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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Peter and all,<br>
<br>
It is not clear to me how -- or even whether -- the concept of social
welfare functions applies to the composition of a legislative body. I
don't see how electing a legislature is a "decision" in the sense in
which that term is used in welfare economics. Electing an executive
officer can be viewed as a decision in a welfare economics framework.
Electing single legislators to "represent" geographically defined
districts can be viewed as a set of decisions, one decision per
district. But that requires you to put quotation marks around the word
"represent" since such bodies are not really representative of people
except by accident.<br>
<br>
--Bob Richard<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>Peter Zbornik wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTiklznx-LmWnfxvVh3NAZB_9Xsp_sbBm_dI-5XK1@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>Dear Jameson,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>yes your argument is similar to the one of Terry Bouricius ("the
wisdom of crowds", and yes it is a good one.</div>
<div>Diversity also has an appeal to a diverse set of voters,
allowing for improvements in voter preferences.</div>
<div>That is a good line of argument, thanks.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>A very nice argument for proportional elections would be one
founded in welfare economic theory.</div>
<div>That would be very interesting at least for me, and I quess this
argument should not be too difficult to formulate for elections (but I
have no clue how)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am not sure if the resulting argument would be interesting for
normal party members, but I think it is an important and very
fundamental question to answer.</div>
<div>I have seen technical arguments flying around in this forum
(Bayesian regret, socially optimal pareto fronts, and Kristian's
intruigung graph at: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://munsterhjelm.no/km/elections/multiwinner_tradeoffs/">http://munsterhjelm.no/km/elections/multiwinner_tradeoffs/</a>),
which I haven't been able to understand.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>What I do understand is that we have a preference ordering when
voting, which can be used in social welfare functions (see <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://aede.osu.edu/programs/Anderson/trade/Welfare5rev.pdf">http://aede.osu.edu/programs/Anderson/trade/Welfare5rev.pdf</a>,
page 8 and on). </div>
<div>Maybe it can be shown that proportional elections are better
than winner-takes-it-all elections for a wide range of social welfare
functions.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><u>Some wild speculation about things I don't understand very
well:</u></div>
<div>
<div>Selecting a social welfare function (i.e. selecting between a
utiltarian, bernoulli-nash or rawlsian social welfare function) can
indeed be a voting task itself. I just don't have the proper training
in economy to understand the details, like the publication below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I quote a publication I found:</div>
<div>"<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font
face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"
size="2">The isoelastic </font></font></font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">SWF [see the publication <em>PZ
comment</em>] takes on a number of familiar foms depending on the
value of <b><i>p. </i></b></font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">When <b><i>p </i></b></font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">=O, it is the classical utilitarian.
The limit as p-1 is the Bernoulli-Nash <b>(linear </b>in the </font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">logarithms). <b>And </b>as <b><i>p-m,
</i></b></font><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">it is the
Rawlsian maximin fom. These cases are characterized </font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">by the shape of the social
indifference curves shown in Figure 2.1. Because it is a function </font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">(i.e. the inverse) of the elasticity
of substitution along <b>these </b>indifference curves. p reflects </font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">society's willingness to made-off
utility berween individuals. <b>A </b>greater value of <b><i>p </i></b></font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">reflects </font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">greater social aversion to
inequality . Therefore, <b><i>p </i></b></font><font
face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">may be considered an equity
parameter, </font><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">chosen by
consensus or some other political means."</font>(see page 24-25 in <u><font
color="#810081"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/10891/1/NQ27722.pdf">https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/10891/1/NQ27722.pdf</a></font></u>) </div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Threse publications seems to be on a path which could have
something to do with voting (selects the bernoulli-nash social welfare
function):</div>
<div>Economic analysis and distributive justice, page 49: <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://people.ku.edu/%7Edburress/econ-ana.pdf">http://people.ku.edu/~dburress/econ-ana.pdf</a></div>
<div>Page 9: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.cherry.gatech.edu/mod/pubs/proceed3/c14_burr.pdf">http://www.cherry.gatech.edu/mod/pubs/proceed3/c14_burr.pdf</a></div>
<div>Isoelastic function again: Page 9, equation 10: <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/tol/ereaggregation.pdf">http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/tol/ereaggregation.pdf</a> (there
is even a maximin function)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>I personally like the Bernoulli-Nash welfare function on page
13, as it has good properties, where the utilities are multiplied
instead of added (i. the form is the same as the other functions in the
Pareto framework ii. it gives logaritmic weighs to utility by
multiplying them efficiently preferring more "equal" utility
distributions without demanding that utility should be distributed
equally). Samuelson and Bergson proposed the Bernoulli-Nash social
welfare function themselves.</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ok, I am not sure if I made things clear or not, i touched (very
lightly) upon this stuff in my studies. Seems to be an area which is
not well understood.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best regards</div>
<div>Peter Zborník<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Jameson
Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jameson.quinn@gmail.com">jameson.quinn@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>The whole point of having a representative body is that it
represents the diversity of an organization. It's not just a matter of
diversity of opinion; it's a diversity of strengths, of outlooks, of
focus, which makes the organization stronger than any one person. A
non-proportional system tends in the other direction, of electing N
clones of the same bland majority candidate. Selecting only for broad
appeal means selecting only for bland schmoozing; certainly a valuable
skill in politics, but not the only skill you want your party to
cultivate.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Is that a good start?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Jameson Quinn<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">2010/5/19 Peter Zbornik <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:pzbornik@gmail.com" target="_blank">pzbornik@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div class="h5">
<div>Dear all,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>just a post scriptum to the email below to make things clear:</div>
<div>I wonder if there is a short and to the point argument for
dummies, why proportional elections (say elections meeting the droop
quota) leave the voters happier than winner-takes it all elections.</div>
<div>This "for dummies" explanation of the advantages of
proportional voting could be combined with a longer technical
explanation, perhaps using social welfare functions. for people with
time and interest to understand the argument in full.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I don't mean that the argument above would be the best
argument, but it could be a really interesting one.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best regards</div>
<div>Peter Zborník<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Peter
Zbornik <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:pzbornik@gmail.com" target="_blank">pzbornik@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Dear Kristoffer, dear readers,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Kristofer, you wrote below: "A minor opinion within the
party might need time to grow, and might in the end turn out to be
significant, but using a winner-takes-it-all method quashes such
minority opinions before they get the chance."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thanks, yes I have used this line of argument a lot (we
actually have a global charter of the greens, according to which the
greens are obliged to put the same principles into practice in thei
organizations as they work for in society).</div>
<div>The problem is, that this argument does not "stick", it is
simply not sexy.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Would it be possible to measure the "utility"
or "happiness" among the voters in the party compared to different
election methods. I saw you Kristofer did some work on this but I
didn't understand it, I guess I lack the preliminaries.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I guess the notion of "Bayesian regret" or something
similar could be used to argue that proportional elections are better
than block-voting, but I have no idea of how to explain this, as I
don't know the subject at all (pareto optimal social allocations, or
whatever).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>It seems intuitive that economic tools could be used (I
know almost no economics), since ranked ballot elections simply are
explicitly stated preference orderings. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I guess that voting and elections, could be indeed one of
the best imaginable real-world examples, where preference orderings of
the actors actually are known, and thus all of the machinery of
economic equilibria and social welfare functions could be applied (like
the Bernoulli-Nash social welfare function).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am personally interested in the possiblity of measuring
utility, is there some (preferably short) literature on social welfare,
utility and voting theory for proportional elections (I know some
undergrad maths and statistics)?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best regards</div>
<div>Peter<font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
</font></div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM,
Kristofer Munsterhjelm <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:km-elmet@broadpark.no" target="_blank">km-elmet@broadpark.no</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Peter Zbornik wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Dear
all,<br>
thank you for your help with the election system for the council
elections of the green party.<br>
I will try to move on with technical testing of Schulze's methods and
the specification of the elections to the party lists as soon as time
allows.<br>
Thanks all for the support and all methods supplied.<br>
I never could imagine that I would get such a response.<br>
When advocating proportional elections in the party, I have found it
difficult to explain to other members of the green party why
proportional elections to our party organs is a good thing.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
As far as I remember, your party, the Czech Green Party, is a minor
party. Therefore, it might be possible to draw an analogy to the
proportional methods used by the Czech Republic itself. Without
proportional representation, the Green Party would have next to no
chance of ever getting into parliament. However, since your nation does
use proportional representation, there is some chance.<br>
<br>
The same argument could be used within the party. Since the Green Party
is a minor party, I reason that the party membership honestly believes
the presence of that party is a good thing. Thus, they would also know
(to some extent, at least), that minor groups of opinion - like their
own party in comparison to the major parties - can be good and can add
valuable ideas to governance. Then could not the same argument be used
for the party itself? A minor opinion within the party might need time
to grow, and might in the end turn out to be significant, but using a
winner-takes-it-all method quashes such minority opinions before they
get the chance.<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
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href="http://electorama.com/em" target="_blank">http://electorama.com/em</a>
for list info<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<pre wrap="">
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Bob Richard
Executive Vice President
Californians for Electoral Reform
PO Box 235
Kentfield, CA 94914-0235
415-256-9393
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cfer.org">http://www.cfer.org</a>
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