Individual vs. Social Preferences
The current theories or models all assume individual has complete and independent preferences over options when in fact individual preferences are never completely independent of social preference. It is more realistic to assume that each of us holds preferences that are conditional on the knowledge of social preference, to the extent that each is aware, or intends to be aware, of what most other people think in the society. Notice this conditional preference does not require complete or even accurate knowledge of social preference, just that their knowledge set of society is not zero.
What do conditional preferences mean for social choice? Other things equal, it makes a landmark, a milepost or reference for individual preferences to compare to. Everyone knows that social preference is something each of them can leverage or avoid. To a certain extent, social preferences are the dictators of issues under social choice, and make everyone’s preference more or less constrained rather than completely free will. Most of us know social preferences are not something they can easily swing and are much more powerful than their own.
Intensity of Preferences
The current models also leave out the intensity of preference and implicitly assume that all of us have the same intensity of preference. In reality however some of us feel much stronger about something than the rest of the society. Strong preferences drive actions much more likely than weak ones.
Intensity of preferences divide people into groups and those holding strong ones are more likely to impact social choices, especially when united, than those who are essentially indifferent to the options under selection or decision.
The “Online” & “Offline” Modes of Social Choices
Current models focus on formal, institutional forms of social choices, when in fact social choices take many ways and forms. It is fair to say that social choices happen everyday rather than just election days, everywhere rather than just the ballot stations. Oftentimes the diluted social choices (I call it the “offline mode”) matter even more than the institutionalized format (I call it “online mode”). It is safe to claim that the online mode is far less frequent than the offline mode. When social choice is not in the online mode, the offline mode is making changes that prepare for the next round of online move. Sometimes the set of candidates or options is changed during offline mode, sometimes the agenda is preemptively changed, and other times even the entire election will be called off or becomes insignificant.
Social Choices & Resources
One way for social choice to carry on is for parties to change their relative amount of resources, which is like changing the budget line that makes some choices virtually senseless, just like changing the line of budget constraint will shift the indifferent curves up or down to meet the budget line. The result is a new demand curve that combines budget constraint and preference.
Offline mode can also cancel or mitigate the results /outcomes from the online mode. This means election is not the end of the social choice game but sometimes only the beginning of a new round. This is just like the trade conflict will not end just because US and China signed a Phase I agreement.
Among other things, this means spending times and efforts only on the online mode is misleading and will never help us fully understand social choice. The impossibility theorem of Arrow for example is not the most significant finding of social choice theory, because it ignores the offline mode and limits social choice to the institutionalized mode.
Current Examples & Cases
It is amazing how things can change in a society so fast. Just last month Andrew Yang, the only democratic candidate promoting the idea of universal income where paychecks are to send to all citizens in a country, admitted failure and quit the campaign for presidency. Now the Trump administration is proposing universal paycheck of $1,000 to everyone except the millionnaires. What changed? The pandemic of course! This is a good example how social choices are malleable due to changed environments and circumstances. The latter carry their own power and can explain why governments ordered people to stay home during the coronavirus outbreak. Suddenly it makes sense to obey the rule because government orders reflect necessity and social consensus given the situation.
Trump winning the presidency is another case in point. Although Trump has been known for his big mouth, his strategy has always been to leverage social sentiments to his advantage. Blaming outsiders is his trademark and has proven success. This also means social choices can sometimes swing easily, if you know where the pivotal points are.