Arrow S Impossibility Theorem
Courtney Thompson
The Impossibility of Social Choice
Introduction
Social choice theory depends on individual preferences. Kenneth Arrow wrote a book exploring the properties of social choice functions. This book focuses on problems of aggregating individual preferences to maximize social choice functions, or to satisfy some kind of normative criteria given the preferences of the individual voters. This research on optimal methods of aggregation has spurred interest in properties of actual procedures for aggregating preferences via voting rules. The problem is finding a social choice function that satisfies normative criteria and establishing equilibrium under voting rules. (Mueller, 3, 1989) Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem set out to prove that democratic social choice processes were inherently flawed and had no way to be fixed. In order for a person to vote there must be a social welfare function that satisfies unrestricted domain, positive association, independence of irrelevant alternatives, non-dictatorship, and ordering simultaneously. It says that liberalism is flawed. In order to continue with social choice one of the liberal conditions has to give.
Kenneth Arrow made the first and most important attempt to define a social choice function in terms of a few, basic ethical axioms. (Mueller, 385, 1989) He was born in New York on August 23, 1921. He received his undergraduate education at the City College of New York. He graduated in 1940 with a degree in the Bachelor of Science in Social Science but he majored in Mathematics. He went to Columbia University for graduate study and received his M.A. in Mathematics in 1941. Under the influence of Harold Hotelling, he changed to Economics for subsequent graduate work. (Nobelprize.org, 1972)
His graduate study was interrupted by World War II. From 1942-1946, he served as weather officer in the United Sates Army Air Corps. He eventually became a captain. He was assigned to the research field, and published his first
The Impossibility of Social Choice
Introduction
Social choice theory depends on individual preferences. Kenneth Arrow wrote a book exploring the properties of social choice functions. This book focuses on problems of aggregating individual preferences to maximize social choice functions, or to satisfy some kind of normative criteria given the preferences of the individual voters. This research on optimal methods of aggregation has spurred interest in properties of actual procedures for aggregating preferences via voting rules. The problem is finding a social choice function that satisfies normative criteria and establishing equilibrium under voting rules. (Mueller, 3, 1989) Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem set out to prove that democratic social choice processes were inherently flawed and had no way to be fixed. In order for a person to vote there must be a social welfare function that satisfies unrestricted domain, positive association, independence of irrelevant alternatives, non-dictatorship, and ordering simultaneously. It says that liberalism is flawed. In order to continue with social choice one of the liberal conditions has to give.
Kenneth Arrow made the first and most important attempt to define a social choice function in terms of a few, basic ethical axioms. (Mueller, 385, 1989) He was born in New York on August 23, 1921. He received his undergraduate education at the City College of New York. He graduated in 1940 with a degree in the Bachelor of Science in Social Science but he majored in Mathematics. He went to Columbia University for graduate study and received his M.A. in Mathematics in 1941. Under the influence of Harold Hotelling, he changed to Economics for subsequent graduate work. (Nobelprize.org, 1972)
His graduate study was interrupted by World War II. From 1942-1946, he served as weather officer in the United Sates Army Air Corps. He eventually became a captain. He was assigned to the research field, and published his first