[EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)

[Juho Laatu]

On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists"); but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block the repeal if it came to a referendum.

Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.

In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving 25% to each of the major parties.

In other words, in order to change the basic rules of distributing power in a society one may need also some good will from those currently in power and some general support to the new way of distributing power. In societies that are based on one party taking all the power after winning the election, giving that power to some minor party, or having more than two major parties rotating in power (with not much more than 33% support) may be problematic. Also Condorcet combined with single seat districts might not provide what people want. One may thus need to rethink the whole system to make people accept it and find the majority concept of Condorcet methods ideal for them.

CW is ideal for many single winner decisions but the dynamics of the society may also work against it. And one may need to be ready to change more than just the election method to make the new rules work well.

Juho