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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Forcing people to ...
Message-ID: <265@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Jul-85 18:41:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.265
Posted: Mon Jul 22 18:41:48 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 06:28:23 EDT
References: <1619@dciem.UUCP> <2380095@acf4.UUCP> <2451@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 22

In article <2451@sun.uucp> rdh@sun.uucp (Robert Hartman) writes:
>I wonder how you all would feel about a decision-making system in which
>no one was FORCED to participate, no one was PREVENTED from participating, but
>in which everyone who DID participate would have veto power over decisions.

In general, I think decisions should be based on the participation of all
interested parties, but by interested I usually mean those who would be
affected by the outcomes of decisions.  Being affected by the outcome of
a decision has no necessary relationship to wanting or not wanting to
participate.  So I tend to think that systems based on the decisions of
people who want to participate are arbitrary, since they don't include
all interested parties in decision-making.

As to the veto power clause, I agree with some writers who say that one
purpose of the state is to prevent "tragedies of the commons" -- where
many rational individual decisions lead to disaster for all.  A decision-
making system where everyone had veto power would still allow these
bad group consequences to occur, since free riders could always veto
action.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw