The edge of democracy: collective choices, democratic order and institutions

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47456/geo.v3i37.40280

Keywords:

social choice, institutions, democracy, social order

Abstract

Based on the seminal works of Condorcet and Arrow, this paper will demonstrate why, theoretically, social choices are determined by the moral and ethical standards of the collective rather than reflecting individual wills. From this perspective, I will demonstrate why democratic regimes and their institutions are at risk from extremist social groups that challenge the Social Choice mechanism. First, I will define the concept of order in its social, economic, and political dimensions, and I will highlight the limitations of individual rationality as a regulating factor. Next, I will explain how and why collective choices must restrict certain individual liberties. Finally, I will use these concepts to (a) identify the inherent weaknesses of most democratic regimes and (b) precisely define the current threats.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Alain Herscovici, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo - UFES

Professor Titular  do Departamento de Economia da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES),  Coordenador do Grupo de Estudo em Macroeconomia (GREM) e do Grupo de Estudo em Economia da Cultura, da Informação, do Conhecimento e da Comunicação (GECICC) do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Economia da (UFES).

References

ARROW, K. J., 1951, Social Choice and individual values, New York, Wiley.

ARROW, K. J., 1974. Limited Knowledge and Economic Analysis. American Economic Review, American Economic Association 64 (1) (March): 1-10.

ARROW, K. J., 1986, Rationality of Self and Others in an Economic System , The Journal of Business, 59, n.4, p.385-390.

BOBBIO, Norberto, MATTEUCI Nicola, PASQUINO, Gianfranco, 1991, Dicionário de Política, v. I, Editora da UnB.

BONOLIO, Giovanni, 2016, Public obligation and individual freedom: how to fill the gap? The case of vaccinations, Journal of Public Health Research; volume 5:732.

BOYER, Robert. 1987. La Théorie de la régulation: une analyse critique. Paris: La Découverte.

BOVA, D.M., 2021. About the morality of economic policies principles. Academia Letters, Article 2124.

CONDORCET, Monsieur le Marquis de, 1785, Essai sur l´application de l´analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix, Imprimerie Royale, Paris.

COASE, R. H., 1960, The Problem of Social Cost, Journal of Law and Economics, 3, 1-44.

DAVIDSON, Paul, 1996, Reality and economic theory”, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics/Summer 1996: 479-508.

Drache Daniel, Froese Marc, 2022, Has Populism Won? The War on Liberal Democracy, ECW Press ##$ Gerrard Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

DUMÉNIL, G., and D. LÉVY. 1987. The dynamics of competition: A restoration of the classical analysis. Cambridge Journal of Economics 11: 133-164.

DUMONT, Louis, 1983, Essais sur l´individualisme. Une perspéctive anthropologique sur l´idéologie moderne, Editions du Seuil, Paris.

DUMONT, Louis, 1985, Homo aequalis. Genèse et épanouissement de l’idéologie économique, NRF, Editions Gallimard, Paris.

FOUCAULT, M., 1966, Les mots et les choses, Tel Galimard, Paris.

GANE, Nicholas, 2014, The Emergence of Neoliberalism: Thinking Through and Beyond. Michel Foucault’s Lectures on Biopolitics, Theory, Culture & Society 2014, Vol. 31(4) 3-27.

GAUDIN, François, SIOUFFI Gilles, 2015, La vie avec 500 mots de français : un emprisonnement social qui menace de plus en plus de jeunes, acessado em 4 de novembro de 2022: <https://atlantico.fr/article/decryptage/la-vie-avec-500-mots-de-francais--un-emprisonnement-social-qui-menace-de-plus-en-plus-de-jeunes-gilles-siouffi-francois-gaudin>. Acessado em 21 jul. 2023.

GIRARD, René, 1972, La Violence et le sacré, Grasset, Paris.

GROSSMAN, S.J.; STIGLITZ, J.E, 1976, “Information and Competitive Price system”, The American Economic Review, May 76, Vol.66 n.2. 246-253.

GROSSMAN, S.J.; STIGLITZ, J.E, 1980, On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets, TheAmerican Economic Review, Vol. 70, No. 3, (Jun. 1980), 393-408.

HABERMAS, Jürgen, 1978, L´espace public. Archéologie de La publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise, Editions Payot, Paris.

HAYEK, Friedrich von, 1944. The Road to Serfdom. UK: Routledge Press.

HAYEK, Friedrich von, 1945, The Use of Knowledge in Society, The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, Issue 4, p. 519-530.

HAYEK, Friedrich von, 1960. The Constitution of Liberty, University of Chicago Press.

HÉNIN, Pierre-Yves, INSEL, Ahmet, 2021, Le national-capitalisme autoritaire une menace pour la démocratie, Editions Bleu autour. 2021.

