there are economists like jerry becker and steve whitman that will argue, just like other markets, adam smith's invisible hand should work. competition should end up leading us to the best of all possible worlds because the group that has the most interest in a peaceful legislation will bid the most for the favorable legislation. i would argue there's too many examples to the contrary and olsen was one of the first to point this out. the key thing in politics is clinical clout and economic states do not correlate 1 - 1 with political clout. on optimality grounds, there is no reason why we should have sugar quotas. the damage done to american sugar consumers far exceeds the benefits to sugar producers. in addition to the damage we do to poor countries externally like katie in the philippines, but, but the political clout of producers outweighs the $55 each family in the united states loses from the actions of producers and the maintenance of those quotas. public goods, when i teach economics to students was one of the classic reasons why government should intervene, and from a purely eco