Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Private Deliberation and Political Equilibrium


When society deliberates on issues pertaining to their needs, they follow established rules and political guidelines that make their actions legally acceptable. For the sake of bringing in changes that benefit everyone involved, citizens make public choices to advance their political agendas. People make their voices heard by contacting their representatives through the use of postal mail, social media, e-mail, and voting in select locations among other things. Bringing changes to the living conditions of constituents is one of the most burning issues that face elected representatives. In turn, elected representatives find means to ensuring their constituents remain satisfied by deliberating on significant issues that need to be addressed in political forums. This system of interaction is only possible in democratic systems.

Societies living under authoritarian or dictatorial regimes often suffer exclusion, marginalization, stratification, censorship, oppression, and coercion. In non-democratic systems, it is the government that makes decisions concerning the production of goods and services without consulting the mass. This system of administration contravenes human needs and expectations and society’s inalienable rights to freedom and opportunities. Import of goods and services becomes the prerogative of select individuals who have been shoved into office without public scrutiny and open electoral selection. The public benefits little from the export of goods and services in draconian governing institutions.

According to Hyman (2011), political processes are rules contained in a nation’s constitution. It is up to the citizen to cast vote or take part in an election and vote for the representative who will carry the issue of political contention forward for approval. The theory of public choice evolved as a means to ensuring people’s choices influences the democratic political process. In essence, it is a theory that has been formulated in such a manner that it studies how goods and services are supplied by governments through the observance of efficiency and equity. In a modern democracy, each individual citizen is allowed one vote to influence election processes.

Political equilibrium

Equilibrium is a situational change especially in markets when demand and supply are in par or are equal while equilibrium price is when there is a balance between quantity supplied and quantity demanded. Politics defines how a nation’s economy functions and it is the working relationships between the voter and the representative that help shape the effective delivery of a nation’s goods and services. Taxation is the major tool that advances the operation of the police and national defense. These two institutions are significant in the preservation of law and order and without them it is difficult to keep the law. While the police are responsible for internal security and fighting crime including corruption and other public malpractices, the national defense defends the nation from outside aggression. Nations that have weak police force and disorderly armies tend to collapse as a result of security lapse.

Interest groups have been gaining ground in modern times with the world seeing the proliferation of these groups in all aspects of society. Interest groups usually lobby for causes that serve their interests. When a government experiences the rise of an interest group, such that an administrative takeover evolves, society has to shoulder the maximum cost as distribution will be in favor of the most powerful. The negative administrators imposed by bureaucrats at times bring in deadweight loss and losses in political transaction costs.

 Taxes are compulsory deductions paid by citizens of a nation. Part of these taxes is what makes the existence of a police force and national defense possible. While ordinary citizens may abhor government action on their income, the benefits they get in return for protection is worth taking.

References

Hyman, D.D. (2011). Public finance: A contemporary application of theory to policy (10th ed.).

            Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

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