Long Division: The Next Big Threat to Democracy (2004)

For many years, economists have thought about the logic of voting and many have concluded, why bother? At the heart of this story is one of the world's greatest living economists, Public Choice theorist, Gordon Tullock. This lovable curmudgeon just doesn't believe a rational person would vote - and vote Tullock does not. At the same time he believes that democracy is the best form of government. How can it be then, that voting, the very thing without which there would be no democracy, is merely an irrational exercise to him? So, what is behind Tullock's thinking? Through pixelated animations, arcane historical footage, and disembodied interviews, this piece puts into pictures, the reasoning in Tullock's mind. The point at which the sheer mathematics of "rational abstention" meets real life, is where this surreal tale begins.