“Citizens won’t bother to inform themselves about public policy, especially the details. Given the lack of influence of a single vote, it doesn’t make sense for a non-specialist to invest the time. Olson says this is why we have a progressive income tax, obvious to all voters, and a lot of obscure loopholes that benefit the wealthy and influential. He notes that the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid to the old and the poor are publicized, not the fact that they are “implemented or administered in ways that resulted in large increases in income for prosperous physicians and other providers of medical care” because “the many smaller choices needed to implement these programs are influenced primarily by a minority of organized providers.”
Chapter 3:It takes a long time for special interest groups to form. Olson cites the fact that it was in 1851, a century after the start of the Industrial Revolution, that the first modern trade union formed in Britain. The longer that a society remains stable, the more freighted down with special interest groups it becomes.
The president of the U.S. would like to see greater economic efficiency in the U.S. as a whole. Individual congressmen, however, will push for pork-barrel legislation that benefits their district even if the cost to the overall economy is hundreds of times greater than the benefit (their constituents will pay 1/435th of the cost and receive 100 percent of the benefit). This leads to a perennial conflict between the president and Congress.”
