ABSTRACT
The two papers of this section, which were written independently, serve as introductions to social choice problems. They are similar in certain ways, but are also somewhat different. Both briefly review the history of the normative social choice work, both contain discussions of the various descriptive problems involved in making collective decisions, and finally both offer some theoretical notions designed to describe how decisions are made. They contain discussions of power, utility, and interpersonal comparisons of utility. Coleman's paper offers an hypothesis about the interaction of power and utility, while Lieberman's paper hypothesizes that individuals maximize some joint welfare total; members of a group select the alternative that yields the highest payoff to the group.
