Question

Organize the three basic forms of government from the point of view of public administrator. Suggest two or three common goals and interdependencies of the form of government in question

Answer 1

The three basic forms of government are:

The market led economy- Here government has a very little role to play. The economic dicisions are taken place by the forces of demand and supply.

The state-led economy-Here the resource allocation is according to the commands of the government

The mixed economy- Here both the government and market plays some role

The functions of the state or government that are common:

• State’s role in maintaining law and order and in providing public goods

It is generally agreed that the basic functions of the government in any society include the maintenance of law and order and the provision of ‘public goods’, including the building of the necessary infrastructure (such as roads, bridges, railways and electricity).[1] In fact, on the emergence and early functions of state as an institution, Johnson (1982) had this to say: Public goods are goods that are beneficial to a wide range of people in the society: for example, research and development. It is unlikely that a private entrepreneur will start production of such goods because she/he is aware that the fruits of her efforts, say in research and development, will easily be accessed by her rival entrepreneurs as well.“The state as an institution is as old as organized human society. Until approximately the nineteenth century, states everywhere performed more or less the same functions that make large-scale social organization possible but that individuals or families or villages cannot perform for themselves. These functions included defense, road building, water conservancy, the mining of coins, and the administration of justice” (Johnson, 1982, pp. 18-19).

• The regulatory function of the state

With the emergence of industrial capitalism in western nations, the state was compelled to shoulder greater responsibilities. Johnson (1982, p. 19) writes: “towards the end of the nineteenth century the state took on regulatory functions in the interest of maintaining competition, consumer protection, and so forth”. The state as an agent to control and mediate the market forces (such as regulating unwarranted rise in prices, monopoly behavior, and so on) has played an important role in the capitalist or market-led economies such as the US.

• State as an agent of redistribution

State has also been an agent of redistribution -- redistributing wealth, income or resources from those who are relatively rich to those who are relatively poor. The way the state has carried out this role differed across countries and over time – partly determined by the ideological orientation and class bias of the state. Revolutionary redistributive policies have been carried out in some countries ruled by parties with extreme socialist (or Marxist) ideologies. Property relations have been radically altered in them, often as a response to the high inequalities that existed in these countries before the revolution.

But the state has intervened as an agent of redistribution also in other countries, including capitalist countries committed to market-led growth. This intervention is through the state’s expenditures on social sectors, mainly health and education, to provide social security benefits for its citizens. Remember how the Keynesian revolution emphasized the role of government expenditures in stabilizing the economy and in the building of social and physical infrastructure. It is well recognized that the policies inspired by Keynesianism came to the aid of the capitalist system during the 1960s.

Thus it can be seen that the state has performed the above-discussed roles – maintaining law and order, providing public goods, regulation and redistribution -- both in state-led economies and in market-led economies.