Public interest in the context of State interventionism

A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private businesses or voluntary organisations, or by private businesses subject to government regulation. Some public services are provided on behalf of a government's residents or in the interest of its citizens. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income, physical ability or mental acuity. Examples of such services include the fire services, police, air force, paramedics and public service broadcasting.

Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, they are usually subject to regulation beyond that applying to most economic sectors for social and political reasons. Public policy, when made in the public's interest and with its motivations, is a type of public service.

A politician is a person who participates in policy-making processes, usually holding a position in a political party or an elective position in government. Politicians make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles or duties that politicians perform vary depending on the level of government, whether local, state, or national. The ideological orientation that politicians adopt often stems from their previous experience, education, beliefs, the political parties they belong to. They try to shape public opinion accordingly.

Politicians sometimes face many challenges and mistakes that may affect their credibility and ability to persuade. These mistakes include political corruption resulting from their use and exploitation of power to achieve self interest. Ideally they prioritize the public interest over their own profit. Challenges include how to keep up with the development of social media and confronting opposition media, in addition to discrimination for or against them on the basis of gender or race.

Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize social policy and public policy to be two separate, competing approaches for the same public interest (similar to MD and DO in healthcare), with social policy deemed more holistic than public policy. Whichever of these persuasions a university adheres to, social policy begins with the study of the welfare state and social services. It consists of guidelines, principles, legislation and associated activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare, such as a person's quality of life. The Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics defines social policy as "an interdisciplinary and applied subject concerned with the analysis of societies' responses to social need", which seeks to foster in its students a capacity to understand theory and evidence drawn from a wide range of social science disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, geography, history, law, philosophy and political science. The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University describes social policy as "public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor". Social policy might also be described as actions that affect the well-being of members of a society through shaping the distribution of and access to goods and resources in that society. Social policy often deals with wicked problems.

The discussion of 'social policy' in the United States and Canada can also apply to governmental policy on social issues such as tackling racism, LGBT issues (such as same-sex marriage) and the legal status of abortion, guns, euthanasia, recreational drugs and prostitution. In other countries, these issues would be classified under health policy and domestic policy.

The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their private property. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is credited as a significant precedent for the legal protection of individual property rights.

A right to property is specified in Article 17 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it is not recognised in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The 1950 European Convention on Human Rights acknowledges a right for a natural or legal person to "peaceful enjoyment of his possessions", subject to the "general interest or to secure the payment of taxes."

Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of democratic socialism, a robust welfare state, policies promoting social justice, market regulation, and a more equitable distribution of income.

Social democracy maintains a commitment to representative and participatory democracy. Common aims include curbing inequality, eliminating the oppression of underprivileged groups, eradicating poverty, and upholding universally accessible public services such as child care, education, elderly care, health care, and workers' compensation. Economically, it supports income redistribution and regulating the economy in the public interest.

A market intervention is a policy or measure that modifies or interferes with a market, typically done in the form of state action, but also by philanthropic and political-action groups. Market interventions can be done for a number of reasons, including as an attempt to correct market failures, or more broadly to promote public interests or protect the interests of specific groups.

Economic interventions can be aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives, including but not limited to promoting economic growth, increasing employment, raising wages, raising or reducing prices, reducing income inequality, managing the money supply and interest rates, or increasing profits. A wide variety of tools can be used to achieve these aims, such as taxes or fines, state owned enterprises, subsidies, or regulations such as price floors and price ceilings.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948.

Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". Pew operates projects and conducts research across five main areas: communities, conservation, finance and economy, governing, and health. In addition, the Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan public polling and think tank that operates as a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Government revenue or national revenue is money received by a government from taxes and non-tax sources to enable it, assuming full resource employment, to undertake non-inflationary public expenditure. Government revenue as well as government spending are components of the government budget and important tools of the government's fiscal policy. The collection of revenue is the most basic task of a government, as the resources released via the collection of revenue are necessary for the operation of government, provision of the common good (through the social contract in order to fulfill the public interest) and enforcement of its laws; this necessity of revenue was a major factor in the development of the modern bureaucratic state.

Government revenue is distinct from government debt and money creation, which both serve as temporary measures of increasing a government's money supply without increasing its revenue.

A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a group that usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and the public interest. In the United States, such an association is typically a nonprofit business league for tax purposes. In the UK, they may take a variety of legal forms.

A charitable organization, or charity, is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).

The legal definition of a charitable organization (and of charity) varies between countries and in some instances regions of the country. The regulation, the tax treatment, and the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations also vary. Charitable organizations may not use any of their funds to profit individual persons or entities. However, some charitable organizations have come under scrutiny for spending a disproportionate amount of their income to pay the salaries of their leadership.

The invisible hand is a metaphor inspired by the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the incentives which free markets sometimes create for self-interested people to accidentally act in the public interest, even when this is not something they intended. Smith originally mentioned the term in two specific, but different, economic examples. It is used once in his Theory of Moral Sentiments when discussing a hypothetical example of wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, who wastes his wealth, but thereby employs others. More famously, it is also used once in his Wealth of Nations, when arguing that governments do not normally need to force international traders to invest in their own home country. In both cases, Adam Smith speaks of an invisible hand, never of the invisible hand.

Going far beyond the original intent of Smith's metaphor, twentieth-century economists, especially Paul Samuelson, popularized the use of the term to refer to a more general and abstract conclusion that truly free markets are self-regulating systems that always tend to create economically optimal outcomes, which in turn cannot be improved upon by government intervention. The idea of trade and market exchange perfectly channelling self-interest toward socially desirable ends is a central justification for newer versions of the laissez-faire economic philosophy which lie behind neoclassical economics.