7 - Unanimity

Summary

Agreement that results from the physics of threat advantage bargaining is not underwritten by genuine consensus. So, even if a Nashian bargain succeeds in producing an agreement to create a property rights scheme, those who are relatively disadvantaged by the agreement will seek to destabilize it by engaging in post-contractual rent-seeking behavior. As the discussion of the properties of property rights schemes illustrates, there are ample opportunities for rent-seeking. In Nashian bargaining, hold-out behavior may make agreement impossible, or if successful, inefficient. On the other hand, since Nashian bargaining is not based on genuine consensus, even if it is successful the agreement may not endure. Moreover, whatever agreement is reached, those who feel they are exploited will seek to destabilize the agreement, and there is ample opportunity for them to do so.

Jules Coleman, 2002

Free market liberalism and democratic government have traditionally accepted that unanimous agreement is the highest form of validation for establishing terms of trade and law. The previous chapter discussed how the Prisoner's Dilemma view of the social contract disregards any motivationally binding quality of the exact terms of an agreement. Yet, at the same time, rational choice theorists still present unanimous agreement as the central means of securing legitimacy for trade and democracy. This chapter questions whether the shell of agreement left can serve to ground the unanimity principle. In voting procedures, unanimity signifies that all members are on board with a resulting outcome and are therefore presumably inherently motivated to endorse it with their actions. Similarly, in market exchange, unanimity implies that every participating in a transaction finds the terms of exchange sufficiently agreeable to uphold them.

UNANIMITY VS. UNANIMOUS AGREEMENT TO TERMS

The idea that agreement to terms is motivationally irrelevant is so radical for liberalism that even Buchanan only suggests it in a mixed and inconsistent fashion. Following his work with Gordon Tullock in Calculus of Consent, Buchanan defends a contractarian approach to liberalism reminiscent of Thomas Hobbes's idea that the fundamental role of government should be to fulfill each individual's direct interest in procuring security. Even though he rejects the idea that agreement to terms mobilizes compliance, he still hopes to identify principles of government that would achieve the virtually unanimous assent of all citizens.