Looking at the Society as an Economist - Essay Sample

Introduction

Adam Smith proposed the market model of looking at the society from an economist's point of view. He raised issues surrounding both the individual and the market economic behavior that brought out the underlying connection to morality and psychology. This entailed understanding how individuals apply reason in the choices that they make. Exploitation of opportunity and competition are the drivers of a market economy in which different individuals participate in the production process through the division of labor aided by self-interest (Smith). Production will help meet the social needs of the people as long as producers fulfill their self-interest of profits. On the other hand, Gary Becker opines that the society can be viewed through the economic or rational choice that revolves around individual behavior where people tend to rationally asses the gains and risks of engaging in a given economic activity. Although this perspective is based on individual choices, it focuses on the micro or macro levels of the economy. The rational individual choice of each consumer is combined with factors like market equilibrium, technology, and opportunities to help establish the behavior of clustered groups (Becker).

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The perspectives of both these economists are similar yet different in various aspects. Both Smith and Becker agree on the power of individual choice that is largely influences the human behavior. They also agree that there is a need to exploit available opportunities by leveraging on existing or expected market conditions. However, the conspicuous difference in making rational choices under the Smith perspective is that it stimulates production within an economy with each person manufacturing a different item to be consumed by the other. Becker sees individual choice as a basis for human behavior that can be used to predict their consumption behavior.

The Idea of What Politics, the State, and Doing Politics Are

Max Weber believes that politics as a concept revolves around having an independent leadership in action to an extent that this leadership has influence on the society. As for the state, he also believes that this is an establishment that is founded on violence or physical force, and it is the fear of this violent or physical force that the state derives its legitimacy from the fear and obedience it creates among the people. Doing politics is now done in a professional approach as a vocation in which there are influential power brokers behind the throne or the power who contribute in calling the shots (Weber). It is the scheming and strategizing that the professional politicians who have taken politics as a vocation that forms the political aspect of the state and its politics. They ride on the legitimacy of the state bestowed upon it by the physical force to push the interests of the states through decisions that affect the daily lives of the people. On his part, Carl Schmitt asserts that the state is the political status of an organized entity of people confined in a given territorial unit. The state represents the ultimate authority to say the least. From a qualitative point of view, a state is superior and distinct from the society and the technicalities of its administration are referred to as politics. With this in mind, therefore, any force or authority that is strong enough to cluster a group of people against or in support of a common cause is the political (Schmitt). It canvasses many facets of life that include the moral, ethical, religious, or economic organization. If the religious leaders organize an action supporting or opposing a certain stand through their followers, then this effectively becomes the political because it is a particular interest competing against another.

Connection Found Between an Economic and a Political View of the World

There is a clear connection between the economic and political perspective of the universe. The majority of the economists, led my Adam Smith, believed in an economic perspective that promoted a market economy. In this regard, it is upon the political aspect of the state and doing politics to create a conducive environment that would allow for a market economy to thrive. A market economy involves the free entry and exit of firms in a given state without any restrictions or barriers to entry. A market economy, with the state and the political taking a back seat in what economists called the invisible hand, ought to thrive with as minimal interference from the state as possible (Smith). The professional politicians have a duty of letting the forces of demand and supply to reign in the market without any unfair regulations. As a legitimately installed entity capable of physical force that commands its legitimacy and obedience from the people, the state may also adversely influence the economic fortunes of a country through the political. This would be the opposite of a market economy in which the economic aspects of the country are heavily regulated by the state. The state interference together with undue influence from the political are bound to stifle the economic fortunes of a given territory. In essence, the economic prosperity of any given state cannot be attained with the political interference of professional politicians, but rather with their behind-the-scenes facilitation.

Works Cited

Becker, Gary S. The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. Print.

H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Translated and edited), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 77128, New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. Speech.

Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Internet resource.

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. New York: Cosimo Classics, 1776. Print.