"In addition to ignoring game aspects of the problem of social choice, we will also assume in the present study that individual values are taken as data and are not capable of being altered by the nature of the decision process itself. This, of course, is the standard view in economic theory (though the unreality of this assumption has been asserted by such writers as Veblen, Professor J. M. Clark, and Knight) and also in the classical liberal creed. If individual values can themselves be affected by the method of social choice, it becomes much more difficult to learn what is meant by one method’s being preferable to another."