In an ideal society with perfect government, there would be a perfect combination of public social engagement, private interest, and government intervention that would maximize the benefit to society. This perfect combination is unattainable and unknowable because it could only happen in an ideal society with perfect individuals. Unfortunately, society today is not ideal and does not have perfect individuals. Therefore, there is a debate as to the right combination of public social engagement and government intervention. There definitely needs to be a combination because society cannot function if there is no government intervention, a laissez-faire attitude, or if there is total government intervention like in a communist government. For there to be a highly functioning, strong, and successful society there needs to be strong public engagement, some government intervention in regards to economic needs and some social concerns, and public interest needs to be a priority .
A strong, free democratic society cannot exist without the public’s engagement in social concerns to foster democratic traditions. Civil Society is a “realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules” (Diamond 146). Civil Society must be active because it serves many functions to promote a democratic society. A strong civil society serves four important functions:
1.) It “[contains] the power of democratic governments, checking their potential abuses and violation of the law” (Diamond 147). Civil Society does this by “monitoring democratic states and finding where it needs to restrain exercise of their power” (Diamond 147). Doing this stren...
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...c, far from strong.
As long as humans hold different beliefs, no one will be able to agree on a perfect government. Nevertheless, for there to be a strong, free, democratic society there is an equation that we can look to: A strong, free democratic society = Strong Public Engagement + A pinch of Government Involvement + Public Interest – Private Interest. If these factors are put into a society then it will result in that free society that many desire.
Works Cited
Diamond, Larry. Toward Democratic Consolidation. United States of America: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2011. 145-153. Print.
Friedman, Milton. Excerpt from Capitalism and Freedom. United States of America: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2011. 216-227. Print.
Krugman, R. Paul. The Return of Depression Economics. United States of America: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2011. 229-233. Print.
1. Janda, Kenneth. The Challenge of Democracy. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA. 1999. (Chapter 3 & 4).
"America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal."DPLA. Digital Public Library of America. Web. 20 Nov 2013. .
McElvaine, Robert S, ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Janda, Kenneth. Berry, Jeffrey. Goldman, Jerry (2008). The Challenge of Democracy (9th ed.). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
zShmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Great Depression." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Watkins, T.H.. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.
Folsom, Burton. "Which Strategy Really Ended the Great Depression?" : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education. N.p., 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 12 May 2014.
...equality. While it is a nice notion that there should be a society free of jealousy, war, and inequality, it is not accomplished by a government imposing laws which regulates its citizens’ success (even if that law if from the people). This type of social structure, where everyone is treated equally discourages work because minimal effort will reap the same results. Rather, the ideal government is a limited one; one where commerce and capitalism is encouraged.
Levine, Linda. “The Labor Market During the Great Depression and the Current Recession”. 19 June 2009. 6 March 2010. < http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40655_20090619.pdf>.
Krugman, Paul The Age of Diminished Expectations: U.S. Economic Policy in the 1990s. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990
The government will never be perfect, but there are always ways to improve it. The government that exists today in America is becoming more fascist every day. The government is in control of everything: political, social, and economic issues No one should ever trust a system in which throughout history has stolen land from the natives and have taken part in genocide. The United States has become a place full of corporate greed and profit. Profit over people, profit over lives, profit over morals. The government is the host to capitalism, which only leads to conformist enslavement.
The pluralistic scholar David Truman notes that “the proliferation of political interest groups [is] a natural and largely benign consequence of economic development” (Kernell 2000, 429). That is, as American economic development increases, in the form of industry, trade, and technology, factions are produced in order to protect special interests. Factions have a large platform on which to find support from various political parties, committees, subcommittees, and the courts, as well as federal, state, and local governments (Kernell 2000, 429).
In comparing the average citizen in a democratic nation, say the United States, to that of a non-democratic nation, for instance Egypt, it will be found that the citizen in the democratic nation is generally better off – free of persecution, free from fear of the authorities, and free to express his opinions on governmental matters. And while national conflicts occur everywhere, incidents like violent revolts have shown to be more prevalent in nations where citizens are not allowed to choose who governs them. It is slightly paradoxical that democracy, so inherently flawed in theory, can lead to such successful outcomes in practice. The question, then, becomes: “If democracy has so many weaknesses, why does it work?”
"Great Depression in the United States." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001. CD-ROM. 2001 ed. Microsoft Corporation. 2001