quartonews.it » Other » Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, And The Failure Of Bureaucracy (Independent Studies in Political Economy)

William Mitchell Social Sciences English

Download Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, And The Failure Of Bureaucracy (Independent Studies in Political Economy) djvu

by William Mitchell

Author:	William Mitchell
Subcategory:	Social Sciences
Language:	English
Publisher:	Routledge; 1 edition (September 30, 1994)
Pages:	234 pages
Category:	Other
Rating:	4.8
Other formats:	mbr lrf lrf doc

Download DJVU Download EPUB

More...

Traditional public policy and welfare economics have held that market failures are common. Randy T. Simmons is professor of political science and director of the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University

Traditional public policy and welfare economics have held that market failures are common. Simmons is professor of political science and director of the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University. William C. Mitchell is professor of political science at the University of Oregon. Series: Independent Studies in Political Economy.

Authored by William Mitchell and Randy Simmons, the illuminating and lively book, Beyond Politics, examines .

Authored by William Mitchell and Randy Simmons, the illuminating and lively book, Beyond Politics, examines how modern political democracy functions and falters. The book’s aim is to free us of the misconceptions and false hopes that predispose us to favor public policies bound to fail-and to examine systematically why they fail. Beyond Politics applies the insights of the burgeoning public choice school of political economy, which studies political choices and institutions using economic reasoning and analysis.

Mitchell and Simmons act as if pursuing private goals through the political .

book by William C. Mitchell. Mitchell and Simmons act as if pursuing private goals through the political system is odd or reprehensible. Yet they would applaud people who pursue private goals through the market. The traditional response to apparent failures of the free market is to create new government policies, as well as bureaucracies to implement them.

Beyond Politics book. In Beyond Politics, William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons carefully scrutinize this traditional view through the modern theory of public choice.

William R. Keech (a1). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013.

Читать бесплатно книгу Beyond politics. Markets, welfare, and the failure of bureaucracy (Mitchell W. Simmons R. и другие произведения в разделе Каталог. Доступны электронные, печатные и аудиокниги, музыкальные произведения, фильмы

Читать бесплатно книгу Beyond politics. Доступны электронные, печатные и аудиокниги, музыкальные произведения, фильмы. На сайте вы можете найти издание, заказать доставку или забронировать. Возможна доставка в удобную библиотеку.

Part 1 Market failures and political solutions - orthodoxy: market failure and government intervention- the view from welfare .

Part 1 Market failures and political solutions - orthodoxy: market failure and government intervention- the view from welfare economics- political presuppositions of the idealized state. Part 2 In praise of politics - some public choice: unromantic side of democracy- pathological politics - the anatomy of government failure. Part 3 Case studies in the anatomy of public failure: politics of free and forced rides - providing public schools- political pursuit of private gain - producer-rigged markets, government exploitation, consumer protection, environmental gain, coercive redistribution-.

Reprinted by permission from The Independent Institute. He is the author of many articles, and of a book, Endangered Species.

This essay is a slightly altered version of chapter 4 in Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy. Westview Press, 1994). Reprinted by permission from The Independent Institute.

Beyond politics : markets, welfare, and the failure of bureaucracy, Independent studies in political economy. Boulder: Westview Press. Montgomery, John Dickey, and Thomas F. Carroll. Human rights : positive policies in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Hollis, NH: Hollis Pub. Co. Moore, Barrington.

Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy. Th e Negotiated Economy: General Features and Th eoretical Perspectives', in J. Hausner, B. Jessop, and K. Nielsen, ed. Institutional Frameworks of Market Economies. Aldershot: Avebury, 89-112.

Traditional public policy and welfare economics have held that market failures” are common, requiring the intervention of government in order to serve and protect the public good. In Beyond Politics, William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons carefully scrutinize this traditional view through the modern theory of public choice.The authors enlighten the relationship of government and markets by emphasizing the actual rather than the ideal workings of governments and by reuniting the insights of economics with those of political science. Beyond Politics traces the anatomy of government failure” and a pathology of contemporary political institutions as government has become a vehicle for private gain at public expense. In so doing, this brisk and vigorous book examines a host of public issues, including social welfare, consumer protection, and the environment. Offering a unified and powerful perspective on the market process, property rights, politics, contracts, and government bureaucracy, Beyond Politics is a lucid and comprehensive book on the foundations and institutions of a free and humane society.

