This blog contains posts and comments written by students in Dr. Tufte's economics classes at Southern Utah University.
3/14/2010
Why Do People Trust Officials More Than Businesses?
The post "A Thought Experiment" on CafeHayek takes a quick look at the disparity of public opinion between elected officials and businesses. People seem to be more willing trust based on words than actions. Russ Roberts then poses a question about what would happen to a charity if it somehow became a public charity with a much larger budget and an elected official in charge. Read it and think about what would happen in that scenario.
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4 comments:
I find, the "one string attached" to the public funds in this thought experiment of an elected leader over the program to be a more pleasant scenario than the more realistic possibility that an appointed bureaucrat or committee of bureaucrats over-see the operations of the charity to ensure that the charity uses the public funds in the best way.
Money is one of the most powerful things to exist. We can buy almost anything, even how people think. Often, the population of a country is manipulated by the politicians of that country. They make us think that they are going to fix all the problems that we have, and we often believe them. In my opinion, in this article, if this politician starts making more money for the organization, there is going to be a point where money is going to be more important than what the first lady did. And I think he will start leading the company as soon as he starts getting more money for it. My question is: What would happen the moment this important person cannot get more money for the organization? Will they substitute him for another person that can get more money?
-1 on Eric for poor proofreading.
I read this post before it was reposted here. I thought about it at the time, and I really don't know why someone would trust the government official more.
I mentioned in another class this semester that there are people who will choose to go to a doctor, and then not believe what the doctor says or follow their directions. I think sometimes people are just contrary. Perhaps this explains this example.
The phrase that comes to mind here for me is "easy come, easy go." As important as who is in charge is the fact that when money is harder to come by it tends to be spent more carefully. Having such a huge increase in available funds would make any leader even the imaginary visionary described more inclined to use money quickly and and less responsibly because there is more where that came from and they have a more secure guarantee of future funds.
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