[Propertarian]

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If you made this poll, please explain how it makes any more sense that "who understands economics better" be determined by a popular vote than it does to put a decision about aeronautic engineering to a popular vote.

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FYP-couldn't resist.

Anytime you try and claim that some sort of elite should you run into this one problem, amongst others:

Nobody agrees on who the elite is.

One group claims it is the elite, while another claims they are the elite, and another, and another.

In economics, there are Keynesians, post-keynesians, Neoclassical economists, Austrians, political economists, economics sociologists, institutionalists, behaviroal economists, Marxists, monetarists, post-autistics etc. Each group claims to understand economics, yet all the groups have different views on economics. Some groups literally are saying the exact opposite of what another group says. How are we to decide who really "knows best"?

You can say that you would prefer that decisions be made by natural law, or logic, or some objective standard, but that isn't possible. What is or isn't true or best is not written on a wall somewhere. The best we can hope for is intersubjectivity; politics cannot be escaped.

Fortunately or not, the majority has decided that it prefers to have specialists make these kinds of decisions anyway. If they don't get the results they want, then they pick a new person (and the specialists he/she picks).

And then there is that other obvious problem: give a small group of people a large ammount of power, and then they make just make decisions that benefit them, not decisions that are correct or right are good. This effect is much less strong when you give a large group of people a large ammount of power, as we have seen with the practice of democracies: democracies have ended slavery, and have worked towards ending segregation, racism, and poverty. All these things were the result of a majority voting to end a system that benefited them at the expense of a minority. Furthermore, even if a majority and a small minority were equally likely to try and rule in there own interest, regardless of the consequences for "others", majority rule would be better, because then the majority are getting their interests fulfilled, as opposed to the case of minority rule, under which the majority are not getting their interests fulfilled.

cliffnotes: whether or not it would be better if "those who know best" made the decision instead of the majority, the best procedure we have for deciding "who knows best" is majority vote.