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- Title
Liberalism in the Theory of Social Choice.
- Authors
Farrell, M. J.
- Abstract
There is an extensive literature concerning conditions necessary for the existence of a social welfare function or a social choice function in the absence of any explicit principle of "Liberalism." To this discussion, the author has attempted no addition. However, researcher A.K. Sen has shown that conditions become even more restrictive if such a principle is added in a particular form and researcher A. Gibbard, discussing this and related problems, has uncovered yet more severe conditions. This article is concerned in Sections 1 to 5 to analyse the way in which these difficulties arise and to argue that the way in which "Liberalism "is inserted into the problem has much to answer for. In Section 6, the author has proposed a radically different way of incorporating" Liberalism "-an arguably more plausible way-which does not lead to these difficulties. There is a set S of possible social states, each of which is "a complete description of society, including every individual's place in it." Each individual i, i = 1, 2, ..., M, has a preference ordering R1 over 5; an ordering is by definition complete, reflexive and transitive.
- Subjects
LITERATURE; LIBERALISM; SOCIAL choice; CHARITIES; CHOICE (Psychology); SEN, Amartya, 1933-; GIBBARD, A.
- Publication
Review of Economic Studies, 1976, Vol 43, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
0034-6527
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2296595