The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible - Bastiat Institute

94 Chapter 17 • The Special Interest Carnival
The exercise of
choice over life
and liberty is your
prosperity.
Extract from
Jonathan’s Guiding
Principles
Only when
Congressmen have no
special favours to sell
will lobbyists stop
trying to buy their
votes – and
their souls.
Edwin A. Locke,
University of
Maryland
Brainstorming
• Are the game participants winners?
• Why are the pavilion operators happy?
• Should people be required to participate in
carnivals like this?
• How can political “logrolling” be compared
to this game?
• Examples?
• Ethical issues?
Commentary
When politicians seek election, they need
money to promote themselves. They raise this
money by promising to help groups in return for
contributions. The politician and the contributors
trade favours. The politician will receive funds
and in return might promote laws which will
help the contributors’ special interests. These
contributors may even be groups or companies
outside the country. This would give them
control of particular policies and laws in the
politician’s country. Many of the contributions
to politicians can be interpreted as bribes and
are, therefore, often veiled as gifts, interest free
loans, or foreign policy deals. If they are bribes,
the most common reasons that businesses,
unions, or even individuals have for making
contributions is either: (1) to gain a special
unfair advantage over their competition; or (2)
to defend themselves from further government
encroachment. From this one can see that the
enormous power of politicians is very rarely for
‘the good of the people’.
The cost to individual citizens of each
government favour appears too small to warrant
an effort to oppose it. Upon closer examination,
the sums of money collected from each taxpayer
and consumer adds up to a great amount and
provides great wealth for the politically-favoured
few.