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Subject Area: Political Theory

Majority Frustration - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, July/September 1978, vol. 1, No. 3 [1978]

Edition used:

Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.

Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Majority Frustration

G.E.M. Anscombe

  • University of Cambridge, England

“On Frustration of the Majority by Fulfillment of the Majority's Will.” Analysis 36 (June 1976): 161–168.

Is democracy nonsensical and unfair in its quest for majority decision making? Paradoxically, majority voting may allow the majority to get what they do not want in most cases.

Where matters are decided, yes or no, by a majority vote, the decision on each matter is the will of the majority. But it is also possible that the majority of individual voters may find themselves voting in the minority, and thus defeated, on a majority of political issues. This may be graphically shown by a table in which there are eleven voters voting on eleven questions; seven of them vote in the losing minority in a majority of the decisions.

The argument for the superiority of deciding according to the majority's will is not evident. The rationale for majority voting is that it seems best and fairest. In effect, it seems fair that where all cannot have their way, the greater number should not be frustrated. But this rationale is weakened when we realize that though the majority may be satisfied on every issue, it may nevertheless be frustrated over a majority of issues. Also a majority by its own subsequent admission, may vote foolishly.

Majority decision also involves a questionable assumption: that a decision has to be made for people collectively, or that some should decide what everybody does on any issue. But why not let each individual choose his own activity?

Finally, certain techniques of tyranny are possible even though every voted measure wins the support and desire of a majority. Thus separate measures may hurt only a minority, but in aggregate these measures may violate the will of a majority of citizens. Such tyranny will be able to claim “democratic support” for its measures, though the majority of the population are made worse off by the measures carried out.