So, how do you prefer your politics...?

[2ndRateMind]

...Pragmatic or ideological?

This question was prompted by Janet Daly, a panelist on a BBC current affairs program, (and allegedly a zionist jew, if that matters to you at all) who remarked recently in an aside that she thought a return in Britain to ideological politics to be a 'good' thing.

I am not so sure. The problem of ideological politics is that it feeds prejudice. The advantage of pragmatic politics is that politicians are free to do what works, irrespective of traditional ideological allegiances, and can be held accountable by various metrics if their policies do not work. So, for example, such metrics might include such apolitical and objective relevancies as the number of children brought up in poverty, or mobility amongst the social classes, or the extent of the waiting list for hip replacement operations.

It seems to me that ideology is far more divisive in a society, and far less amenable to reasonable, rational debate, than pragmatic politics.

Here's an example to clarify: there is a belief that poor people get richer when rich people get richer, and this is the classic ideological defense of capitalism. But though that's unsubstantiated theory, many people vote on such comfortable, comforting and complacent beliefs, and deplore and denigrate those who do not share them. Pragmatism, meanwhile, is measuring whether or not that improvement of the common lot actually happens, and taking corrective action if it doesn't. Seems to me that 'evidence based polices' will beat blind ideological theory every time.

As always, your thoughts and comments are valued.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Divine Insight]

...Pragmatic or ideological?

I don't personally care for a dichotomy based upon these two terms. Pragmatism alone can he very heartless and cruel if not accompanied by an ideology of compassion.

So I prefer ideology. But there are many different ideologies. So to say that politics should be based on ideology does not necessarily mean that it should be based on the ideology of a specific religious dogma, etc.

I would simply argue for a more humanistic ideology.

Here's an example to clarify: there is a belief that poor people get richer when rich people get richer, and this is the classic ideological defense of capitalism.

This is also known as "trickle down economics". I have a very strong opinion on this topic.

There was a time in history when trickle down economics made a lot of sense. This is because products and technologies are very simple. Thus poor people could actually benefit from purchasing "used" products from the rich people. The poor people could then repair the products and get a lot of use from them for a significant amount of time. Thus expensive products became inexpensive for the poor people because the poor people could buy the "used" products, that are still "usable" at cheaper prices.

However, in the modern world of technology this is no long true. Products today are designed specifically to be "irreparable" without having very expensive high-tech tools and replacement parts. And even that may not help as many products are designed to either be thrown away after use, or they become so obsolete that they become useless even if a person was willing to use them.

So technologies, and manufacturing methods have cut off any viable "trickle down economics". Products made today simply aren't designed to "trickle down".

So the idea that we could ever go back to a viable "trickle down economy" can never work unless manufactures change their ways dramatically and start making low-tech produces that poor people can actually use and repair extremely cheaply.

It COULD work if the manufacturers would design things in this way. But manufactures aren't even remotely thinking of going in that direction. To the contrary they are moving away from that type of manufacturing at light speed.

In fact, they are moving away from reusable products at such a fast pace that even the rich people end up having to toss out perfectly "usable" products, simply because they have become obsolete and for this reason alone they are not longer "usable".

So this not only cuts off the "Trickle-Down" possibilities but it even forces the fairly rich people to continually spend additional money just to stay afloat. And many of them can't keep up, so they end up slipping down the tubes to become "poor people" themselves. And we see the proof of this is the quickly vanishing "middle class".

Even the "middle class" can't keep up with the fast pace of "throw away" technologies.

So forget about "Trickle Down", that's an ancient concept that worked to some degree in the past, but isn't likely to ever work again unless manufacturers change their ways radically, which they show absolutely no signs of even thinking about, much less acting on.

~~~~~

Just as a side note: I'm actually all for a workable "Trickle Down Economy".

This idea could work if manufactures started producing lower tech products that would last a very long time without becoming obsolete and could be repaired by Do-it-yourself homeowners.

In other words, if we actually wanted to design a viable "Trickle Down Society", we could do it. It's a practical concept. But NOT as long as manufacturers are continually heading toward higher technologies, and "throw-away" products. Or products that become totally obsolete long before they physical wear out.

Our current manufactures simply aren't geared up for a "Trickle down economy". They are working very hard to go in precisely the opposite direction.

Their mentality is that the sooner their products become obsolete and unusable, the sooner the consumer will need to be a NEW ONE.

And only the RICH people can afford to continually buy NEW PRODUCTS.

So the poor people are left out in the cold with nothing. Even the obsolete products are useless to them.

Sorry for the long ramble, but this idea of "Trickle down economy" is a big issue for me. Like I say, I actually like the idea when it can work. I love to buy used junk and fix it up. I'm huge on DIY projects. But even I am finding that this is increasingly difficult because modern products simply don't loan themselves to inexpensive repair.

So you can't make trickle down work today even if you are willing to try very hard. It's just not feasible anymore.

[jgh7]

That kind of reminds me of a priori vs. empirical reasoning. I think there's a place for both in politics.

Our founding fathers used primarily ideology when shaping this country's Constitution. And today you'll always have ideology as the first motivator for politics. ex) The poor should be given additional benefits compared to richer classes in order to help them live better basic quality lives. But whether that ideology actually works is based off of pragmatic results. ex) The standard of living for the poor has gone up x% based off this particular aid rendered to them. So both ideology and pragmatism go hand in hand to me (as far as I understand this topic. I may be misinterpreting what is meant by pragmatism and ideology).

[Divine Insight]

I'm not sure about politics. But I can say with great confidence that manufacturing favors the manufacturers and not the consumers (whether the consumers are rich or poor).

However this is going to backfire on the manufacturers when they finally realize they no longer have any consumers to sell to. It's a dead-end economic strategy.

Can politics change this economic trend? Possibly so. But only by getting the manufacturers to come around to realizing that keeping the consumers financially healthy is in the manufacturer's best interest as well.

There are basically two ways that politics can achieve this goal.

1. The traditional way is to create legislation that forces the manufacturers to behave in a certain way. And that applies to both pragmatism or ideology.

Or

2. A very wise politician can lead the way by making this economical wisdom known and simply encourage the manufacturers to become more consumer friendly for their own benefit. Wise manufacturers may actually take the wisdom and run with it without forcing it on them with legislation. This is how a true "leader" leads a society.

Unfortunately our politicians are doing neither as they don't even seem to be aware of of what's causing our economic collapse. So, unfortunately, the most likely scenario will be financial collapse with everyone pointing fingers at each other to blame and none of them actually realizing what the actual problem even was.

What good is politics or government when the people running the government have no clue how to solve problems? It wouldn't really matter whether they adopt a philosophy of pragmatism or ideology, if they have no clue what's actually causing the problems then nothing they do will solve the problems anyway.