HERSCOVICI, Alain, 2012, Informação, conhecimento e Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual: os limites dos mecanismos de mercado e das modalidades de negociação privada. A contribuição de Williamson à análise dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual, Economia e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 21, n. 3 ( 46), p. 667-694, Dec. 2012.

HERSCOVICI, Alain, 2019, Essays on the Historicity of Capital, Palgrave, New York.

HERSCOVICI, Alain, 2021, Big Data, rastreabilidade e assimetrias de informação: opacidade, ingerência e democracia, Revista Nova Economia, Volume 31, Número 3, Belo Horizonte.

HERSCOVICI, Alain, 2023, Value, Historicity and Economic Epistemology. An Archaeology of Economic Science, Palgrave macmillan, New York.

HIRSCHMAN, Albert, 1986, Vers une économie politique élargie, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris.

HODGSON, Geoffrey M. 1988. The Approach of Institutional Economics. Journal of Economic Literature 36 (1): 166–192.

JARDIN, André, 1986, Prefácio ao livro de Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1986 [1848], De la démocratie en Amérique, Gallimard, Paris.

KATZ M.L. and SHAPIRO, C., 1985, “Network Externalities, Competition and Compatibility”, in American Economic Review, v.75, n.3.

KEYNES, John Maynard , 2009 (Original 1936), The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Classic Books America, New York, 2009.

MANDEVILLE, Bernard. [1732], 1988, The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. 1 Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988.

MARX, Karl, 1976 [1867] Le Capital, Critique de l’économie politique, Editions Sociales, Paris, Livre III.

MILL, John Stuart, 1959, On Liberty, London.

MUSGRAVE, R.A.,1959, The Theory of Public Finance, McGraw-Hill.

PARRAMORE, Lynn, 2021, Libertarians and the Vaccine: Give Me Liberty and Give Them Death, <https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/libertarians-and-the-vaccine-give-me-liberty-and-give-them-death>, acessado em 21 jul. 2021.

Pigou, A.C., 1932, The Economics of Welfare. London: Macmillan.

RAWLS, John, 2009 [1971], Théorie de la justice. Éditions Points, Paris.

RICARDO, David. 1821 [2001]. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3rd ed. Kitchener, ON: Batoche Book.

ROHLFS J., 1974, A theory of interdependent demand for a communication service, Bell Journal of Economics and Management Sciences, spring 1974.

SAMUELSON, P.A., The Pure Theory of Public Expenditures, The Review of Economics and Statistics, vol.36, issue 4.

SEN, Amartya, 1982, Choice, Welfare and Measurement, Oxford: Blackwell.

SIMON, Herbert, 1979, Rational decision making in business organizations, The American Economic Review, September, p.493-513.

SMITH, Adam, 1776, Inquérito sobre a natureza e as causas da riqueza das nações, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, Vol I, 1980 [Original: An Inquiry into the Nature and causes of the wealth of Nations, Methuen and Co Ltd, London, 1776).

STIGLITZ, Joseph, COVID-19 and Human Freedom, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-spike-in-us-reflects-misunderstanding-of-liberty-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2021-09, acessado em 10 set. 2021.

TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de, 1986 [1848], De la démocratie en Amérique, Gallimard, Paris.

TSOULFIDIS, Lefteris, 2017, Economic theory in historical perspective,The Journal of Philosophical Economics: Reflections on Economic ans Social Issues, Volume X Issue 2 Spring 2017.

VAN DIJCK, José. 2014. Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big Data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance & Society 12(2): 197-208.

WEBER, Max. “Politics as a Vocation”, in .Essays in Sociology, p. 77-128. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.

Downloads

Published

01-12-2023

How to Cite

ALAIN HERSCOVICI. The edge of democracy: collective choices, democratic order and institutions. Geografares, Vitória, Brasil, v. 3, n. 37, p. 334–358, 2023. DOI: 10.47456/geo.v3i37.40280. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufes.br/geografares/article/view/40280. Acesso em: 14 jan. 2025.

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 37 (2023): Revista Geografares

Section

Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Geografares

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyrights Declaration

Authors who publish in the journal agree with the following terms:

  1. Authors will keep their copyrights and grant the journal the right to their first publishing, simultaneously licenced under Creative Commons Attribution License which allows sharing their work with authorship recognition and initial release through this journal. 
  2. Authors may sign additional contracts separately diffusing a non-exclusively version of the paper published in this journal (i.g. publishing in institutional repository or as a book chapter), once citing the authorship and initial release through this journal.  
  3. Authors are encouraged to publicize and diffuse their paper online, for example onto institutional repositories or on their personal websites.