Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Practical idealism
Megan McArdle is rather good on the perpetual disappointment of ideological political activists (in this case referring to the dawning realization among "progressives" that they are going to have to settle for incrementalism rather than transforming the United States into France):
I belong to another small movement that is disproportionately politically active, and also, frequently toys with the lunatic belief that if only there were some structural change in the world, they'd finally get the opportunity to enact their agenda. Libertarians tend to moon over proportional representation and transparency initiatives. Right now, progressives are into cabinet appointments. But the underlying belief is the same, which is that if one could only get hold of some talisman, politicians would listen.
Politicians don't listen because they, unlike activists, know that polls lie. People say they want national health insurance. They also say they want lower government spending. But confront them with changing their insurance (with which they are, overwhelmingly, satisfied), or cutting Mom's Medicaid, and they change their minds. They will still tell you that they want national health insurance and lower government spending, but, you see, not that way, where "that way" is any feasible way to deliver their stated goal.
Politicians don't listen because progressive and libertarian activists are not pushing minor schemes to benefit themselves greatly at small cost to everyone else. They are pushing for radical change that will require radical fiscal medicine to effect. That fiscal medicine will not pass unnoticed, and hence, it does not happen.
This does not make me happy. It does not make me happy that I can't privatize social security and eliminate the corporate income tax, and it does not make me happy that I can't have radical agricultural reform and a stiff carbon tax. But the universe is not here to please me.
Well said.
2 Comments:
By 
Mystery Meat, at
Tue Dec 09, 02:54:00 PM:
Obama, like Alinsky, will take the Gramscian approach, which is to say socialist incrementalism. He will bend over backwards not to frighten the proles and his natural foes on the right. He is trying hard to make people believe he will base his administration on pragmatism, but down the line we will realize that a soft revolution has occurred.
By JPMcT, at
Tue Dec 09, 07:34:00 PM:
It's difficult not to believe that the catastrophic decline in cultural literacy that has occurred in this country over the past generation was not a politically based initiative.
We now have a voting public that has achieved levels of obtundity and flaccid logic that would have been impossible in years past.
The "soft revolution" may have already occurred!
We now have an electorate that is pliable enough to put a man in the White House based on sketchy speeches, buzzwords and media blather.
The hard work has already been done! The number of voters who have expressed the intention of harnessing the system to benefit themselves has OUTNUMBERED the number of voters who actually are charged with the financial support.
Even Socrates has written of this scenario...and has noted that it represents the ultimate flaw of the democratic process and portends end of a democracy.
