The Significance of the Probabilistic Voting Theorem.

For centuries, it has been recognized that democratic government is endangered by two unfortunate properties of majority-rule voting: the absence of an electoral equilibrium comparable to the general equilibrium in the economy, and the risk of expropriation of minorities by majorities. Much of democratic theory is devoted to the study of how these dangers can be averted. The probabilistic voting theorem has been alleged to show that these dangers are illusory. It is argued in this paper that, though the theorem is valid on its assumptions, these assumptions are considerably stronger and the theorem is less comforting about the stability of democratic government than one might at first suppose.