What Are the Arguments for and Against Intervention free essay sample

Government intervention takes many forms in numerous different situations. They range from taxation, regulation and legislation to providing child welfare, housing and other financial assistance programs to the people that it governs. ?Reasons for government intervention may include citizen protection, promoting social responsibility or paternalism, which happens when government attempts to manage the needs or control the conduct of individuals. ?Government intervention has its price, not only the financial costs of the intervention, but may include losses of individual freedoms and unintended consequences. This question will examine numerous areas in which the Government intervenes in and evaluate whether it does so in a positive or negative way. A conclusion will then be made to decide whether government intervention is an advantage or a disadvantage as a whole. One of the major areas in which the government intervenes is in business, for example by creating a minimum wage for all workers. ?This means that no matter the job and responsibilities, a worker must be paid at least a certain wage for the labour they provide to a company. We will write a custom essay sample on What Are the Arguments for and Against Intervention? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This can be considered to be an advantage of government intervention as it determines that anything lower than the minimum wage is not enough for a person to live on ?This is an also an advantage as the minimum wage also forbids workers from selling their labour at a lower rate, meaning that people cannot out-price the competition in terms of employability. One of the major areas in which the government intervenes is in banking, for example helping economic downturn lessen or stop completely through the use of bailouts. This means that many old standing businesses will remain thanks to tax incentives, with examples including Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley. ?This can be considered to be an advantage of government intervention as it means that fewer people will lose their jobs, as well as the public not losing their savings. ?This is also an advantage as it also provides much needed infrastructure work to the business to stop the situation from occurring again in the future and this is one of the largest areas that the bailout money goes to. One of the major areas in which the government intervenes is in the environment by introducing climate change policies, recycling bins and investment into the production of environmental friendly cars. ?They are designed to protect the environment, as well as the ozone layer and help cut down the needs for landfill. ?This can be considered to be an advantage of government intervention as it means that the effects of greenhouse gases can be frozen, plus it saves energy which helps tackle climate change. This is also an advantage as it lessens the impact on the environment and could help decrease the chance of extreme weather events such as flooding and drought . One of the major areas in which the government intervenes is in the agricultural sector of the economy by introducing price policies, direct payments and input policies. ?They are designed to help stabilize prices and give the native producers a chance to compete with foreign goods. This can be considered to be a disadvantage of government intervention as although they bring revenue into the government, in the end they hurt consumers and raise the prices of both imported and native goods. ?However, if the government did not interfere with prices it would force the native producers to lower their prices, giving the nations citizens a better deal in the market. The government uses taxes to collect money that it then spends in particular areas. ?Some of the money that it takes is used to fund other programs designed to protect the consumer and create jobs. ?This can be considered to be a disadvantage of government intervention as because of the money taken away from the consumer through taxes, there is less money movement in the economy. ?This money movement is what creates jobs in the economy, so each persons money lost to taxes helps fail to create their part of a job