Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/268

 ratio for many forms of private expenditure. Conse-' qnently people willingly tax themselves to enable govern- ment or a municipality to satisfy snch wants. At any time, therefore, in a perfect democracy the number, kind and intensity of the wants of the kind to be satisfied communally relatively to the number and average marginal intensity of the wants to be satisfied privately determines the extent to which people tax themselves. This economic nalysis shows that in a. democratically governed state the system of predetermined expenditnre ' , .e., the second system of finance outlined above, is adopted as a result of the balance between wants nost easily satisfied by commnnal effort and those most advantageosly satisfied by private action. The control of expenditnre is a setions eakness of the democratic system of government, precisely becanse expenditnre is made wishes 'of the people. reflects at any entirely in accordance dth the The action 'of the government one ime the wants and ideas of the people. The government may be better informed than the people, it may be more far-seeing; but it cannot act in opposition to thei wishes, or the government iu power will be replaced by another: consequently i acts with only the average intelligence and foresight of the people as a whole. The great majority of people have difficulty in managing their own private affairs satisfac- torily, nd the working classes, who must form the xna. jority of voters in any truly democratic community, often display decided want of foresight. It is no matter for surprise, therefore, if a popular government displays little foresight, and tends rather to expend money on the immediate needs o the community. Such an atti- tude is necessarily fatal to the interest of the fnture economic development of the country. What is needed is the preparation of a consisten program o development the realization of which will take twenty years or more.