wow

"Perspective one" presents the idea of a "customer" of the government, and contrasts that with a the idea of a "citizen" of the country where that government exists.  The author apparently sees a contradiction there, but I don’t see it.  As American citizens, we own our government, and we also expect it to provide certain services to us.  I don’t see how the customer-like aspects of the relationship oppose or interfere with the citizen aspects.

He says we’ve gone from citizens to customers, who are only out to "satisfy our personal needs in the political marketplace."  But that’s half the point of our system; our elected officials are accountable to us, and we "shop" for the best ones every two years.  None of them are perfect, and "best" means the ones who will try to give us the most of what we want, and the least of what we don’t want.  If we feel that they haven’t served us well, then we give them the boot in two years and shop around for a better deal.

The author seems to be portraying that mentality as selfish and detrimental.  But most of the time, the invisible hand -- the idea that actions/behaviors/policies which benefit an individual tend to benefit the group as a whole -- proves just the opposite.  Individuals and organizations lobby the government when they want it to do something for them, something which will allow them more freedom, or allow them to be more successful in the marketplace.  But freedoms recognized are recognized for all (ideally/in most cases), and persons/organizations that are successful tend to benefit society as well, by creating jobs, paying more money in taxes, and charitable donations (Bill Gates for example donates amazing amounts of money to various charities).  And in the long term, you see effects like higher standards of living; the poorest people in America are better off than the majority of average-income people in many other countries.