When do governments deserve our allegiance, and when should they be denied it? This course explores the main answers that have been given to this question in the modern West. We start with a survey of the major political theories of the Enlightenment: Utilitarianism, Marxism, and the social contract tradition. In each case, we begin with a look at classical formulations, locating them in historical context, but then shift to the contemporary debates as they relate to politics today. Next, we turn to the rejection of Enlightenment political thinking, again exploring both classical and contemporary formulations. The last part of the course deals with the nature of, and justifications for, democratic politics, and their relations to Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment political thinking. In addition to exploring theoretical differences among the various authors discussed, considerable attention is devoted to the practical implications of their competing arguments. To this end, we discuss a variety of concrete problems, including debates about economic inequality, affirmative action and the distribution of health care, the limits of state power in the regulation of speech and religion, and difficulties raised by the emerging threat of global environmental decay.
The Majority Rule
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Из курса от партнера Yale University
Moral Foundations of Politics
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Democracy
This module deals with the nature of, and justifications for, democratic politics, and their relations to Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment political thinking.
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Ian ShapiroSterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director
The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
>> So this is the,
the notion of competition we're going to talk about today.
Competition for power over time.
It goes back to our old friend John Locke with whom we began the course.
I promised you then Locke would constantly pop-up in different guises and
different ways throughout the course and this is the last time.
Because it turns out that even though Locke is usually thought of
as a theorist of individual rights, which he certainly was.
In fact, he was one of the earliest defenders of majority rule.
Even though people associate majority rule often with
the problem of the tyranny of the majority, which I'll get to.
But this is in paragraph 96 of the second treaties,
his famous defense of majority rule.
He says, when any number of men, they were still thinking of men then.
When any number of men have by the consent of every individual made a community,
they have thereby made that community one body with the power to act as one body,
which is only by the will and determination of the majority.
It is necessary the body should move, that way whether the greatest
force carries is which is the consent of the majority.
Or else it is impossible, it should act or continue one body or as one community.
And therefore, we see that in assemblies empowered to act by positive
laws where no number is set by that positive law, which empowers them.
The act of the majority passes for the act of the whole.
And of course, determines as having by the law of nature and
reason, the power of the whole.
So he's saying that once you have a political
community the default presumption is that the majority rules.
Why would he be saying that?
>> Well, you can't rule, I don't see how you can rule any other way.
You have two options, you can get everyone to agree.
Where you can rule by the minority, they don't work.
>> What's the problem with getting everyone to agree?
>> [LAUGH] If, if it's even if it's possible to happen,
which I don't think it is it would take way too long.
>> Okay.
That's true and we'll get to that in a minute.
So he's certainly is saying that majority rule
must prevail, because it's the power of the stronger.
>> Right?
>> Mm-hm. >> And a famous defender of this view in
the contemporary world is a man called Adam Przeworski in a,
in a little much discussed article called minimalist democracy, a defense.
He says, majority rule is a kind of flexing of muscles.
It, it indicates the, the likely chances in the even of war.
So the majority is signaling it's power.
Well, that's all very well, but we think of Locke as a defender of minority
rights and we've said, one of the big problems with majority rule at least
according to Tocqueville is that the problem of the threat of majority tyranny.
>> Hm. >> So,
isn't there something in of a problem here?
I mean, what about individual rights and all of this?
How can it be squared with a commitment to majority rule?
And after all, if you, if you look back at the, the quote from Locke,
he certainly says, this reflects the power of the majority, but he,
he doesn't just say the law of nature.
He also says, and reason.
So, is there any rational basis for preferring majority rule if what
you're worried about is protecting your rights as an individual?
>> Mm-hm.
>> The, you think there might be?
What would it be?
>> No, I'm thinking that this is okay as long as there is the procedure that leads
to a democratic democratic election of, of this consensus, basically and
then this is how you get to majority rule.
>> Well, yeah, but the people who lose [COUGH] in the procedure are not going to
be very happy with it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, if this is the general sentiment and-.
>> Yeah.
So, one way to see what's at stake here is to look at an argument against
majority rules initially and then we'll see what the response to it was.
And this is put forward by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock in 19,
in a book in 1962 called The Calculus of Consent for
which Buchanan was subsequently awarded a Nobel Prize much to Tullock's chagrin.
But Buchanan was the economist and Tullock was the political scientist and
they don't have Nobel prizes for political scientists.
So what they pointed out was it was a very forward looking book in some ways.
It was kind of, behind a veil of ignorance.
