Problems of Majority Voting

GORDON TULLOCK University of South Carolina E CONOMISTS have devoted a great deal of thought to problems of governmental policy and, in particular, to the question of proper allocation of resources between the public and private sectors.' On the other hand, little attention has been given to the actual process of decision-making or to the type of policy likely to come out of the 2 process. It is the purpose of this article to discuss one particular method of making governmental decisions-majority voting-and to attempt to derive conclusions about its implications for resource allocation and government policy. It is hoped that the conclusions will be more realistic than current doctrine, which is based on an essentially economic view of what "ought" to happen. Since it is impossible to talk about everything at once, the demonstration will be confined to certain features of the majority process. A number of other serious problems raised by the voting system will be disregarded. The most important of these concerns a series of difficulties and paradoxes in the voting process itself.3 I will also disregard the