I think we may safely agree that the notion of democracy has two components, both indispensable: 1) the securing of the freedom of the individual so … - Kenneth Arrow

The creation of knowledge that constitutes an innovation is in turn dependent on the acquisition and application of existing knowledge; information is an input into the production of information. This background knowledge and the ability to use it are the most important elements of the social context of individually motivated innovation.

I don't know which way human psychology will go wrong. We have a world in which there is uncertainty. There are new technologies. And one of the problems is that we do things today with a thought to the future. Any purchase is one for the future. If you buy a refrigerator you are making a commitment to the future, so that you have food to eat for the next ten years. That's a simple theory, one of many simple theories -- theories that people agree on and that don't, in a fundamental way, change. But every once in a while there is unemployment, and wages will drop, and there will be several different interpretations.

If the total number of alternatives is two, the method of majority decision is a social welfare function which satisfies Conditions 2–5 and yields a social ordering of the two alternatives for every set of individual orderings.