Comments:

Vizil

I've seen Simmons speak several times and was very impressed. Sadly, this book doesn't do him justice.

I don't think he makes his points as clearly or convincingly as he does in person. I'd also say there are some organizational problems - key ideas and concepts that come up in multiple places and could be better treated with one devoted section.

The topic of public choice is incredibly important. It is a shame that so many economists - and people in general - don't have even an elementary grasp of public choice. For that reason I'd say that this book is worth a read. In my opinion, though, this isn't an accurate representation of Simmons strengths.

Yojin

The traditional response to apparent failures of the free market is to create new government policies, as well as bureaucracies to implement them. Mitchell and Simmons explain why the usual result is "government failure."
Simply put, transferring an issue from the market to government does not eliminate self-interested behavior. Those who have the most at stake will make the necessary effort to have the most influence. Government policies frequently confer large benefits on a small number of people, while spreading the costs among many. Those many, therefore, each have too little at stake to make large investments in influence. The result is rent-seeking - the economists' term for using government to create markets that are distorted in favor of producers.
The other crucial problem with government policymaking is that decision-makers do not have to compare costs and benefits and make economically wise decisions. In fact bureaucrats have a strong incentive to overstate the magnitude of problems and to avoid seeking real solutions, because doing so allows them to continue to request funding - thus creating job security.
My view is, of course, somewhat biased, because I am Bill Mitchell's student. But knowing him personally, I also know that his intent is not to demonize government employees (who are all acting rationally in response to the distorted incentives they face). Nor is he a right-winger intent on helping businesses oppress consumers and destroy the environment. In fact the best parts of the book, in my opinion, are the chapters showing how the incentive structure in government results in policies that actually hurt consumers and the environment.
Parts of this book are easy to read, but other parts, including the opening chapters, are likely to be difficult for anyone without some background in economics. If the book has one flaw, it is that the authors assume the reader will understand the more technical terms. The book is brief enough that they could have easily included vivid examples to make the meanings clear.
Nevertheless, this book is by far the best available on the problem of government policy failure. Most are either interminably long and academically complex, or shallow and polemical. This book is that rare blend of true intellectual analysis in a readable format.

Nikobar

This book provides a good, accessible introduction to the study of "public choice" - essentially, the study of government using economic techniques. The book is admirably clear, and if you haven't seen this approach at work before, I heartily recommend this book as an introduction to the field. It helps explain in a simple framework many of the dysfunctions of politics and public policy that might otherwise seem mysterious, or a failure of "political will."

Like many (or most) economists, they assume that behavior in markets its ethically better than behavior in politics. On the one hand, that's a useful corrective for those people who think that politics consists of the noble pursuit of the public interest. On the other hand, this sort of economist unrealistically idealizes the market.

For example, Chapters 5-10 all have the same title - "Political Pursuit of Private Gain" - with different subtitles. Mitchell and Simmons act as if pursuing private goals through the political system is odd or reprehensible. Yet they would applaud people who pursue private goals through the market. It's not at all clear to me that there is an ethical distinction to be made here. Shouldn't the problem of the public and private good in both economics and politics be the real subject of political economy?

As another example, they count as "perverted incentives" the fact that politicians aks "how many people" want something, not "how badly do they want something" (which is what the market does). Is it so obvious that one of these two standards is better than the other?

I'll conclude with a final example. Mitchell and Simmons assume uncritically that defense, law and order are truly public goods. If they had thought more carefully about dictatorships, they would see ways in which law and order can be private goods, paid for by taxpayers. Even if national defense is public (which I doubt), it is produced by contractors that receive private benefits from its production. They might also think about what makes some politicians run for office on law and order or defense platforms.

It's not obvious to me what the answer is, but I think the method here could be helpful when applied in a nonpartisan, nonideological way that recognizes imperfections in both politics and economics. Mitchell and Simmons don't quite achieve that.

eBooks related to Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, And The Failure Of Bureaucracy (Independent Studies in Political Economy):

Download Social Security: History and Politics from the New Deal to the Privatization Debate (Studies in Government and Public Policy) djvu

Download Government and Politics in the Lone Star State: Theory and Practice (4th Edition) djvu

Download Business, Government, Society: The Global Political Economy djvu

Download Political Theory and Public Choice (Downs, Anthony. Essays. V. 1.) (Anthony Downs Essays) djvu

Download Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 3 (Handbooks in Economics, Volume 4) djvu