In order for democracy to burgeon, a strong foundation that consists of specific factors is essential. These factors effectively produce valuable relations between the people and their government. Of the important elements that serve as the basis for democracy is economic prosperity. A market economy for democracy is efficient because it gives individuals freedom to control their personal enterprise which will enable high productivity of produce that is in demand by consumers. The beneficial effects from this type of economy will help lead to prosperity and stability. In this essay I argue: A market economy enhances democracy because it promotes political stability through economic prosperity. Features of democracy allow the people of a state to take part in political interests; thus political leaders consider what the people want for these matters. A democracy is governance by leaders whose authority is based on a limited authority from an electorate that selects among genuine alternatives and has some rights to political participation and opposition. Democracy ensures the people the opportunity to influence elites to make certain decisions in economic affairs. In a market economy, there is total private control in which the actor has direct, personal control over her own factors and resources of production. In this case, the state does not participate or moderately intervene in the political economy. The only roles that the state has are “to prevent private actors from doing violence to each other, to protect private property rights, and to defend the state’s sovereignty”. The market economy is directed by demand in which a corporation produces what the people need. They consider what merchandise that they can offer to the d... ... middle of paper ... ...s countries such as Switzerland, citizens live well and public services are great. Switzerland’s government is limited and it practices popular voting on policies “based on the view that the people should hold ultimate power”. Its free market economy displays a highly competitive economy and the people must rely on private sectors to care for themselves. On the other hand, Sweden is a social market system and private firms hold the majority of its economy. Also, it helps provide for those who suffer from economic difficulties and power emerges from its government. Minimal state interference with price and supply regulation in a market economy grants private actors the freedom to control resources and provide for the public. Along with this, people have the responsibility to participate in voting which can determine economic and political policies of their country.
Democracy is not a contemporary phenomenon. It did not originate here in North America. Rather, its practice began---more than 2,000 years ago---in Athens, a city-state, in the Greek Mediterranean. The philosophers Aristotle and Plato attested to that fact in their writings. It is in Plato’s Republic that one finds the earliest definition of democracy, which is briefly, “the rule of the governed.” Plato compares democracy to monarchy, or rule of the one, oligarchy, or rule of the elite, and lastly, timocracy, or rule by property owners. Interestingly enough, the Republic’s author believed the rule of a philosopher-king was preferable to that of the masses. The Politics, written by Aristotle, provided a very robust explanation and justification of democracy, which will be detailed later in this paper. Nevertheless, democracy is synonymous with popular sovereignty or the notion that all within a human community have a say in the matters that affect them all.
In contemporary times, the rise of capitalism as a dominant economic trend and its ravenous demand to accumulate sources from new markets, has led to the idea of merging political and economic power into one, which is democratic capitalism or otherwise illustrated as “a system where markets allocate income according to efficiency while governments redistribute income according to political demand."(Iversen, 2006). The advancements mentioned earlier, have given ground for questions concerning the possible compatibility of the political ideology which is democracy and the economic ideology capitalism and how would they affect one another. This mergence could be examined in recent times, whereas in the past around the start of the nineteenth century it was considered as inappropriate and unlikely to happen. This paper aims to demonstrate to what degree are democracy and capitalism compatible, by examining the various areas of conflict of the two ideologies, how has capitalism affected the democratic system in the United States and does actually global capitalism have an impact on the developing countries democracies.
The main objective of this essay is to understand how market society emerged, but first the defintion and characteristics of a market society must be understood. According to Polanyi, “Market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets.... it is an economy directed by market prices and nothing but market prices”(Polanyi 43). Similarily, Heilbroner explains how the market “allows society to ensure its own provisioning”(Heilbroner 12). Both of these explanations describe how the market economy is self regulated, meaning that this “economic system is controlled, regulated and directed by markets alone...
In making this argument this essay seeks to five things. Firstly, to define democracy within the contemporary context offering the key characteristics of a modern re...
“Democracy is a personal way of individual life; that it signifies the possession and continual use of certain attitudes, forming personal character and determining desire and purpose in all th...
Firstly, K. Isbester mentions that democracy has a different meaning for everyone, as some can define democracy as a good aspect for development, on the contrary other believe that it is nothing more than voting after several years. Although, Latin America see democratic g...
