More Subjects
American Politics
Your Name (First M. Last)
School or Institution Name (University at Place or Town, State)
American Politics
Introduction
American politics has a great impact on the economic condition of the nation. Political bodies introduce different policies and programs to increase the living standard of the people. One of the great concerns of every administration remains public goods. Public goods not only provide the facility to the general public it also helps in ensuring the equal distribution of resources. The purpose of the essay is to understand the concept of public goods and their role in politics. It remains the priority of the government to provide public goods to the civilians; however, the government often faces conflicts over public goods. The conflicts over public goods basically arise mostly due to the change in priority of government and opposition parties. In addition, public demands also impact the public good formation.
Discussion
Public goods are goods that provide benefits to all individuals. These goods are non-rivalry and non-excludable because public goods are not for competition in the market rather these are provided to ensure the equal access of the public on the resources. People usually enjoy the benefits of public goods without paying for it and no one can prevent the consumer’s access to the good ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a2etn3mj9bc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf (\\uc0\\u8220{}Definition of public good in Political Science.,\\uc0\\u8221{} n.d.)}","plainCitation":"(“Definition of public good in Political Science.,” n.d.)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1379,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/A5ABHUSM"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/A5ABHUSM"],"itemData":{"id":1379,"type":"webpage","title":"Definition of public good in Political Science.","URL":"http://oer2go.org/mods/en-boundless-static/www.boundless.com/political-science/definition/public-good/index.html","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",6,22]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“Definition of public good in Political Science.,” n.d.). In addition, public goods are non-rivalry because consumption of one individual does not impact the simultaneous consumption by other individuals. Examples of public goods include fresh and healthy air, national defense, street lighting, knowledge, and disaster control system. Politicians especially government tries to achieve the maximum benefits of public goods for the nation. However, the numbers of factors make it difficult to organize collective action. The problem arises usually for the public goods that are impure goods that mean they are unable to provide benefits free of cost, for instance, healthcare facilities, education, and highways. Free of cost public goods create difficulties for producers as private cost exceed the private benefits. Therefore, the government usually applies some sort of payment for the maintenance of public goods. The production and maintenance costs of public goods lead to the conflicts between government and opposition or government and public. For instance, the Obama administration announced the different programs to provide the healthcare where many Democrats had the priority to give the benefits in the form of money. Their perspective was different because they thought that money will increase the choice of spending for the poor families. However, various politicians raised the question that it will decrease the interest of the poor family for seeking the work ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"tjQFDFfw","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf ({\\i{}ANOPGA.pdf}, n.d.)}","plainCitation":"(ANOPGA.pdf, n.d.)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1378,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/VMAEYB8Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/VMAEYB8Q"],"itemData":{"id":1378,"type":"article","title":"ANOPGA.pdf","URL":"https://philpapers.org/archive/ANOPGA.pdf","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",6,22]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (ANOPGA.pdf, n.d.).
Another example of the public goods that can lead to the conflicts between politicians is the total cost of the good. Court has the power to reject the policy or strategy of the government if it is not beneficial or harmful for a specific community. Besides these, there is the concept of collective demand of the public. On public demand, the government provide the public good if the marginal benefit of the public good is greater than the marginal cost of the public good. For instance, if the public demand for the expansion of the highway to reduce the problem of heavy traffic then the government has to take cost-benefit analysis. Cost-benefit analysis is the calculation that provides the ratio between the total costs of the public good with respect to its benefits. If the cost of the goods is less than the benefits than there are the least chances of the conflicts otherwise opposition opposes the idea and sometimes the court has to interfere in between. The cost of the highway includes the cost of land for expansion, construction cost, and maintenance cost of the highway. The benefits of the expansion of the highway include a decrease in a traffic jam, a decrease in the number of accidents and the increase in passenger trips as highway could be used by more people. The government can play a role here to avoid the conflicts by estimate the total costs, benefits and assign the monetary value. The most important role that government plays for the approval of the project is to adjust the inflation rate and applying the discount rate to identify the project value. By controlling these two factors that is inflation and discount rate, public goods can be provided. In addition, to avoiding the conflicts with opposition parties, different proposal and plans can be provided to find out the way in which all political parties agreed to the decision ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a2laaamapk4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf (\\uc0\\u8220{}A Politics of Public Goods,\\uc0\\u8221{} n.d.)}","plainCitation":"(“A Politics of Public Goods,” n.d.)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1381,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/I963HZPB"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ccgWoSRn/items/I963HZPB"],"itemData":{"id":1381,"type":"webpage","title":"A Politics of Public Goods","container-title":"Demos","abstract":"We need to restore the positive concept of public goods that existed decades ago.","URL":"https://www.demos.org/blog/politics-public-goods","language":"en"}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“A Politics of Public Goods,” n.d.). The most useful public goods are hospitals, educational institutes, parks, and roads. These are the public goods which benefit the maximum number of people with or without payment. The payments over public goods are applied to avoid the misuse of the goods or for its maintenance. In other words, the government can efficiently improve the conflicts by directly providing or indirectly encouraging the facility of the goods.
Conclusion
Public goods are goods that are non-rivalry and non-excludability in nature. The main purpose of the public goods is to provide benefits to all individuals. Sometimes conflict arises due to the collective action problems. Opposition parties or demand of the public create difficulties. At such point, cost-benefit analysis plays an important role. It provides the ratio between the total cost of the projects and its benefits. Through maintaining the inflation and discount rate for the production government could avoid conflict. In addition by providing different proposal or strategies to maximize the benefits of the public goods, the government can bring the priority of all the parties on one decision.
References
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY A Politics of Public Goods. (n.d.). Retrieved from Demos website: https://www.demos.org/blog/politics-public-goods
ANOPGA.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://philpapers.org/archive/ANOPGA.pdf
Definition of public good in Political Science. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2019, from http://oer2go.org/mods/en-boundless-static/www.boundless.com/political-science/definition/public-good/index.html
More Subjects
Join our mailing list
© All Rights Reserved 2024