The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (79 page)

 
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A term describing the individual's deployment of his or her labour or resources in the marketplace in systematic pursuit of his or her own self-interest. An imaginary person fought over by rival social scientists. The fights are full of sound and fury but usually signify nothing because of confusions between two meanings of ‘economic man’. In the narrow meaning he is rational and selfish; in the broad meaning, rational but not necessarily selfish. Broad economic man always observes the axioms of behaviour assumed in mainstream economic theory. At the deepest level, these are rules about transitivity, consistency, and completeness of preferences. ‘Transitivity’ means that if I prefer A to B and B to C, then I should prefer B to C. ‘Consistency’ means that if I choose A over B now, then I will continue to choose A over B every time I am confronted with the identical choice in identical circumstances. ‘Completeness’ means that for any goods (services, opportunities) A and B, I can always make one of three choices: to prefer A, to prefer B, or to be indifferent between them. At a less abstract level, economic man is assumed to prefer more of any given good to less of it, but with diminishing marginal utility (so that each extra unit of the good is worth less to him than the one before). More generally, in his preferences for bundles comprising some quantity of one good and some of another, the more he already has of one good the more of it he would require in order to offset the loss of a unit of the other. This is called diminishing marginal substitutability.
All of these axioms are controversial. Psychologists have shown that individuals do not observe transitivity or consistency of choice when the ‘frame’ of the choice is altered. (For instance people may accept a certain gamble when it is presented to them as a choice between gaining and standing still, but reject the identical gamble when it is presented to them as a choice between standing still and losing.) Completeness is unrealistically demanding. Diminishing marginal utility is not always observed. However, much criticism of rational economic man is for his supposed selfishness, which the axioms of standard economic theory do not imply. Broad economic man maximizes his utility, but if giving money to Somalia makes him happier than anything else, he gives money to Somalia. Narrow economic man maximizes his personal wealth. Commonly, economics is attacked for assuming that most people are (or, worse, ought to be) narrow economic men; economists defend themselves by claiming that economic man is really broad economic man. However, neither side is consistent in its usage.

 
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See
politics and economics
.

 
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Political practice aimed at increasing
equality
; the philosophical explanation and defence of the value of equality. The goods, benefits, or burdens of which an equal distribution is thought valuable may be variously specified. Considerable debate has surrounded what is required on egalitarian principles sensitive to the arguments of modern
liberalism
. The focus is on the identification of inequalities which are arbitrary from a moral point of view—perhaps those which result from natural talent but not those which result from differential effort, for example. In general, the equality in question is an equality of outcome. Equalities of income, wealth, utility, and life-chances have been canvassed, as well as equal consideration ( see also
fraternity
) and equality of rights. Many egalitarians have been suspicious of the equality of formal rights, pointing to the substantive inequalities they may disguise or exacerbate. Critics have maintained that egalitarianism necessarily diminishes liberty in unacceptable ways. See also
equal opportunity
;
equal protection
.
AR 

 
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A mechanism for the indirect election of public officials. For the purpose of electing the President and Vice President of the United States a 538-member Electoral College is created with each state having as many electors as it has representatives and senators in the national legislature, plus 3 for the District of Columbia. To be elected, a candidate must obtain an absolute majority in the Electoral College, currently 270. If no candidate gains an absolute majority the US House of Representatives makes the choice, with the delegation from each state having one vote.
For the purposes of illustrating how the Electoral College works in practice it may be useful to consider the case of California in 1992. In that year the state had 52 members in the US House of Representatives and, like every other state, 2 US senators. Consequently the people of California had to select 54 electors on election day. In casting their votes they were asked to choose between alternative lists of potential electors with each list notionally committed to party choices for President and Vice President. Most California voters opted for the list of potential electors offered in the name of Bill Clinton and Al Gore and, under the ‘winner take all’ rules that prevail, all of the state's 54 Electoral College votes were duly awarded to that ticket. When the results in other states were compiled the Clinton/Gore combination carried altogether 33 states and the District of Columbia, obtaining thereby 370 Electoral College votes compared to the 17 states and 168 votes in the Electoral College gained by George Bush and Dan Quayle . Ross Perot and his running mate James Stockdale , won a remarkable 19 per cent of the popular vote nationwide, but failed to come first in any state and therefore did not secure any votes in the Electoral College.
Most of these arrangements were devised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as a compromise between those who proposed a direct popular election of the President and those who preferred to make him subject to election by the legislature. As originally conceived, members of the Electoral College were expected to be prominent state worthies impervious to transient public moods. However, such notions were quickly overtaken by the emergence of parties and the popular election of electors in place of their appointment by state legislatures. The ‘winner takes all’ rule, or convention, that all of a state's Electoral College votes go to the state which wins the highest popular vote, is not in the US Constitution. Occasionally, states elect unpledged electors, or electors break their pledge and vote for a candidate other than the one they said they would. Because of the constitutional origins of the college, electors cannot be punished for this.
Reformers regularly query the merits of the Electoral College system, especially the contingency arrangements that come into play when no candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College. This occurred in 1800 and 1824 and might have happened in 1960, 1968, 1980, and 1992. If an election was thrown into the House the bargaining required to form a majority could well create a crisis of legitimacy. There could also be a dangerous period of uncertainty in that the House would not make its decision until early January, a mere two weeks before the inauguration.
Concern is also often expressed at the possibility of Presidents being elected with a smaller proportion of the popular vote than their opponents and the problem of legitimacy that this would cause. Such a result did occur in 1824 and 1888 and came perilously close in 1844, 1880, 1884, 1960, and 1968.
DM