Traditional View of Government and Public Interest - Essay Example

Traditional View of Government and Public Interest In recent years, influential policy analysts and academic writers have criticised public sector organisations, and argued that the traditional view of government as acting ‘in the public interest’ is incorrect. What is the basis of these criticisms, and are they convincing? It is a common notion that public sector organizations are always acting in the publics interest. This is the traditional view that is generally supported and promoted by the government for obvious reasons. However an in-depth review of this false claim reveals that the reality could not be further from the truth. It also does not make governments evil for distorting the meaning of public interest. Self-interest is the prime driver in this dynamic. The government always has a choice in its decisions. These users can make different choices in the context of public services. The obvious choices include; when, what, who, where and how (Le Grand, 2007). The choice of the provider encompasses building a hospital for general practice, schools etc. The choice of a professional includes choosing the family practitioner, consultant and other professionals like physicians and teachers. The point is public often gets deceived by the illusion of choice. They think they are acting independently making choices but if the options available to them are designed and chosen by someone else then they do not have much of a choice. Patients can choose a specific medical provider based on feasibility or professional conduct. Similarly the parents can choose a specific school for their children based on the style of teaching. But the choice of providing health facility depends on the government. It is not usually the parents or the individuals who make the choices. Relatives of the individual, CGPA and other collective agents like local authorities awarding a contract to a supplier sometimes have the definitive say in the ‘choice’. Hence the choice is always connected to the providers. The policy in the political debate revolves around this relationship between the provider and the choice. Contrary to choice, the competition is easier to define. It simply means the presence of many providers in the public service, each competing to provide specific services. It is a negation of monopoly because many providers offer services instead of one provider holding all cards. This model of choice and competition is necessary to establish the grounds for validating the argument that the government is not solely operating in the interest of the public. The public service delivery model rests on choice and competition. It completes the principle of autonomy and reacts to the individual needs and wants. This model is good because it pushes the providers to give higher quality and greater efficiency. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with this model as it is supposed to promote quality and efficiency. The problem arises when this model does not delivers what it is supposed to. There are three objections to this model; a) people do not want choice b) choice is a middle-class obsession c) competition is a threat to the public domain (Le Grand, 2007). This criticism is valid because too much choice is detrimental to the publics interest. Public service system in England explains how choice is a negative impact in wider public. David Lipsey writes in his article Too My Choice (2005) that most of the Labour Partys public service reforms are feasible. However, when it comes to their individual choice it does not make much sense. The ever-increasing consumer choice is the formula for happiness but choices in the public sector is an entirely different case. The increase of individual choice in public services is among the reasons for the third term of Labour Government (Lipsey, 2005). The first term of the Labour government had only a few reasons for triggering this excessive choice. Therefore, the government chose not to increase spending for a couple of years. Because effective choice needs provision over demand, meaning that increased spending is a prerequisite for choice. But during the second term of the Labour government a lot of public money was invested into health and education and other sectors. This did not mean complaisant defence of public services. This strategy had already failed in US. It led to the state as well as the market failure in the United States (Lipsey, 2007). The lesson was more than sufficient to take notes. The choice-competition model is intact in England. A small scale example is that a primary care trust is responsible for commissioning care in his area. After government reforms it can now look for quotes from several hospitals for treating and operations that fall under a nationally set maximum. This combination seems sensible as it reduces costs and contains production power. It might seem like efficient and effective but it is not a result of individual choice. The case of dubious public choice is not specific to England. Every society in the world is similar in the sense that public choice is the governments behaviour and the reactionary behaviour of the individual. The main argument of this paper that the governments do not solely act in public interest does not make them evil. The governments are also dependent on certain factors such as economics. Economic factors play a vital role in determining public choice and public service policies. Perspectives do not remain the same, political literature keeps changing and modifying. Initially the notion that a voter standing in the voting booth choosing the best candidate is similar to a customer in a supermarket might seem radical but it represents a dramatic change in the political science literature (Tullock, 2002). Such is the bifurcation of the individual psyche. It is very impressive when it is analysed through the economic system that considers self-interest primal force in choice-competition model. This bifurcation indicates that self-interest and economic factors push the governments and the public service authorities. This notion is not found in classical literature on public interest. There has been no proof that the government would generate an output in accordance with the classical ideas of public interest. They might still be acting in public interest but the definition is vague and easily modified based on personal interests. According to this idea an optimal choice arises when people adopt economics as the primary force governing political behaviour. The same people who go into politics also go the markets for businesses which means that their motives can be similar