How Does the Governement Intersect With the Private Sector

 The government and the private sector intersect in many ways.  The economy and the government pretty much go together.  The government has to regulate the private sector in order to avoid large corporations taking advantage of people.  If the government did not regulate companies at all it would result in many employees being treated poorly and making incredibly low wages and in return the corporations would profit quite a bit.  Another thing that has to be regulated by the government would be the working conditions within the large corporations.  This is both for the employees and the public's well being.  For example meat packing plants need to be regulated in order to avoid certain health risks.  Another result of lack of regulation would be exploitation of child labor.

As the book explains throughout time workers , farmers and environmentalists challenged "business successfully and required the government to adopt policies that regulate markets" (the politics of power, p.66).  This is due to the fact that corporations were exchanging the well being of the environment and workers for a larger amount of profit.  The book also demonstrates that the government has had a hand in economic expansion for a long time.  One example of this is railroads, which contributed a major boost to the economy at the time.  This would not have been done without the government as a contributing party to the development of the railroads (the politics of power, p.67). Unemployment is really affecting the economy at the moment reaching heights of "over nine percent unemployment" (Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house).  With the help of the government unemployment rates can hopefully be reduced by creating jobs, and therefore improving the economy (Fox News).

References:

"The Politics of Power"- Ira Katznelson, Mark Kesselman, Alan Draper.
On the Issues at CPAC: Jobs and the Economy <http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/02/11/issues-cpac-jobs-and-economy>