Via Bryan Caplan but more specifically https://philpapers.org/rec/BREWPM. Generally I hate stuff with wanky philosophic words in it, but in this case Wiktionary tells me it means Rule by citizens with political knowledge, or a proposed political system which concentrates political power in citizens according to their knowledge which I suppose is fair enough. And this is of interest since whenever a discussion on democracy continues long enough someone - quite likely me - will bemoan the general stupidity of the general populace and ponder some means to restrict the francise to non-clowns; which usually means people like them or me; see-also Starship Troopers. Anyway, they say: ...we are “predictably irrational” in the pursuit of our interests. Paternalists from both the social sciences and philosophy use these findings to defend interfering with people's consumption choices for their own good. We should tax soda, ban cigarettes, and mandate retirement savings to make people healthier and wealthier than they’d be on their own. Our thesis is that the standard arguments offered in support of restricting people’s consumption choices for their own good also imply support for “epistocratic” restrictions on people’s voting choices for their own good...
Which is plausible. In the end, they come up with most of the correct arguement against: Last, there is a practical objection to paternalistic regulation of the vote: state agents might abuse their new powers. They end up dismissing this, but they are wrong to: corruption or incompetence in consumption choice regulation is undesireable, but limited, and fixable within the political process. Corruption of who-can-vote is, potentially, not fixable.
Refs
* Education - Our World in Data
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