1. In order to avoid the incoherent policies resulting from sudden shifts in majority opinion (p. 5.4:31) and to minimize conflicts over agenda (previous page), democracies are usually structured so that voters do not vote directly on specific policies. Instead, they express their preferences indirectly, by voting for candidates who serve fixed terms of office. But voters have little basis for predicting what decisions the candidate will make in office. (As we shall see later, this problem is exacerbated by the absence of moral principles in a mixed economy.) Indeed, voters often cannot even anticipate what issues the winning candidate will face. If they discover later that the elected official's policies conflict with their beliefs and values, they have little recourse: recall procedures must necessarily be cumbersome and seldom effective, since otherwise they would tend to paralyze the political process. Thus the voter becomes essentially powerless following his or her brief moment in the voting booth.      Next page
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