Politics and the economy

Lane Kenworthy, in Voters, groups, parties, and elections:

In a representative democracy, a key goal is to ensure that government is “for the people” — that it does what citizens want.

... to ensure that government does what citizens want. Of course. But a word of caution is in order.

Near the end of the must-see 1975 movie Three Days Of The Condor, there is a conversation between good guy Joe Turner (Robert Redford) and Higgins, the bad guy (Cliff Robertson).

Spoiler Alert: Maybe you should watch the movie before you finish reading this.

The conversation starts about 1:51 into the movie. Here's the relevant part:

HIGGINS: It's simple economics. Today, its oil. In 10 or 15 years it'll be food, plutonium. Maybe even sooner. What do you think the people will want us to do then?

TURNER: Ask them.

HIGGINS: Not now, then. Ask them when they're running out. Ask them when there's no heating. When their engines stop. When people who've never known hunger go hungry. They won't want us to ask them, they'll just want us to get it.

Higgins is talking economics. What he's doing, though, is politics: He's waiting for the economy to get bad enough that voters will vote the way he wants.