The Economic Way of Thinking 13th Edition by David Prychitko, Peter Boettke, Paul Heyne

Exercise 14

Here is the opening sentence of a newspaper editorial lamenting the tiny turnout for a public hearing on improving the high schools in alarge U.S. city: "Given the number of people who complain about public education, it's amazing how few attend meetings to tell the schools how to do better." Is it really surprising that many complain, but few attend meetings?
(a) What is the cost of complaining? What is the cost of attending a meeting?
(b) What is the probability that a concerned citizen who spends an evening at a public hearing will actually be able to influence policies in a large urban school district?
(c) The relative benefit-cost ratios of complaining and attending would seem to provide an adequate explanation for the facts lamented by the newspaper editorialist. But how can we explain the behavior of "activists," those few people who seem always willing to turn out for meetings on even the most inopportune occasions? Are there satisfactions other than that of actually affecting public policy that people can obtain through political participation?