Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy

Upon closer examination it dumbfounds work out that this would only be the case if both the citizens and the politicians knew exactly what the citizens valued the politicians to do. As Downs points out, this is patently not the right smart things ar in a world like ours where experience is imperfect and information is a costly commodity (139).

These cardinal factors - imperfect knowledge and expensive information - lead us to the disturbing just inescapable conclusion that although a democratic government would do its citizens' will if it could, it send awaynot because 1) the citizens do not know what they want (i.e. what would maximise their own interests), and 2) the politicians couldn't find out what the citizens wanted even if they did know. let us examine this statement point by point.

First, it is somehow counter-intuitive to say that raft don't know what they want. After all, most people seems ready to offer their opinion on any prone subject at the drop of a hat. However, we must encounter into account the fact that obtaining and assimilating the information required for a person to decide what would be best for him would be passing costly in terms of time, energy, and possibly money. Now we can see that it would be foolish for an undivided to go to the disquiet of becoming well-informed since his one vote has such little

The lobbyists or special interest groups necessitate a disproportionate amount of political power because they be capable of influencing umteen votes, which in turn allows them to influence many politicians. They perform this trick by spending the resources necessary to shake the public of a trustworthy proposition or plant of propositions. Then, they turn to the government and, posing as representatives of the people, they seek to persuade the government to enact those same propositions. Of course, these propositions are mainly serious to the special interest group in question and are only incidentally good for anyone else (Downs 140).

That is, the political parties came up with certain easily identifiable ideologies so that people could vote for candidates simply on the basis of a single party draw rather than on the basis of his stance on a wide variety of issues, which would be ir sagaciously time-consuming to become informed about (Downs 142). In the U.S., for example, a voter could get away to vote perfectly well his entire life with the two main categories of Democrat and Republican, and the three optional subcategories of liberal, moderate, and conservative. If voting is seen as a wasteful and irrational act on an individual basis, as Downs maintains, then voting on the basis of political theory or party affiliation is certainly one way to minimize the cost to the voter (147). It is even possible that by making it easier, voting in this uninformed way may actually encourage more people to vote than otherwise would. Unfortunately, as we have seen, it probably doesn't make much inequality since the control over the government is not in the work force of the majority of people even in a res publica; it lies where it always has - in the hands of the rich and powerful.

effect on the outcome of an average election that he would get essentially no return for his investment. Thus, it is safe to say that any rational citizen would not know what he wants the government to
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