Exercise 8.1
Should the government allocate more funds to healthcare and education or to defence and space exploration? Why or why not?
The book prints no answer for this
NCERT publishes no answers for this textbook, so there is nothing in the book to check this working against. It has also not yet been read through by hand.
What the task asks
Take your own reasoned stand on how a government should split limited funds between healthcare and education on one side, and defence and space exploration on the other. There is no single correct side.
Worked example — one defensible answer
Healthcare and education should get the larger share, though not all of it.
Government money comes from revenue from taxation and is limited, so this is a genuine trade-off and not a wish list.
The opportunity cost of a rupee spent on space exploration is the clinic or classroom given up. Health and schooling raise people's well-being directly, and the chapter says such decisions affect the well-being of people and society as a whole.
Healthier, better-educated people also become better labour, one of the chapter's four factors of production, so the money comes back into the economy.
Even so, defence and space cannot fall to zero. Ensuring safety and law and order is the government's job even in a market economy, and research spending builds technology, another factor of production.
A good answer must
State which side you favour in the very first line.
Give at least two reasons, and name opportunity cost as the reason a choice is forced at all.
Admit the strongest point on the other side.
Say openly that this is a judgement.