DOI: 10.5176/2251-2012_QQE17.6
Authors: Panagiotis Evangelopoulos
Abstract:
The majority rule, enjoying as it does very widespread acceptance in present-day democracies, goes beyond its jurisdictional role in the political management of society to create a new spectrum of rights generally known as rights to equality. On the pretext of implementing rights of equality, the custodians of the electoral mandate minimise the field of applicability of fundamental rights of individual liberty, with the result that the society enters a vicious circle of economic stagnation, political alienation and social decline. In this context the rights to equality that are prescribed by the majority rule generally lead to lowest-common-denominator solutions for maintenance of a poor social status quo. By contrast the rights to liberty that are defined by the configuration of theories of natural and contractual rights based on maximisation of individual interest, rational choice and their harmonization with the achievement of social wellbeing prove to be the best possible institutional policy proposal for implementation of the reforms that are so necessary today.
Keywords: Majority Rule Democracy Structure of Rights Economic Reforms
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