They, the idea is imagine that you don't know what decisions
a society's going to take and you have to think about what, what affects
the likelihood that something's going to be done that you don't want done.
Some violation of your rights that you don't want to suffer and
they pointed out that as the number of people increases, the odds that,
that happens will go up, because more, more decisions can be taken.
But you could reduce those odds by requiring more and
more people to, to make a decision.
Right? So,
in the limiting case on the far right-hand side of that.
If you unanimity rule, if everybody was required to make a decision.
Unanimity will is the same thing as a veto of every single person, right?
Because anybody who doesn't like it can stop the decision from happening.
So they said if, if that was all that was at issue for
the things that matter to you the most, you would certainly want unanimity rule.
But they said that's not the only thing at issue.
At issue also is the value of your time, which they, they call decision making
costs in contrast to these external costs on this slide, which are the,
the costs you would to bear if a decision was made that you don't like.
Okay?
Decision making costs the amount of time you have to spend and
they go the other way.
Because the more people you have, the,
the more time it's going to take to make a decision.
Yeah?
Do you see that?
>> Mm-hm.
>> Because there are more people to negotiate, more people to persuade.
If you can persuade them and so,
as the number of people increases required for a decision.
While the, the chances that, that eventual decision
is going to be something you don't like go down, the cost of getting there go up.
And so they said, really we should think about minimizing the sum of
those two costs and so they get a curve like this.
That is, that the intuition here is that the more important
the issue is to you, the more you will be willing to pay
decision-making costs in order to protect yourself.
So for very important questions, you're going to insist on unanimity rule or
something close to it.
For less important questions, you might say, a two thirds rule.
For still less important, you might accept majority rule.
For even less important than that, you might even say it's just not worth my time
at all, let the bureaucrats decide how, what street lights should look like or
something and you'd rather just not spend the time.
And so they would say that, that's why things like constitutions are very
difficult to change and that other things require less votes.
So what do you think about that?
>> The good thing to that is that it establishes the hierarchy of the topics of
national concern or national importance for the country, for instance.
If you're a leader and there is some very big national issue you want,
you know, this to be adopted by majority in the model you showed.
>> By unanimity.
>> Mm-hm. >> Okay.
Can you see any down side to their reasoning?
>> Yeah I mean, if, if there's certain things that require true unanimity,
you know, and that's just not possible, but it's something that needs to be hap,
needs to happen or something needs to be changed.
It doesn't look like, it's ever going to happen.
Or are there any changes ever going to be made?
>> Right.
Okay.
So the fallacy in their reasoning, which you, you're very close to having
identified is that it comes out of the social contract metaphor.
The ideas before collective action can happen.
How many people have to agree, that is the way they frame the question.
But of course, if you, if collective action is ubiquitous to all human life,
then unanimity rule is going to ossify the status quo,
it is going to become another version of status quo bias.
And another way to see this is that unanimity rule and
the Pareto principal are the same thing.
Remember, how we talked about the status quo bias build into the Pareto
principal way back when.
This status quo bias build into unanimity rule in politics for
exactly the same reason.
So, if you maintain this kind of fiction that we start with a world where there's
no collective action and then we have to justify having collective action,
there can be a certain credence to this Buchanan and Tullock logic.
But as first Brian Barry in a famous book called Political Argument, pointed out
in 1965 and then Douglas Rae in a couple of, of seminal articles established.
In fact if you say, as your presumptive starting point.
For all I know, I'm as likely to be against the status quo as in favor of it,
then the rational thing to prefer is majority rule or
something very close to it.
Because you want to minimize the probability, that the,
the end results is going to put, impose external costs on you.
And you don't know whether the, the status quo will be one of those results or not.
So your behind avail of ignorance about that.
So, you know, if it turns out, let's say,
the status quo is there's no welfare state.
If you're somebody who would like to have a welfare state then the status quo bias
would work against you.
But if you, if you're somebody who wouldn't want a welfare state,
it would work for you.
So, if you assume, this is the Barry, Rae point.
You don't know ex-ante behind the veil of ignorance, whether you're going to be for
or against the welfare state.
The best thing to prefer is majority rule.
And so there is a, a kind of rational basis for majority rule that
singles it out uniquely among decision rules from this point of view.
Not, it's not just the flexing of muscles.
So what would happen in the eventual war as and Locke seem to intimate.
And it's not depending on the idea that this is general will.
It's simply this idea of minimizing the likelihood that you're going
to be on the losing side if you put the status quo into play.
So that's really, I think the rational basis for it apart from the power basis.
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