Individual interests and collective action

James Coleman

Public Choice, 1966, vol. 1, issue 1, 49-62

Abstract: In this paper, I have described the beginnings of a theory of collective decisions, using as a basis the controversy which has occurred in the theory of public finance, between the individualists and the organicists. In developing such a theory, my aim is to face the most difficult of all intellectual problems in the functioning of a society: how individuals, each acting in his own self interest, can nevertheless make collective decisions, function as an ongoing society, and survive together without a “war of all against all.” In a previous paper I have indicated conditions under which this is possible without the psychic investment in the nation, which constitutes the central mechanism of this paper; but there are obviously problems in collective decisions, best illustrated in public finance, which cannot be accounted for without such a mechanism. Copyright Thomas Jefferrson Center for Political Economy, Rouss Hall, University of Virginia 1966

Date: 1966
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DOI: 10.1007/BF01718988

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