Interest Groups and the Impossibility of Democratic Socialism: Hayek, Jewkes, and the Arrow Theorem

Michael Makovi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny (1994) have used Public Choice analysis to criticize market socialism. Peter J. Boettke (1995) and Peter T. Leeson and Boettke (2002) have argued that F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom (2007 [1944]) constituted a form of Public Choice analysis as well. Boettke and Leeson say that Hayek adumbrated a form of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. This essay shows that Hayek was joined by John Jewkes in presaging a form of the Arrow theorem. In addition, this essay expands on the analysis by Boettke and Leeson, elucidating the broader implications which the Arrow theorem has for democratic socialism in particular. Democratic socialism is demonstrated to be impossible, in the sense that it cannot successfully accomplish the goals of its advocates. This is because the Arrow theorem implies that democratic political institutions are fundamentally incompatible with socialist economics.

Keywords: Hayek; Road to Serfdom; democratic socialism; market socialism; economic democracy; totalitarianism; public choice; government failure; arrow; impossibility; rent seeking; rent-seeking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B24 B25 B51 B53 D70 P10 P20 P30 P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/70173/1/MPRA_paper_70173.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/70474/1/MPRA_paper_70474.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/72185/1/MPRA_paper_72185.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:70173

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().