system of government can also make mistakes, either by enacting policies that do not benefit society as a

whole or by failing to enact policies that would have benefited society as a whole. This chapter discusses some

practical difficulties of democracy from an economic point of view: we presume the actors in the political

system follow their own self-interest, which is not necessarily the same as the public good. For example, many

of those who are eligible to vote do not, which obviously raises questions about whether a democratic system

will reflect everyone’s interests. Benefits or costs of government action are sometimes concentrated on small

groups, which in some cases may organize and have a disproportionately large impact on politics and in other

cases may fail to organize and end up neglected. A legislator who worries about support from voters in their

district may focus on spending projects specific to the district without sufficient concern for whether this
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