One way of looking at Impossibility Theorem is that we proposed some criteria for what a good system should be: what is it you want from a voting system, and impose some conditions. And then ask: can you have a voting system that guarantees that?

Markets are not, in my opinion, a full solution to any problem. The obvious problem they don't meet is the concerns of the welfare of individuals who may get lost in the operation of the system - the distributional question. We've seen this growing as we go further and further toward a market ideology in the United States and the United Kingdom. We've seen a decline in the welfare of the working poor, leaving aside any other pathologies, just the working poor, a very distinct increase at the very top levels.

The intrinsic social structure, the family structure and so forth, is certainly in a very bad state. And I think that this is showing up in productivity. I think part of the reason, and I can't prove this, we're seeing a decline in some places is the breakup of the family, which is partly the result of an extreme form of individualism.

The health care provisions are presumably for individuals. And whoever pays for them, whether it's paid by the individual, state, whatever, the value is an individually based value. It has nothing to do with employment.

Family is a difficult matter. I must admit I do not know that the state can intervene successfully in a family. It's a fact that everything is connected with the individualist temperament, the kind of economic environment which stresses the individual, but this is not directly the result of a state policy, nor do I see any good way by which the state could intervene except in some marginal ways.

In my [Impossibility] theorem I'm assuming that the information is a ranking. Each voter can say of any two candidates, I prefer this one to this one. So then we have essentially a ranking. It's a list saying this is my first choice. This is my second choice. Each voter, in principle, could be asked to give that entire piece of information. In the ordinary Plurality Voting, say as used in electing Congressmen, we generally only ask for the first choice. But, in principle, we could ask for more choices.

It seems to me that at least as far as the financial markets are concerned, there is increasing evidence against rational expectations, even at the macro level.