Do we care about the result or the theory?

In the Tragedy of the Commons article, Hardin briefly mentions an incident where the mayor and city council decided to make parking free during the Christmas holiday. He criticizes this act and remarks, “Cynically, we suspect that they gained more votes than they lost by this retrogressive act.” This begs the question of whether people are aware of the results certain policies produce or if they pay more attention to how appealing the policy sounds in itself. The simple act of making parking free during the holidays probably (as Hardin supposes as well) raised the mayor’s approval rating, despite the negative implications of such a stunt. During certain times parking is harder to come by and people attribute this to the influx of people rather than the choices of politicians, so the act of parking be made free is assessed as a gift from the city whereas the lack of parking is blamed on fellow parkers.

This concept of acts being assessed theoretically as opposed to practically is mentioned again in the article “Why doesn’t the US have a European-Style Welfare State.” The authors mention Sweden as the archetype of a state with a sizeable welfare state and then go on to say that in 25 years after it became a welfare state it dropped from fourth highest income per capita to sixteenth-place. I am always disgusted with the United State’s lag behind European welfare states, but this example brought to my awareness that I too fall victim to forming opinions based on how a policy sounds, rather than what it does in reality. Honestly, despite knowing about possible negative side effects of an extensive welfare state, I would still irrationally support the US’ adoption of increased welfare programs. So do voters care about ideas or results?