Political economics
Politics is the struggle over the allocation of benefits and privileges.
Laswell (1936) defines politics as who gets what, when, how. Government is the institution responsible for resolving conflicts over the allocation of benefits and privileges. According to Hobbes, life in a state of nature (without any government) is nasty, brutish and short. Hobbes' perception is built on the assumption that men are selfish and predatory. Government rescues man from the state of nature.
Government is defined as the authorized use of force. Force is used to limit freedom of choice.
These limitations provide society with order, stability and predictability. Individuals voluntarily surrender their freedom in exchange for order, thus escaping the state of nature. How much order should a government provide? How much freedom should individuals relinquish? Freedoms lost must be outweighed by freedoms gained.
In addition to using force, governments provide public goods as a means of ensuring order. Order is the solution to societal chaos.
For example, infrastructure such as sanitation and transportation maintains stability. Lastly, governments promote equality to ensure order -- for example, bridging the gap between rich and poor by various means.
Economics vs political economics
Economics analyzes how material goods (resources) and human capital (services) are made, distributed and consumed. Its agent is the economic man which is a purely rational being. However, this is a poor model for reality. Political economics (political economy) not only studies the economy, but discards the economic man to look at society, policy and the economy. Thus, political economics provides a broader view that incorporates economics' mathematical tools with an awareness of the polity, and the knowledge that no economy is a closed, rational system; no economy is a tightly controlled experiment chamber.
To truly study and understand how an economy works, one must also try to understand the intentions and repercussions of decisionmaking that shapes the economy.
Glossary
| Aggregate demand | The total demand for goods and services in the economy. Garfinkle asserts that this is the driving force of the economy; and in times of recession, that people's diminished aggregate demand can be supplemented by government spending (at a deficit, to avoid extracting more money from the citizenry and thus having aggregate demand go in one door and out the other as Garfinkle describes Great Depression taxation policies). |
|---|---|
| Resources | Things that have value. |
| American Revolution | The United States' transition from colony to state. |
| De-politicization | Loss of interest, leading to de-participation. |
| Economy | A society for production and distribution of wealth. From oikonomia, the Greek term for the household unit. |
| Health | Sound mind and sound body. |
| Invisible hand | Coined by Adam Smith to describe how his ideal economy and government is self-correcting, self-balancing and reaps maximal rewards for both individuals (including, unusual for Smith's time, the working classes) and the whole nation. The ideal system is guided by the invisible hand of competition directing each profit seeker to promote the general welfare, despite that outcome not being the individual's intention. |
| Laissez-faire | An economic system with no government role, except to offer police, judicial and military protection for property and life. |
| Liberalism | Liberty (is personal, individual, separation from a controller, personal release from feudal abuse of power), freedom, welfare (well-being, ability to meet one's needs and wants such as food, water, shelter, clothing, education and health care). |
| Liberty | Liberty has positive/affirmative and negative branches. Negative liberty is more individualist/laissez-faire, and is a release; and positive liberty is more unitarian and communal.. |
| Manipulation | When somebody leads/deceives another person into believing something untrue. |
| Natural Liberty | Smith's vision of natural liberty is a mixed economy with private invention, innovation and imitation all promoted by public institutions; the working class is the principal beneficiary. |
| Polis | Sharing/caring community, polity, city-state |
| Politics | Politics has five arms: deciding who gets what, when, how; distribution of resources; allocation of resources; resolution of conflicts; Getting/obtaining and using power. |
| Power | Ability/capacity to compel action. |
| Social Darwinism | Laissez-faire capitalism and Social Darwinism are tightly linked. The latter states that in a laissez-faire system, society will stratify with the wealthiest citizenry offering the most valuable resources; the poorest citizenry will be those offering the least valuable resources; and the only barrier between the wealthiest and the poorest will be ability. |
| Society | A system for production and distribution of wealth for the welfare of the people. |
| System | A number of components (elements, units) working together in a symbiotic (give and take) relationship. |
| Value | Something that you need. |
| Virtue | Capacity to be good |
| Wealth | Material things or intangible things (knowledge, human resources, human capital). |
| Welfare | When we think of welfare, we think of a $300 check. |
| Communism | |
| Freedom from | |
| Freedom of | |
| National sovereignty | |
| Order | |
| Public good | |
| Police power | |
| Political equality | |
| Social equality | |
| Equality of opportunity | |
| Equality of outcome | |
| Rights | |
| Political ideology | |
| Totalitarianism | |
| Socialism | |
| Democratic socialism | |
| Capitalism | |
| Libertarianism | |
| Libertarians | |
| Laissez faire | |
| Liberals | |
| Anarchism | |
| conservatives | |
| Communitarians | |
| Autocracy | |
| Oligarchy | |
| democracy | |
| Procedural Democracy | |
| universal participation | |
| political equality | |
| majority rule | |
| participatory democracy | |
| representative democracy | |
| responsiveness | |
| substantive democracy | |
| minority rights | |
| majoritarian democracy | |
| interest group | |
| Pluralist Democracy | |
| elite theory | |
| democratization | |
| Sovereignty | Control |
| Elastic Clause: | |
| Commerce Clause: | |
| Grant-In-Aid: | |
| Categorical Grant: | |
| Formula Grant: | |
| Project Grant: | |
| Block Grant: | |
| Policy Entrepreneur: | |
| Pre-Emption: | |
| Mandate: | |
| Restraint: | |
| Municipal Government: | |
| County Government: | |
| School District: | |
| Special District: | |
| Home Rule: | |
| Public Opinion: | |
| Skewed Distribution: | |
| Bimodal Distribution: | |
| Normal Distribution: | |
| Stable Distribution: | |
| Political Socialization: | |
| Socioeconomic Status: | |
| Self-Interest Principle: | |
| Framing |