Ethics, Economics, and Politics

Ethics, Economics, and Politics

1. What is the role of the government in balancing public welfare vs. individual happiness?

The role of the government in balancing public welfare and individual happiness is to make sure that everyone counts equally when assessing the happiness of the community. The state should ensure that people live together in a viable society. Most public welfare will affect the expectations of life of many citizens. Consequently, they need to be balanced.

When it comes to individual happiness, it is affected by a number of factors that are within the control of the state. These factors range from taxation, subsidization to price mechanisms. The happiness of individuals is also tied to public welfare. Public welfare includes things that will be free at the point of use, but the state took the cost of providing them. The state gets the money for public welfare activities from taxation of people. Income taxation falls on an individual’s earnings. It affects those who are taxed by making them less motivated to work and focus on leisure than they would if there was no tax.

It is also important to note that the state can interfere with people’s free choices. This is because there some instances when an individual’s choices can have negative effects on others. The state, for example, can heavily tax cigarettes and ban the consumption of marijuana. This is referred to as ‘paternalism’ as the government takes the role of one’s better self.

The government, therefore, tries to balance an individual’s happiness and public welfare by performing a cost-benefit analysis of the suggested project. The state identifies whether the project, in the end, will benefit those who would lose their property or money. An example is taxation by the state to provide free education. The free education is public welfare, and those taxed will benefit by their children getting free education.

2. What is the ethical foundation of liberal capitalism?

According to Locke, the ethical foundation of liberal capitalism is based on an agreement between the state and its citizens. In any existing state, there were moral codes and duties. These codes and duties came from God. However, human beings cannot be trusted to uphold these duties and moral values. This led to insecurity. An instance is when someone can easily kill you because of a dispute.

To remedy this societal problem, people formed a contract with the state. This contract was based on the citizens handing over their natural rights to the state in exchange for protection and security from the government. The state now had a responsibility to ensure that everybody followed the set rights and performed their due duties.The main rights the state was to protect under the contract were life, liberty, and freedom. The contract further implies that should the state fail to honor their part of the agreement, that is to protect the citizens, they would be morally justified to rebel.

Adam also tackled the issue of property ownership under capitalism. Land has and will always be a controversial issue because, at one point, it was free, and people acquired it through dubious means, such as war. The main issue came during inheritance, where some people thought that heirs should not inherit a piece of property. Adam was of the opinion that an heir, as long as enough and as good land was left for others, has a right to that property.

3. Kelo vs. New London

The court’s decision was the right thing, as the protestor’s land was valuable to society. New London, during that time, was going through a lot of economic challenges. They then came up with a plan that would, in numerous ways, alleviate the scourge of poverty in the community. This project would, at completion, provide an excess of 1000 jobs and an increase in tax. The entire community would have benefitted. Therefore, I think that the court’s decision to make 4A and 3 parcels of land was public was the right decision.

This case is based on utilitarianism, which is based on the notion that an action is judged to be good or bad based solely on its consequences. Utilitarianism is divided into two. The first one is Act Utilitarianism, and the other is Rule Utilitarianism. The act division does not consider moral rules. It is focused on the end results. However, the latter type deviates from the end results, if some rule that will hinder the general peace of the public or participants is concerned. The rule is determined by the utilitarian after taking everything into consideration.

In the above case, some of the protestors had lived in those parcels of land all their lives. They had no other home as all their memories from childhood to adulthood were made on the lands. During the first case, the judges prohibited land 4A to be taken as it was meant for parks and marina support but allowed 3 to be public property because this parcel was designated for office space. However, in the supreme courts, the judges gave all the land to the public as this was the option that would maximize utility.