<P> The tyranny of small decisions is a phenomenon explored in an essay of the same name, published in 1966 by the American economist Alfred E. Kahn . The article describes a situation in which a number of decisions, individually small in size and time perspective, cumulatively result in an outcome which is not optimal nor desired . It is a situation where a series of small, individually rational decisions can negatively change the context of subsequent choices, even to the point where desired alternatives are irreversibly destroyed . Kahn described the problem as a common issue in market economics which can lead to market failure . The concept has since been extended to areas other than economic ones, such as environmental degradation, political elections and health outcomes . </P> <P> A classic example of the tyranny of small decisions is the tragedy of the commons, described by Garrett Hardin in 1968 as a situation where a number of herders graze cows on a commons . The herders each act independently in what they perceive to be their own rational self - interest, ultimately depleting their shared limited resource, even though it is clear that it is not in any herder's long - term interest for this to happen . </P> <P> The event that first suggested the tyranny of small decisions to Kahn was the withdrawal of passenger railway services in Ithaca, New York . The railway was the only reliable way to get in and out of Ithaca . It provided services regardless of conditions, in fair weather and foul, during peak seasons and off - peak seasons . The local airline and bus company skimmed the traffic when conditions were favourable, leaving the trains to fill in when conditions were difficult . The railway service was eventually withdrawn, because the collective individual decisions made by travellers did not provide the railway with the revenue it needed to cover its incremental costs . According to Kahn, this suggests a hypothetical economic test of whether the service should have been withdrawn . </P> <P> Suppose each person in the cities served were to ask himself how much he would have been willing to pledge regularly over some time period, say annually, by purchase of prepaid tickets, to keep rail passenger service available to his community . As long as the amount that he would have declared (to himself) would have exceeded what he actually paid on the period--and my own introspective experiment shows that it would--then to that extent the disappearance of the passenger service was an incident of market failure . </P>

Who are the decision makers in a tyranny