Utilitarian Social Choice and Voting

This paper develops a utilitarian version of social choice with application to voting for both single and multiple winner elections. We prove that it satisfies Arrow's rational and normative conditions. The issue of interpersonal comparison of utilities is dealt with by equalizing all inputs to the system after they have been formulated in a utilitarian manner. The issue of strategy whereby a voter can get a better outcome for themslves by voting insincerely is dealt with. This system selects the utilitarian winner(s), the one that maximizes social utility. This makes it possible to implement a maximin provision for representative bodies such that a modification of the results can assure the least well off a minimum level of utility in the results of the election. This can be accomplished in such a way that, subject to this condition, social utility is the highest possible.