Incremental Thinking: "The Lack of a Budgetary Theory"

Editor's Note: More than 40 years ago. V.O. Key identified the basic budgeting question as: ”On what basis shall it be decided to allocate x dollars to activity A instead of activity B?“ Despite decades of budgetary research and innovation, the question remains unanswered and probably unanswerable. As Key recognized, a solution to this problem would constitute a full-blown theory of government. Although neither Key nor others have provided a firm answer to this basic question. Key's article is a valuable reminder that budgeting is much more than technique. This lesson is immediately forgotten when the latest reform comes to market promising a neat formula for dividing the budget pie. The lesson is relearned again when administrative and political pathologists seek cause and effect for the failure of the most recent promising innovation.     

Investigation of the short-time autolysis of rat hearts by means of SDS. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and electron microscopy.

The short-time autolysis of hearts was regarded as a model of ischaemic heart failure. Therefore, isolated rat hearts were subjected to 30--120 min autolysis in a Locke solution at 37 degrees C. Electron microscopic examinations and myofibrillar preparations were made from the autolysed heart ventricles. The myofibrillar proteins were resolved by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. After 30 min autolysis the amount of a protein of 192,000 daltons greatly increased. At the same time on the electron micrographs the focal destruction of filament destruction on the A filament area and the mitochondrial structure altered too. After 60 min autolysis another protein of 36,400 daltons appeared. On the electron micrographs the focal desintegration of Z membranes and the focal destruction of I filaments can be observed. After 120 min autolysis further proteolytic products could not be detected by gel electrophoresis but on the electron micrographs the destruction of Z membranes and I filaments became more pronounced.     

Class conflict and fairness in “democratic capitalism”

This paper studies the distribution of income, class formation, deformation and conflict, and fairness in a political economy combining basic features of capitalism with certain democratic institutions determining the wage level by voting.