In his classic book on economic policy, The Way the World Works, Jude Wanniski referenced a conversation had with the great William F. Buckley. Wanniski explained that while it was likely true that no individual in a massive football stadium was as individually smart as Buckley, the fans inside the stadium were collectively much smarter than Buckley was.
Well, of course they were. They were an aggregation of endless amounts of decisions, preferences, information, plus centuries worth of life experience. Wanniski's broad point was that markets are smart precisely because they're a reflection of all known information that one individual couldn't hope to have. By extension, so were voting markets smart. Though many voters would no doubt strike Buckley as individually dense or individually egg-headish (hence Buckley's fear of being ruled by the faculty at Harvard or MIT), the voting markets in total were quite bright for them once again incorporating massive amounts of information.
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