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Faramir -> RE: Hitler as a Leader (7/2/2005 8:57:42 PM)
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-The purpose of political leadership is to find creative solutions to the disparate, often contradictory needs of the electorate.
-The electorate knows what it wants, and is wise in a collective sense, because each individual knows their own tastes, and thus the aggregate decision of the electorate (in an election for example) represents the aggregate tastes of, and what every members wants, needs, fears and hopes. No matter how foolish or wise the individual members of the electorate are, in the aggregate the decision electorate reflects everyone’s voice, because even not voting is a choice. Thus every election result is “right.” The electorate, because it has access to everyone’s input, always makes the best choice, that is to say, the best of the available choices. The electorate is wise in the aggregate.
-Media cannot change people’s tastes – only advertise the menu. No matter how persuasive, how educated, how many charts and Harvard studies produced, no matter how uniform the pronouncements of editorial pages and nightly news shows, you can never convince a guy who likes steaks that he really likes fish instead.
There is immense bias in the media – and it is irrelevant, because the media’s only impact is on advertising the menu. The media cannot convince me I like fish instead of chicken. What it can do is advertise the menu enough for me to realize that candidate “A” is hawk and candidate “B” is dove and dove is closer to chicken than hawk. One candidate is marginally superior in this case because they are not what I want, but closer than the other candidate.
-There are two main imperatives within the electorate, each aimed at meeting the primary need of the electorate*: to produce and save against the vagaries of the planet. Everything else is secondary to the desire to ensure oneself and family are safe and can eat. The impulses are Redistribution and Growth. The electorate has a need to redistribute wealth and power to ease social tensions – great disparities in wealth and power, as well as the suffering of any portion of the electorate, awaken a need to share that is both a social/civil palliative, and reflects an understanding that “we are all in it together.” The electorate also needs growth, needs to allow individuals to take risk and allow for individual achievement and success. the impulse to redistribute and the impulse to allow personal risk taking and growth both help the electorate produce and save.
-These two impulses find their expression in the US, in the two party system in a “Mommy” party and a “Daddy” party. The Democratic Party is America’s "Mommy Party", concerned with the collective security of all of the members of society. The Republican Party is the “Daddy” Party, primarily concerned with risk-taking and individual opportunity and advancement. Thus each party is indispensable – a political Yin and Yang that is only whole and healthy when both imperatives are served. Political success can only be achieved by meeting both imperatives. Political system that allows individual success and risk taking, with no safety net of redistribution escalate in social tension (think of the Russian and French Revolutions). Political systems that do not allow individuals to succeed and pursue wealth have no production to redistribute – think of America in the 70’s or the failure of the Soviet experiment.
-These two imperatives embodied in two parties fosters compromise. Political leaders need to be able to come up with compromise policies that meet many needs, symbolized by compromise on the two main imperatives. The “best” political leader is the one who can allow for growth, while also meeting the redistributive impulse. Thus a Reagan, superior at growth, and at least moderate in redistribution, was superior to a Carter as a political leadership choice. A Clinton, superior at redistribution and growth could trounce a GH Bush and Dole.
Further, the US winner-take-all electoral college fosters even more compromise. Jude Wanniski:
quote:
“I've argued for several years that the EC is one of the chief reasons our government has lasted as long as it has and is now the only superpower. By forcing winner-take-all, permanent third parties cannot take root, because it is to the advantage of all interests groups to align with one party or the other in the presidential and the congressional races. I've compared it to the basic family unit, where there is two-party leadership in the husband and wife, father and mother. They must compose their differences before making family decisions and it is frequently the case that when the interests of the children are taken into consideration, the majority of the family members will "vote" in favor of the minority. Because of the EC, the United States is the only nation in the world with a two-party system that on the surface may seem to be more turbulent that those nations with many parties, but we finally do come to a conclusion every two and four years. In most of the rest of the world, it is only after the elections are held that coalitions are pieced together to manage the country.”
-All change takes place at the margin. A feather is nothing when we speak of thousand pound weights, but if you have a scale with a thousand pounds on each side, a featherweight, though miniscule in comparison, can tip the issue to one side. A given policy proposal or candidate does not need to be “good” or perfect to win – just marginally superior to the alternative. When you look at a candidate who won an election and you are just furious - how could that idiot have been elected! - look for the tiny, marginal difference that tipped the scales.
*There are of course other issues and imperatives – I am addressing the two most basic ones. I acknowledge that there are other things people care about – after they know they and their kids can eat.
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