[Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the compromise when there're only 2 factions

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:18 AM 8/30/2007, Jobst Heitzig wrote:
>Dear Abd ul-Rahman,
>
>>I am most concerned about majority *consent.* Jobst is ignoring the 
>>fact that I'm suggesting majority *consent* for decisions;
>
>What exactly is "majority consent"? In my understanding "consent" 
>means *all* voters share some opinion...

No. That's consensus. Consent is individual acceptance of a result, 
majority consent refers to consent by a majority.


>>what do you call it when a minority imposes its will on a majority?
>
>It is not democratic whenever some group can impose its will on the 
>others (in the sense of making their preferred outcome certain). No 
>matter whether that group is a majority or a minority. From this it 
>follows that a method which is always deterministic cannot possibly 
>be democratic.

This is a serious error. It treats democracy as an absolute, when, in 
fact, it is relative. We have complete democracy, with respect to 
some decision, when everyone consents. And we have no democracy if 
nobody consents.

A situation is more democratic when not when a majority consent. This 
is the point where we can start to term the result "democratic." But 
its not fully democratic unless everyone consents.


>>Question: if the majority explicitly consents to this for a 
>>specific election, does the election method satisfy the Majority Criterion?
>
>If the system would have allowed the majority to decide otherwise, 
>the *system* is majoritarian.

No, that was not the question, which was quite specific. It's a bit 
rude not to answer the question! I did not ask if the system was 
"majoritarian," and that is not clearly defined.


>>> > I'm not sure at all what a "just share of power" is.
>>>
>>>Me neither. But no power at all is definitely not a just share of power.
>>>By posting on this topic I hope a discussion on this will eventually
>>>begin.
>>What I pointed out here was that the ratings given did not contain 
>>sufficient information to determine justice.
>
>Yes it does. I gave a reasoning why I consider C the more just 
>solution because everyone prefers it to the "democratic benchmark".

But your "democratic benchmark", apparently, requires consensus. Yet 
you would, it appears, impose the result of C even if the A voters 
don't consent. The word "justice" does not refer to any "democratic 
benchmark." Democracy and justice are not synonyms.


>>Again, without defining justice, but relying upon common 
>>understanding of it, we can easily construct scenarios that fully 
>>explain the ratings as sincere, but which have quite different 
>>implications regarding justice. In the challenge election, to repeat, we have
>>
>>55: A 100, B 0,   C 80
>>45: A 0,   B 100, C 80
>>
>>It was assumed that the ratings were "sincere," though that was not defined.
>
>I gave at least two interpretations of this, so it was defined. I 
>prefer the "preferences over lotteries" interpretation.

That's correct, a definition was given. My apologies. However, the 
central point is that these are relative ratings, not absolute ones. 
They are not commensurable, so aggregating them in this form is 
vulnerable to imbalances that can represent injustice. We'd see this 
if we were to implement an auction that created a transfer of value 
such that true utilities become known (Which would you prefer, a 
payment of +/-$X or the victory of A?).

If you are poor, you might prefer the money and then live with the 
inconvenience of, say, increased travel. That's fair! But you 
probably would not, even if poor, shift your vote significantly for $5.

>>Explicitly, Jobst stated that the ratings given were not utilities, 
>>and that he doesn't believe in utilities as having any meaning.
>
>Again, this is not true. I only stated that I don't believe in 
>*measurable* utilities or, most importantly, even in *commensurable 
>* ones. That does not mean I regard the term "utility" as 
>meaningless. When someone prefers some A to some B, I think we can 
>interpret this as A having "more" utility for her than B. But this 
>"more" need not be representable by real numbers.

Real utilities can be discovered by various means, and so made 
commensurable. It's not difficult to think of schemes for this, but 
it does not have to be part of the election method itself. Rather, it 
can be something that the public engages in voluntarily. Using it, we 
could make Plurality elections quite fair!

And fully democratic. If you can get the large majority of people to 
agree, and you should be able to do this through appropriate 
negotiation -- in general, not always -- then these people will 
simply vote in their own interest and in agreement and you will get 
more complete democracy....