An economic approach to social choice

Abstract

Economic ethics such as efficiency can be applied to social situations more general than the traditional economy of production and consumption by economic agents. Furthermore, the techniques of economic theory can be used to analyze these ethics in a general social context. This is shown by means of a transformation of society into an economy. Convexity assumptions will be needed. In economic application they are more or less ensured by the desire for variety in consumption. These assumptions must be interpreted in the framework of application. Only then are the appropriate political or social problems isomorphic to economic problems and amenable to economic analysis. Three such problems are discussed in Section IV: pollution, family inheritance, and extended families. It is hoped that other applications can be found, especially in the social behavior of large numbers of individuals. There are two possible attitudes to take toward the results of this paper. On the one hand, it could be said that the paper delineates types of social problems