It has been the dominant view among economists that democratic political market is unable to produce the efficient results of an efficient economic market because of uniformed voters, lack of competition, and misallocated political rights. In his article “Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results,” Donald Wittman denies this belief, arguing that both the political and economic markets work well. He claims that the democratic political market is a highly competitive system designed to produce wealth-maximizing outcomes and incentivizes politicians to act efficiently (Wittman 1395-1396). Because Wittman is challenging the conventional beliefs of economists, he places the burden of proof falls on those who argue for the efficiency of political markets. Before defending democratic efficiency, he sets forth three characteristics typically associated with an efficient economic market: 1) informed and rational participants, 2) in competitive setting, 3) with well-defined and easily transferable property rights (1396). Most models of political failure assume that the market always lacks one or more of these characteristics, Wittman argues that the political market typically does have these characteristics by comparing it to an efficient market economy. Although Wittman presents a strong case for democratic efficiency, his arguments ultimately fail. Wittman claims that voters participating in the political market are more informed and rational than previously thought. Prior economists have argued that voters are rationally uninformed because the cost of gathering information outweighs the benefit of obtaining that information. This theory assumes that a majority of the information gathering cost falls on the voter. However, Wittman provides three ways in which the voter is alleviated of these costs. First, candidates take on the cost of information gathering and distribution
For instance, Menand writes, “The fraction of the electorates that responds to substantive political argument is hugely outweighed by the fraction that responds to slogans, misinformation...random personal association.” Mass voters mostly pursue the wrong or irrelevant information that are irrelevant to the election; thus lead them to vote for the candidates which they do not really want. Their choices mostly lack rationalities. Many voters who are slightly informative think that they are participating in a certain issue and considering the value of the candidates; yet most of them do not have adequate information and knowledge in understanding the meaning of political terms. Voters lack judgment on their government and candidates, their minds are easily being brainwashed by a small amount of people who has informative approaches in participating governmental issue, and affect their
society can be seen. In the late 1800’s there was a rise in the number
Purdy again cites Franklin Roosevelt as an example of socialist ideas that have infiltrated United States policy. There has been a decrease in the distrust in markets, and there has been an increase in the belief that markets are safeguarded. Purdy goes on to call markets “enemies to democracy and personal freedom.” Although democracy and markets seem to coincide with each other, markets singularly can cause incredible concentrations of wealth and he states that, “wealth is power.” He goes on to say that this contributes to the inequality aforementioned and it is hurtful to democracy. He argues that this concentration of wealth will “undermine” the idea that everyone vote and voice are equally important; only the voice of the wealthy is taken into consideration. Continuing his argument that income inequality and markets are interconnected, Purdy further demonizes markets by asserting that the inequality is a cause of the loss of personal freedom. This unfairness narrows the economic options of the general
Despite its size, only 190 pages, the authors address the basic concepts of economics while also applying those politically and for personal finance decision making. Those basic concepts include scarcity, gains from trade, marginal decision-making, profit management, income growth, and Adam Smith’s invisible hand theories are all discussed within the first part of the book; allowing readers to understanding the concepts, Gwartney applies the same concepts to the creation of wealth and the importance of competition, private property, open trade, monetary stability, and lower taxes. This book educates its audience by evaluating our economy and government mechanisms without the overpowering display of charts, formulas, and graphs; which you would typically see in a textbook allow...
The United States has strived to be a true democracy, a place in which the citizens are free to govern themselves, since its inception. For a democracy to work, the citizens must remain knowledgeable and elections must remain unbiased. Our current system of electing presidents fails in both of these regards: citizens are only given two choices that stand any chance of winning and their decisions between those two candidates are influenced not by knowledge, but instead by what they have seen on thirty second television commercials. In order to break up the complete political monopoly the Democrat and Republican Parties have on the United States, we as Americans need to reform our presidential elections so that third party and independent candidates have a legitimate chance of holding offices and so that citizens are able to vote on the candidates based on their political beliefs rather than on their ability to fundraise and advertise. Similar reforms should be made to the elections for other offices as well at the federal, state and local levels. The ideas and arguments presented in this paper can be applied to American elections in general although, because of the small scope of this paper, they only speak of the presidential elections.
In contemporary times, the rise of capitalism as a dominant economic trend and its ravenous demand to accumulate sources from new markets, has led to the idea of merging political and economic power into one, which is democratic capitalism or otherwise illustrated as “a system where markets allocate income according to efficiency while governments redistribute income according to political demand."(Iversen, 2006). The advancements mentioned earlier, have given ground for questions concerning the possible compatibility of the political ideology which is democracy and the economic ideology capitalism and how would they affect one another. This mergence could be examined in recent times, whereas in the past around the start of the nineteenth century it was considered as inappropriate and unlikely to happen. This paper aims to demonstrate to what degree are democracy and capitalism compatible, by examining the various areas of conflict of the two ideologies, how has capitalism affected the democratic system in the United States and does actually global capitalism have an impact on the developing countries democracies.
