Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 217 of my friend, co-author, and former professor Randy Holcombe’s superb 2019 book, Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History:

The first problem with collective action determined by majority rule is that those in the minority must accept the outcome preferred by the majority. If a group is voting on whether to drink Coke or Pepsi, if a majority votes for Coke, then those who prefer Pepsi get Coke. If the decision were left to the market, those who want Pepsi get Pepsi, those who want Dr Pepper get Dr Pepper, and those who want 7UP get 7UP. If a democratic government is deciding on the characteristics of public schools, the preferences of the majority are imposed on the minority. In a market system that produced schools in the private sector, there is no reason to think that the variety of schools would be any less great than the variety of soft drinks the market produces, allowing those in the minority to have their preferences satisfied too.