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Why Are All Communist Countries Dictatorial?

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Abstract

Suppose that people in a capitalist society order policies mainly by comparing their wealth changes induced by various policies. We show that property prices play the role of aligning individual preferences, which naturally modifies the axiom of universal domain of the social decision function. Under reasonable and testable assumptions, we prove that this alignment effect eliminates the possibility of Condorcet Cycles (Condorce 1785) and warrants the transitivity of the majority voting mechanism. Taking away private property will reinstitute Condorcet Cycles, returning the inescapable conclusion of a dictatorial social decision rule, as claimed by Arrow (1951). Our result provides partial support to the practices of voting eligibility tests implemented in many democratic countries.

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  • C.Y. Cyrus Chu & Meng-Yu Liang, 2022. "Why Are All Communist Countries Dictatorial?," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 22-A002, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    • Handle: RePEc:sin:wpaper:22-a002
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