in both these areas. Despite this striking evidence the classical view about the individual is still intact and still dominant. Empirical confirmation of this notion is more important than analytical justifications. Many people consider that behaviour of an individual politician is based on self-interest but when it comes to voting, most people vote based on personal gains. A successful politician is the one who makes a living by winning elections. It is an obvious observation but very often the students of government tend to forget it. To become a great senator one has to become a senator first. Hence, a successful politician is the one who is good at winning elections. This characteristic of assessment makes politicians similar to businessman. When a businessman designs a good automobile he does this to attract customers. A politician does the same. He designs attractive policies that attract voters so that they can reward him by electing him in the next elections too. This is not in evil activity but it is also not held in the highest moral regards. This system also offers a problem; the politicians can (and do) lose their following and businessmen might lose sales in a season. But whichever the case they are always acting in self-interests. They do what they believe is right but overall they are acting to maximize their own well-being. After studying this concept of government there exists a problem. Economists base their predictions on ideas that the buyers of the market hold the perfect information to make the decision about the purchase. But politics is a different ballgame. The information problem is worse than it is in markets. An individual goes to market to purchase lentils or cereal. If it is a bad choice it impacts only his life. It is not a direct collective loss of the society. The same situation can be observed with a different angle. A person looking to buy a car invests time and resources studying the market, asking prices. Because the fear of losing money and/or wasting time is present. He/she will be in a lot of distress if that happens. On the other hand, when this person goes to vote he does not study his ‘choices’ by spending the same time and money. In this matter they consider their votes insignificant among millions of other votes. Self-interests define and shape a society. The social hierarchy is designed this way to keep classes of people. Throughout history similar hierarchies have existed. Even the most ‘equal’ societies in history have observed this class distinction. The commercial life defines the terms of living for the citizens. The road between the public and private sector is highly complicated. When this view of the society is revealed, many people do not approve of it as it appears similar to an industrial structure (Davis, 1998). It seems like the society operates on the same principles as any business. The society is divided in terms of their interests. A farmer would be more interested and knowledgeable about crop subsidies and fertilizers. On the other hand, working class and management would be well aware of import restrictions that compete with the ones they manufacture. This is not homogeneous information disbursement. There are clusters and groups who are interested in specific policies and complete oblivion about others. The conventional perspective that the governments act in public interest is dubious. The purpose of this paper is not to prove the governments are evil and against the people. It is just to clarify that the term public interest, public choice and the government policies are not that simple. What is considered public interest is in fact the self-interest of the government. If a specific group is influential in the society then the government would be more considerate about giving them favourable policies against the other group. For instance a steel manufacturing class has significant influence in the society in terms of wealth and resources. The government will be biased in giving subsidies on steel manufacturing and trade as opposed to agriculture because of the self-interest of the government. The public will think the government acted in the wider public interests when in fact the government is only working for its own interests. This is the spirit of democracy. It is not negative, the fact is that there is no better alternative. Towards the end the question arises so should every policy be left to the market to decide how the funds are allocated and resources are adjusted? The question also can be interpreted as why is there a government in the first place? Why is not there any institution that just regulates the policies instead of crafting them? The answer is simple; it is not possible without bringing chaos to the society. In order for the market to operate it needs a system similar to a conventional democratic government. An authority that oversees the property rights so that the individuals can attain power over the real aspects of the world. These individuals hold properties and consider them opportunities for improving their lives through various agreements. Even if the government is considered a commerce entity it is still acceptable and needed for the desired functioning of the society. Moreover there is a difference between markets and governments (public services). The government might not solely act in public interest but they have to do certain minimum to establish credibility or trust. People have to trust the governments when they use their roads and railways. Trust is not only needed by the governments, each individual of the society needs it (O’Neill, 2002). This trust separates markets from governments. People will always pursue their private interests to achieve their goals. They can buy and sell any stock under self-interests. This makes it look like that the self-interest is the prime driver of a society where everyone is reaching for their self-created goals. Public interest might seem like a sedative that pacifies the concerns of the public. They like to believe that the governments work solely in their interests. But it is the choice-competition model that sets the terms of this interest. And then self-interests decide the choices, both for the governments and the general public. References Davis, E (1998) Public Spending. Penguin Books. Le Grand, J. (2007) The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering public services through choice and competition. Chapter 2. Princeton University Press. Lipsey, D. (2005) Too much choice. Prospect. pp. 26-29. O Neill, O. (2002) Without trust we cannot stand. Reith Lectures: Question of Trust. Tullock, G. (2002) The Theory of Public Choice. Washington: Cato Institute. Read More