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I'm more inclined to believe this narrow view of politics that anything else.

People do vote on narrow issues. When their union is saying that party X will prevent their job from being outsourced, the choice is clear. When party Y offers generous handouts to a particular constituency they lap it up. Last election here in Australia, a coworker told me she voted singlehandedly for a particular party because they provided more generous maternity benefits. When it comes down to it, people have neither the time, effort or often the desire to analyse and determine the utilitarian option. Cynical sure, but just about everything from my experiences has supported this view.

Capitalism as a system, is built on incentives. Correctly calibrated with the right regulatory adjustments to prevent malfeasants like pollution, moral hazard and other negative externalities, it works incredibly well.

I think the same thing should apply to politics. For all intents and purposes that's what (a representational) democracy is grounded in anyway. Elected officials act in the interest of their constituents because that's what gets them elected. When, as in the US, campaign contributions (as a result of the almost limitless campaign financing rules) play such an important role, incentives are skewed. Curtis seems to draw the distorted view that adapting politics to a more capitalist based system implies surrendering its authority wholly to private companies when this is simply not a fair representation of game theory which on its pure theory alone implies or suggests nothing of the sort.

I really like Curtis's work, it often provides a very well thought out philosophy grounded in reason but I think he tends to oversimplify and draw swathes in describing complex issues.