Political parties in the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Political parties in the United States - Essay Example People are either in favor of the Democrats or the Republicans. Recently though, new movements are arising from the grassroots which seek to distance themselves from the influence of either parties but nevertheless carry some of intrinsic liberal or conservative political standpoints of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively. This may be attributed to the fact that satisfaction with how both parties have run the past and present administrations is very low. Whether this phenomenon would lead to the rise of new political parties that would present themselves as viable alternatives to the dominant ones as well as the minor groups in existence is a possibility that remains to be seen. One way of determining this possibility is by taking a look at the history of the establishment of the Democratic and the Republican parties. A study on their respective evolution as the country’s top political forces, which did not only shape opinions but national and international poli cies as well, would provide ideas on the future of American politics as well. At a glance the contradictions of the two parties may seem to have stalled the country in its efforts to advance further or to maintain its status as a world power. However, this brief study would also prove that is the said contradictions that served as factors in the changes that the country continues to experience. A review on the US Constitution would tell that that the nation’s Founding Fathers did not wish to see the country’s political system to be partisan in any way. Such an attitude against partisan politics however may well be considered as a natural reaction to the conditions of the times. Apparently, the nation was still young and unstable. While it had yet to strengthen itself internally, it was already facing threats from external forces. There were other countries in Europe that were interested in certain parts of its territory and there was also the danger of the British tryi ng to regain what pride and power it lost as a result of the American independence. The Federalist Papers No. 9 and 10 pointed out that factionalism and the emergence of opposing political groups would not be advantageous to the country. In Federalist Paper No. 10, however, James Madison explicitly wrote about what he perceived as the great disadvantage of a democracy. His assertion is that â€Å"a large republic is superior to a democracy because a large republic will have more qualified people whose talent will be pooled together, and it will be more conspicuous, thus reducing the chance for corruption.† (Scaros 41) Obviously, even as there were still no political parties at the time because these were basically discouraged, the ideas that would differentiate the basic principles of the Democrats and the Republicans had begun to emerge. In the last decade of the 1700s, the first two political parties emerged. In the study of political history, this was a period that was cal led the First Party System. The Federalist Part and the Democratic-Republican Party main line of contention was about the role of the national and federal government. The former strongly believed in a strong central government, emphasizing that this would result in administrative and fiscal efficiency. The latter, on the other hand considers a

Why traffic congestion is a classic example of the problem of Essay

Why traffic congestion is a classic example of the problem of externalities - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that traffic congestion is the most significant problem in a large number of cities of the world. Traffic congestion is regarded as an example of consumption externality. It is reported by the experts that negative externalities do take place when consumption or production of a good or service by one person imposes a burden of cost on the other people. The result which is achieved from such a scenario does damage the environment. Traffic Congestion produces negative externalities. The present research has identified that various external costs are imposed upon by journeys through cars in the forms of air pollution, traffic congestion, noise pollution, change in climate and accident.   Peaking is responsible for creating traffic congestion. Suppose that a road network is already running at its full capacity. At this kind of situation, if an additional car joins the network, then it is quite evident that it would result in the fall of an av erage speed of all the cars in that road network that in turn would increase the time of journey for all.   Beyond the full road capacity, the cost that a journey through a private car has to bear gets increased due to congestion as it creates more delays in time as well as larger costs of fuel. If an individual takes the decision to drive his/her car at the time of going to work, the ability of the decision actually makes the same road a bit more crowded.... All the additional costs are taken into account, such as extra costs of fuel. Negative externalities are always considered by the economists as undesirable because they help in creating inefficiencies. It simply implies that people indulge in driving even if they should not do so from a societal perspective. For instance, if one estimates that all the benefits of going for a drive including more comfort and more flexible journey surpass the costs of driving in the form of fuel costs and costs of maintenance, then the person would choose driving through personal car as the best mean for going out to work. But, in this calculation, the person has surely neglected some vital component: the costs for longer period which the person would impose on other commuters inadvertently. Thus traffic congestion becomes a classic example of the problem of externality. (Litman, 2003; Lindsey, 2006) 2. Consider the ways in which private motorists will respond to road charges and comment on the private motorists' price elasticity of demand for road use. According to the theory of demand, an increase in price of a normal good/service will cause a fall in the quantity demanded for that good. This logic holds true for the road use by private cars as well. Imposition of road charges implies that costs of road use will increase for private motorists. Given the same benefits derived from going out with a private car, road charges cause the average costs to rise. It will simply result in a fall in the road use by private motorists. They would now prefer to go with a bus or travel in some other time when congestion is lower. Thus the private motorists respond to a road pricing either by reducing the same road usage at peak