What do Politicians Do?

Or, in more formal language: What is the objective function of a politician?

I think that the answer to this question uncovers a great deal of what's wrong with politics today. Based on reading, conversation, and intuition, I think that most people have something like the following in mind:

To maximise social welfare

We know that this answer is clumsy, since "social welfare" is a fictitious term, but we can use GDP as a proxy. Most politicians will claim that their goal is "to make the world a better place", and most economists implicitly assume that they're trying to maximise national income.

But they're wrong, and this is the greatest insight of public choice.

The politicians obkective function is:

To satisfy my own preferences, given the constraint of having to satisfy the median voter

In other words, politicians are self-interested, purposeful creatures like you and me, and they're unlikely to forge a career in politics unless they have specific (personal) goals they seek to pursue. This doesn't give them a free license to cause havoc, however, since they're constrained by re-election, and must keep the median voter happy.

Wherever you lie on the political spectrum, the second definition strikes me as not only being correct, but more in keeping with libertarian or socialist theory. So let's dispense with the fiction about the role of politicians.

Comments

[anonymous]

this is stupid

[no-one]

ppl come to yoo 4 help but instead yoo give vem a load of beeeeeeeeep!

[Pauline]

I needed this for a research project and all this is, is an opinion.

[dsgsdg]

CRAP.

[Wynton]

Oh my god I'm ment to be doin homework on wat potititians do nd this is just false addvertising

[Miriam]

NEWS FLASH! one day a great leader will become a politician and prove all you guys wrong. 'cause just because almost all the past politicians have been liars, doesn't necessarily mean that the next politician is going to try to fool the public. so I'm not trying to be against your thoughts because that is your opinion and i can't change that but can you at least point out to people that this is your opinion. get it, got it good.

[Apcalis Oral Jelly]

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