Proof
The proof is in two parts (Arrow, 1963, pp. 97–100). The first part considers the hypothetical case of some one voter's ordering that prevails ('is decisive') as to the social choice for some pair of social states no matter what that voter's preference for the pair, despite all other voters opposing. It is shown that, for a constitution satisfying Unrestricted Domain, Pareto and Independence, that voter's ordering would prevail for every pair of social states, no matter what the orderings of others. So, the voter would be a Dictator. Thus, Nondictatorship requires postulating that no one would so prevail for even one pair of social states.
The second part considers more generally a set of voters that would prevail for some pair of social states, despite all other voters (if any) preferring otherwise. Pareto and Unrestricted Domain for a constitution imply that such a set would at least include the entire set of voters. By Nondictatorship, the set must have at least 2 voters. Among all such sets, postulate a set such that no other set is smaller. Such a set can be constructed with Unrestricted Domain and an adaptation of the voting paradox to imply a still smaller set. This contradicts the postulate and so proves the theorem.
Read more about this topic: Social Choice And Individual Values
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