In Defense of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff

Author:Robert Paul Wolff [Wolff, Robert Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Anarchism
Publisher: http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion
Published: 1970-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Appendix: The Irrationality of Majority Rule

Majority rule can be called into question on grounds of its failure to preserve the liberty of the minority, but it has commonly been thought to be at least a rational method of making decisions, supposing that the members of the community are willing to agree upon its adoption. In fact it turns out that majority rule is fatally flawed by an internal inconsistency which ought to disqualify it from consideration in any political community whatsoever.

Self-consistency is perhaps the simplest sort of rationality which is demanded of, all men in their deliberations and actions. If a man prefers a first state of affairs or action to a second, and prefers the second in turn to a third, then in all consistency he ought to prefer the first to the third. There is of course no psychological law which forces a man to keep his preferences consistent, any more than to adopt only means which he believes are well suited to his ends. But in exploring the theoretical possibility of a legitimate state, we are surely justified in positing a community of citizens who rise to that first level of rationality.

Presumably, also, we desire that the method of group decision which we adopt will lead to collective action having the like virtue of internal consistency. Unanimous democracy achieves this end, for it reproduces in the laws of the state the common preferences of the entire citizenry. If their preferences are consistent, so too will be those of the state. It might be thought that majority rule also preserved consistency of preference, but the facts are otherwise. As a simple example will illustrate, it is perfectly possible for a group of rational individuals with consistent preferences to arrive, by majority rule, at a completely inconsistent order of group preference! Suppose for the sake of simplicity that the community consists of three individuals who are faced with the problem of establishing a social ranking among three alternatives.[12] Each member of the voting community is first asked to rank the three possi-bilities in order of his relative preference. He may use any criteria he chooses – such as social utility, personal interest, or even whim – but he must be consistent. The group then establishes its collective preference by voting for the alternatives, two at a time. Since there are three alternatives, which we can call A, B, and C, there will be three votes in all: first A against B, then A against C, and finally B against C.

The preference order of the society is completely determined by the preference orders of the individuals, for whenever a pair of alternatives is presented to them, each man consults his private ranking and votes for the higher of the two. Now, there are a great many possible sets of private orderings which, when amalgamated by the device of majority rule, will produce a consistent public ordering. For example, consider the set of orderings in Table 1.

Individual I

A

C

B Individual II

A

B

C Individual

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