ABSTRACT
Policies will be more damaging to agricultural interests, the larger the share personal consumption expenditures above subsistence are accounted for by non-labor income. Analogously, a useful theory of policy would identify observable characteristics of interest groups or their environment that can be linked to political results. Capital logic narrows down the requirements and needs of the ruling class, but it does not limit the ruling class from carrying out whatever policies it requires. An approach which Robert H. Bates finds to be helpful is the idea that governments act so as to promote the well-being of those who are in the government. The approach to which Bates is most favourably disposed, the “pluralist” approach, essentially views governmental activity as expressing the outcome of conflict between private interests who vary in political power. Bates is also very critical of the idea that governments act to promote the public interest, characterizing the idea as naive, wrong, and occasionally pernicious.
