Answer:
Interest groups affect Democracy and the scope of US, by influencying government policies, searching for their own intrests. The number of intrest groups grow every day and american society is influenced by them.
- Individual intrests groups work towards sustaining government programs that benefit them. This makes it difficult for the politicians to reduce the scop of the government.
- The government scope is a factor that raises the number of intrests groups. The more areas that the government involves in, the more intrest groups appear to interviene in them.
Explanation:
Intrests groups influenced both the government and the people. They are powerfull becasue they can influenced the decisions made by the Congress. They can be classified by their intrests for instance economic, such as unions, trade associations (that are specific of a industry or economy segment) , bussines.
During the 1880s, following completion of the 105-mile Suez Canal, French entrepreneur Ferdinand DeLesseps poured billions of francs and 25,000 lives into an unsuccessful attempt to build a sea-level canal through Panama. The French effort was thwarted by disease, unreliable machinery, and almost a billion cubic yards of rock that stood in the way.
In 1879, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal proposed a sea level canal through Panama. With the success he had with the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt just ten years earlier, de Lesseps was confident he would complete the water circle around the world. Time and mileage would be dramatically reduced when traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean or vice versa. For example, it would save a total of 18,000 miles on a trip from New York to San Francisco.
Although de Lesseps was not an engineer, he was appointed chairman for the construction of the Panama Canal. Upon taking charge, he organized an International Congress to discuss several schemes for constructing a ship canal. De Lesseps opted for a sea-level canal based on the construction of the Suez Canal. He believed that if a sea-level canal worked when constructing the Suez Canal, it must work for the Panama Canal.
As I understand it, Laissez-faire ideology maintains that the "free market" is the best way to determine what businesses can and should do. This means that businesses, in competition with one another, should be free to determine their paths free from any government rules or regulations. The belief is that the competition among various businesses will ultimately result in the best outcomes for society in general - Adam Smith's "invisible hand". As part of this philosophy, workers should also be free to compete with each other and choose to work wherever they wish and this process will also result in the best results for the workers as well.
However, isn't there a huge assumption in this philosophy? Doesn't the whole justification of this belief depends on the condition that there is perfect competition and that any company and any worker have the equal ability to compete with one another?
What if there is no perfect competition? What if some companies have advantages - due to any of a whole array of reasons - that place them in a non-competitive position vis a vis their competitors? Without perfect competition then other companies are not necessarily able to compete with other companies that have certain advantages. If such a situation exists, then advantaged companies may have the ability to pursue a course that results in their private benefit, but not necessarily to the benefit of society as a whole. The same would apply to workers in that reduced competition among companies would result in decreased leverage for potential employees.
To recap, if the Laissez-faire ideology maintains the best economic policy for society as a whole, and it depends on there being perfect competition on an ongoing basis with minimal government intervention, doesn't it fall apart if there is less than the perfect competition?
