 Templeton Prize. And here is the abstract of their prize-winning paper: “The political economy of Ludwig von Mises and Frédéric Bastiat has been largely ignored even by their admirers. We argue that Mises’ and Bastiat’s views in this area were both original and insightful. While traditional public choice generally maintains that democracy fails because voters’ views are rational but ignored, the Mises-Bastiat view is that democracy fails because voters’ views are irrational but heeded. Mises and Bastiat anticipate many of the most effective criticisms of traditional public choice to emerge during the last decade and point to many avenues for future research.”

As can be seen by this admission, Caplan’s book, and the entire research program of this author on the drawbacks of democracy, owes a great self-confessed debt to that “market fundamentalist,” Ludwig von Mises. How, then, does he come to bite the (intellectual) hand that feeds him? Truly, amazing.

Welcome to the wonderful world of “market fundamentalism,” Caplan.”