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

[Juho Laatu]

Some more observations.

Party officials and representatives have more weight in decision making than regular voters. The opinions of regular supporters of party A could be A>Centrist>B, but the opinions of people whose future and career are tied to the party have more A>>>Centrist>B orientation. Some of them may simply count the number of days that they will be in power vs. in opposition. They want to rule themselves, not that someone ideologically close to them rules. From that point of view a two-party system may be better than one that allows also small parties that are ideologically closer to win. Parties that are ideologically close may be interpreted also as worst enemies since they may steal votes that would otherwise be yours (they might thus even think A>>>B>Centrist). These people could be more interested in going back to plurality from Condorcet than from IRV. And they are the ones that are in power (or have more power than many others).

Juho



On 8.7.2011, at 12.43, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> Juho Laatu wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a repeal-or-not referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority of a majority, while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the method remains.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.
> 
> If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would say "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But because voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.
> 
> So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want to put in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be easier to replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new method last) than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have *it* last), because majorities can complain more often in the latter case than in the former.
> 
> If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will remain. If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers upsetting the outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet wouldn't be worse than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one would assume they'd vote in a manner consistent with it. Third parties wouldn't break free -- because the voters don't want them -- and a cloneproof Condorcet method would keep minor spoilers out of the way.
> 
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