Wisdom of Crowds

Four Conditions
In a review of the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, Ilya Somin writes,

Surowiecki argues that “four conditions characterize wise crowds: diversity of opinion (each person should have some private information, even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of known facts), independence (people’s opinions are not determined by the opinions of those around them), decentralization (people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge), and aggregation (some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision”

Notice the libertarian conditions needed for wise crowds.

Review
The review mentions problems with voter ignorance over the last 50 years, but that leaves much for us to solve. Wisdom is much easier noticed in the free market because buyers spend much time investigating. Voting is more like children yelling for the latest sugared cereal they see advertised while watching cartoons. This analogy comes too close to home when we consider the cartoonishness of today's "news" programs.