In his article, Democracy as a Universal Value, Amartya Sen asserts that democracy is a universal value. In order to develop his argument Sen needs to state his definition of democracy and define what he means by universal value. In the course of Sen's argument he gives his view of the relationship between democracy and the economy. He then defends his view of democracy as a universal value against a main argument that deals with cultural differences between regions.
Additionally, this paradox covers the government’s communications with economic markets and how this collaboration overlaps with politics. The paradox of electoral economics, as discussed in class, says that every government needs an efficient and successful economy for its nation to prosper. Simply put, it is a necessity that governing bodies have positively efficient economies to regulate their own presence and operations; governments that lack a strong economy also lack a strong, internal foundation. The paradox additionally needs the states’, approval, and cooperation that democratic governments have, so all of the proper components for efficient economic function are in place. This is predominantly demonstrated in the relationship of politics and economics, and how historically, elections have been influenced to favor a certain candidate depending on the well-being of the government’s economy or the potential leader’s proposed economic strategies.
This view implies that governments intervene for many reasons, including the redistributional and stablisation functions. While market failure is one reason for intervention, other considerations, including questions of equity and social justice determined the nature and the extent of government intervention. This point was expanded upon by Groenewegen (1990,2) who argued that the extent of market intervention in the supply, distribution and redistibution of goods and services are not dictated by purly political and ideological considerations, other considerations may play a role including the failure of the market in certain instances to ensure efficient, equiable allocation of resources.
Throughout history different types of instrumental regimes have been in tact so civilizations remained structured and cohesive. As humanity advanced, governments obligingly followed. Although there have been hiccups from the ancient times to modern day, one type of government, democracy, has proven to be the most effective and adaptive. As quoted by Winston Churchill, democracy is the best form of government that has existed. This is true because the heart of democracy is reliant, dependent, and thrives on the populaces desires; which gives them the ability for maintaining the right to choose, over time it adjusts and fixes itself to engulf the prominent troubling issues, and people have the right of electing the person they deem appropriate and can denounce them once they no longer appease them. In this paper, the benefits of democracy are outlined, compared to autocratic communism, and finally the flaws of democracy are illustrated.
It is understood that certain elements of democracy are the right of owning property, having free association, the freedom of speech, and various other things as these are some of the necessary prerequisites for the realization of the self-determining person that democracy presupposes (p 105). These presupposes of democracy, however, when used as a basis to create laws that represent various facets of peoples’ liberties they can conflict with democracy. By attempting to establish personal liberties what can happen is that the greater democracy can be restrained due to the establishment of the personal liberties that each and every individual are entitled to. Responses to these anti-democratic claims made by some are that individual rights are required to preserve the integrity of democracy; that is, only free people can exercise the self-determination of democracy (p.104). It can be noted that some believe the existence and extent of democratic governance is only justified insofar as it best serves the enhanced liberty of individuals (p.105).
One of the first and major differences between a Communist and Democratic government is their contrary economic systems. In a communist government, the community owns the major resources and means of production. The goal of such a system is to prevent any one person or group of people from becoming radically rich, while others are extremely poor. The system attempts to eliminate lower class by balancing the wealth between rich and poor, therefore giving everyone equal pay and ownership. Unfortunately, this results in an increased lower class. However, in a Democracy, free enterprising is permitted, and smiled upon. ? Here, free enterprising helps the economy to flourish. People can organize their own businesses and receive their own profits if it succeeds, or debts if it fails. In this system, the harder a person works, the more money they receive, allowing them to ‘make ends meet.’ The downside to democracy is that people can get a high paying job through education, but may work just as hard at a lower paying job and receive less money. As Winston Churchill once said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Generally, Democracy’s seem be more successful economically.
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Why Do We Need a Democratic Government The research of the reasons for government’s formation got me thinking, that democracy is the only form of government which effectively reflects, in its ruling system, the needs of social majority and respects all opinions of social minorities. Therefore, now, democracy is the crucial point of social development, and is the final stage of evolution. Democracy is the system which still needs further development and requires more attention in its structural consistency. Democratic system of rule has changed over time, its definition became closer to the intended meaning laid in the word’s structure; the combination of two greek words: demos(the people) and kratia(power, rule) has formed the word democracy,
The next important attribute to consider is the government’s ability to implement policies that they have passed. If these policies are against public opinion they will have a difficult time implementing them since they do not have an authoritarian or absolute rule. The government mus...