Collective choice in Aristotle

Adrian Miroiu () and Catalin Partenie
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Adrian Miroiu: National University of Political Studies and Public Administration
Catalin Partenie: National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

Constitutional Political Economy, 2019, vol. 30, issue 3, No 1, 281 pages

Abstract: Abstract In his Politics VI 3, 1318a–b, Aristotle discusses constitutional procedures for achieving justice in a society where its classes have different views on it. He analyzes the case of a society consisting in two groups, the poor and the rich, each holding a specific understanding of justice (democratic or oligarchic). In this paper we give, first, a non-formal summary of this section of Politics. Then we approach it in the framework of social choice theory and argue that a social rule for selecting between alternatives may be extracted from it. As Aristotle argued, this rule is consistent with the views on justice and equality of the supporters of both democracy and oligarchy. Finally, we study its properties, as well as some extensions of it when multiple classes are allowed or more than two alternatives are present.

Keywords: Democracy; Oligarchy; Majority; Weighted majority; Social choice; Aristotle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D71 N43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-019-09279-1

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