Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Unanimity: Unanimity refers to a decision-making condition where all participants agree on a particular choice or policy. It is often used in voting systems or collective choice frameworks, ensuring that every individual’s preferences are fully aligned. Unanimous decisions are considered highly desirable but can be difficult to achieve, especially in large or diverse groups. See also Voting, Group behavior, Majorities, Minorities._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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James M. Buchanan on Unanimity - Dictionary of Arguments
Boudreaux I 76 Unanimity/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: The social contract, as Buchanan viewed it, is the set of rules and constraints to which everyone would agree. The legitimacy of the specific terms of the social contract is defined by the benchmark of unanimity. The theory is plausible, if somewhat open-ended. For example, almost everybody would agree that we should not assault or kill each other. Even murderers recognize that they are violating this social norm that commands broad agreement. Most people would agree that we should not steal each other’s property, although some gray areas might appear because there can be legitimate disagreement over what constitutes rightful ownership. (Is a patent on an invention from 30 years ago a legitimate property right?) But the principle behind the social-contract theory of the state is that people generally agree that they have certain rights and obligations toward each other, and, in addition, that they should cooperate, through government, to ensure the production of collective goods such as roads. The unanimously agreed-upon rules according to which a government will act as it performs these tasks constitute the social contract.(1) Boudreaux I 77 In reality no such contract exists. People living under the jurisdiction of a government are subject to that government’s mandates without necessarily having agreed to them. Even if in principle they would agree, they had no actual opportunity to express their agreement or disagreement. This fact leaves two big questions for the social contractarian. First, in what sense could people be said to be in agreement with a social contract when there is no actual agreement? Second, what can usefully be said about the terms of that contract? >Contracts/Buchanan. 1. Buchanan, James M. (1975). The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. University of Chicago Press._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
EconBuchan I James M. Buchanan Politics as Public Choice Carmel, IN 2000 Boudreaux I Donald J. Boudreaux Randall G. Holcombe The Essential James Buchanan Vancouver: The Fraser Institute 2021 Boudreaux II Donald J. Boudreaux The Essential Hayek Vancouver: Fraser Institute 2014 |
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