Individual Rights, Emergent Social States, and Behavioral Feasibility

James Buchanan

Rationality and Society, 1995, vol. 7, issue 2, 141-150

Abstract: Individuals retain control over at least some minimal dimensions of personal behavior. If this is acknowledged, social states are not, and cannot be, objects of choice. Social states emerge from the interdependent choices made by acting individuals and groups. Individuals may ordinally rank social states, but the objects for collective choice must be assignments of rights or rules. Failure to appreciate the distinction here leads to misguided efforts to attain positions that may be imagined but that are beyond the limits of behavioral feasibility .

Date: 1995
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:7:y:1995:i:2:p:141-150

DOI: 10.1177/1043463195007002002

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