Editing Common good (section)

===Social choice theory===
[[Social choice theory]] studies collective decision rules. [[Arrow's impossibility theorem|Arrow's Impossibility Theorem]], an important result in social choice theory, states that no aggregative mechanism of collective choice (restricted to ordinal inputs) can consistently transform individual preferences into a collective preference-ordering, across the universal domain of possible preference profiles, while also satisfying a set of minimal normative criteria of rationality and fairness.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Arrow|first1=Kenneth|title=Social Choice and Individual Values|date=1951|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=New York}}</ref> The [[Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem]] further demonstrates that non-dictatorial voting systems are inevitably subject to strategic manipulation of outcomes.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gibbard|first1=Allan|title=Manipulation of voting schemes: A general result|journal=Econometrica|date=1973|volume=41|issue=4|pages=587–601|doi=10.2307/1914083|jstor=1914083}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Satterthwaite|first1=Mark Allen|title=Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions|journal=Journal of Economic Theory|date=1975|volume=10|issue=2|pages=187–217|doi=10.1016/0022-0531(75)90050-2|citeseerx=10.1.1.471.9842}}</ref>

[[William H. Riker]] articulates the standard public choice interpretation of social choice theory, arguing that Arrow's Impossibility Theorem "forces us to doubt that the content of 'social welfare' or the 'public interest' can ever be discovered by amalgamating individual value judgments. It even leads us to suspect that no such thing as the 'public interest' exists, aside from the subjective (and hence dubious) claims of self-proclaimed saviors."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Riker|first1=William|title=Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice |date=1982|publisher=Waveland Press|location=Long Grove, IL|page=137}}</ref> Thus, Riker defends a "liberal" conception of democracy, which centers on the role of constitutional checks on government. Public choice theorists have tended to share this approach. Buchanan and Tullock pursued this program in developing the field of "constitutional political economy" in their book ''[[The Calculus of Consent]]''.

More recent work in social choice theory, however, has demonstrated that Arrow's impossibility result can be obviated at little or no normative cost. [[Amartya Sen]], for instance, argues that a range of social choice mechanisms emerge unscathed given certain reasonable restrictions on the domain of admissible preference profiles.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sen|first1=Amartya|s2cid=16238050|title=A Possibility Theorem on Majority Decisions|journal=Econometrica|date=1966|volume=34|issue=2|pages=491–499|doi=10.2307/1909947|jstor=1909947}}</ref> In particular, requiring that preferences are single-peaked on a single dimension ensures a [[Condorcet winner]]. Moreover, many of Riker's empirical claims have been refuted.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Mackie|first1=Gerry|title=Democracy Defended|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge}}</ref>