[EM] using welfare functions in election methods

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Raphael!

You wrote:
> There seems to be a difference in how the sums are occuring.  This
> welfare function applies a negative utility to people having wealth
> that is not average.

If you refer to the Gini social welfare function, this is not true!
Increasing any individual welfare always increases the social welfare,
there is no "negative utility". This can be seen most easily from the
fact that the Gini social welfare is the expected minimum of two
randomly chosen individuals' welfares.

> Direct Democracy (market version)
> 
> Each program is allocated X votes per year
> 
> A law is passed if it receives more votes in favour than against.
> However, when it is passed, the votes (both for/against) are
> consumed.  (the against votes would need to be consumed less though).
> 
> 
> This means that programs would be careful what to bid on and minority
> programs would have a chance of getting some laws passed.

Nice idea! At least one of the members of this list seems to agree that
in a real democracy majorities cannot be allowed to always get their will...

Yours, Jobst