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Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 11:08:50 -0400 (EDT) 
From: Kevin Quinn <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: the term "coercion" and economic theory 
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On Thu, 18 May 1995, Anthony Brewer wrote: 
 
>  
> She also distinguished cases where the government goes  
> 'against the common will'. What is a 'common will'? This  
> takes us into deep waters. I don't know what a common will  
> is, but I will just comment that one reading of Arrow's  
> (im)possibility theorem is that there may be no voting  
> procedure that meets even minimal rquirements of something  
> that you might call a common will. 
>  
 
Another reading is that social choice theory misconceives politics as  
utility maximization of pre-formed desiring atoms instead of, e.g.,  
deliberation about the common good, deliberation that is potentially  
transformative of preferences. If Arrow's Impossibility Stuff makes  
it hard to understand what we could ever mean by a "common will", this is  
a problem for Arrow! For a cogent critique of social choice theory along  
these lines, see the wonderful article "Slinging Arrows at Democracy" by  
Richard Pildes and Elizabeth Anderson in the Columbia Law Review, 1990.