During the second half of the past century the notion that, political science should be treated as a science became extremely popular among academics specially in the United States. One of the most prominent exposers of this school of thought was Anthony Downs, who developed a theorem to explain in a rather economic sense, how and why voters behave in a certain way when it comes to voting. Downs did not only applied his theory to the way voters behave, he also used it to explain the way political parties align themselves when it comes to elections in a two and a multiparty system nevertheless this essay will analyze Downs’ claims about a two party system only. This essay argues that the Downs’ model has proven to be accurate in many cases throughout history, nevertheless it makes a series of assumptions about voters and parties that can not be considered realistic neither in 1957, when he published his paper An Economic Theory of Political Action in Democracy in 1957 nor in 2013. This essay also acknowledges that fact that this theory might help to explain how parties behave but it is by no means the only explanation. Furthermore this essay will prove that it is a multiplicity of factors rather than an economic theory what can help us understand why parties behave the way they do. In order to support the argument previously stated this essay will state and critically analyze a number of Downs assumptions, then his theory will be outlined. Then it will carefully consider how effective it has been at predicting the way in which parties align themselves by examining the behavior of political parties during general elections in different countries.
In a country where democracy is at the heart of all citizens, these citizens need to have a stronger voice when it comes to elections. This is why the implementation of an amendment that reforms the financing of campaigns is disputed greatly among scholars and political officials alike. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are entitled to first amendment rights, but the basis of this ruling is unclear. Unfortunately the overturning of such a ruling would not even guarantee a restored democracy to American elections. Some professionals see corporations and hefty donating figures as an essential part of the election process, while others believe the Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee has taking many of the rights that the founding fathers had fought for. In the following body paragraphs, five sources will be reviewed in hopes of comparing the benefits and pitfalls of revising the way American Elections are financed.
...here people abided by acceptable and fair practices in the market, these actions and oversight would not be necessary to ensure that we continue to live in a true democracy with political equality. Milton Friedman would have his pure market economy devoid of any government intervention while Lindblom’s concerns that the policy process will be endlessly trapped by arguments about the market would be eased. Democracy would truly mean political equality and allow all those that wished to participate to do so with all the information they require.
For all the times the capitalist notion has influenced the way of trading and getting wealthy. The theory of modern democracy has been developed and exercised just during recent few centuries. The concepts of democracy and capitalism are considered to be interconnected; however, current critics of liberal democracy try to separate them. Democracy and capitalism have always been either in a tense or totally contradicting relationship. Capitalism feels secure when it is governed by someone possessing capital or identifying with its needs. In sharp contrast to this, democracy is ruled by majority which does not own capital or identify with the demands of capitalism (Delanty, 2012).
In deciphering what constitutes the brilliance of democracy then, we find that it is not citizens’ ability to make informed decisions or an unflawed and subtly manipulated election process, but the unapparent way in which democracy persuades citizens – informed or not - and leaders – corrupt or not – toward working to build better, more prosperous societies.
The first point that Rodrik makes is that markets are limited by the scope of governance or regulation. He argues that markets and governments are most effective when they are operating in accordance with one another. This theory seems to stem from a theory earlier developed by the famous economist Adam Smith, which was that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.” Rodrik expands on this theory by saying that not only is labor limited by the market, but that markets are limited by government.
One of the first and major differences between a Communist and Democratic government is their contrary economic systems. In a communist government, the community owns the major resources and means of production. The goal of such a system is to prevent any one person or group of people from becoming radically rich, while others are extremely poor. The system attempts to eliminate lower class by balancing the wealth between rich and poor, therefore giving everyone equal pay and ownership. Unfortunately, this results in an increased lower class. However, in a Democracy, free enterprising is permitted, and smiled upon. ? Here, free enterprising helps the economy to flourish. People can organize their own businesses and receive their own profits if it succeeds, or debts if it fails. In this system, the harder a person works, the more money they receive, allowing them to ‘make ends meet.’ The downside to democracy is that people can get a high paying job through education, but may work just as hard at a lower paying job and receive less money. As Winston Churchill once said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Generally, Democracy’s seem be more successful economically.
...titutions and most importantly the citizens. To expect all the citizens in a democracy to lack ambition and greed is practically impossible, especially when modern society teaches individuals that ambition is a necessary component of success. Yet, there are nations that do ascribe to the democratic ideals as realistically as possible. By allowing and encouraging citizens to vote and by creating and implementing laws equally these democratic governments are instituting some of the most important ideals of a democratic government.
Prior, Markus. "News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout." American Journal of Political Science. 49.3 (2005): 577-592. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.