Author : T. Alexander Smith
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1988
Category : Middle class
ISBN : UCAL:B4451303
Time and Public Policy by T. Alexander Smith Pdf
The role of time in human action has been largely ignored by political and social scientists. Yet, contends T. Alexander Smith, public policy outcomes are determined to a great extent by the manner in which people allocate their time 'resource.' During the past half-century, political ideologies, attitudes, and roles have increasingly penetrated nonpolitical areas of social and economic life. With the public's growing uncertainty about the future, Smith argues, this politicization has occasioned a fundamental shift in time horizons. Heightened demand for short-run gratification, at the expense of long-run goals, undermines the values and institutions that support a stable and democratic political order. Since currently proposed reforms fail to counter this impatience, they are likely to have deliterious rather than beneficial consequences for the system on which both our prosperity and our liberties are based.