| Although it is generally agreed there is a role
for the government to redistribute income in favor of the
poor, provide public goods and services, and deal with
externalities, there is considerable dis-agreement over how
far the government should go in these areas, and what
additional areas the gov-ernment should be responsible for.
Some people feel that "big government" is already a problem,
that government is doing too much. Others believe that the
government sector of the economy is being starved and that
government should be allowed to do more. What is the
appropriate role for government is a basic question, and one
that involves a great deal more than economics.
Conservative View
On the one hand, conservatives believe that the
government's role should be severely limited. They feel that
economic and political freedom is likely to be undermined by
excessive reliance on government. Moreover, they tend to
question the government's ability to solve social and economic
problems. They believe that faith in the govern-ment's power
to solve these problems is unreason-able. They call for more
and better information about what government can reasonably be
expect-ed to doand do well. They point to the slowness of
the government bureaucracy, the difficulty in controlling huge
government organizations, the problems political
considerations can breed, and the difficulties in telling
whether government programs are successful or not. On the
basis of these considerations, they argue that the
government's role should be carefully limited.
Liberal View
Conservatives tend to question the government's ability to
solve important social and economic problems, but liberals
tend to question the market's ability to solve these problems.
They point to the important limitations of the market system,
and they claim that the government can do a great deal to
overcome these limitations. Government can regulate private
economic activity. It can also provide goods and services that
the private businesses produce too little of. Liberals tend to
be less concerned than conservatives about the effects on
personal freedom of greater governmental intervention in the
economy. They point out that the price system also involves a
form of coercion by awarding goods and services to those who
can pay the price. In their view, people who are awarded only
a small amount of goods and services by the market are forced
into discomfort and malnutrition. |