Last night I heard the author talk on this book: The Business of America is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate. The audience was mostly DC policy wonks and related academics. The talk and responses to it made me realize that most policy folks, and most ordinary people as well, don’t actually like democracy that much. Let me explain.
The easiest way to track it would be to follow the money-where does most of the money go? Usually it's the GOP though no doubt the Dems have figured out how to be competitive in the arm's race in recent years.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. On CNBC they take it as an article of faith that of course stocks will go up if the Republicans win the latest election.
Have the universities any hope in succeeding at being (perceived as) unbiased in an environment where evolution and GW are seen as loaded issues, not scientific fact?
The inherent factor that makes it impossible to democratically limit decision-making by the masses to questions of value-based priority is the practical inextricability of normative and factual considerations.
Homo hypocritus conceals its normative positions in an analytic garb.
Well if any institution ought to at least TRY to be unbiased, it's universities.
GMU is the only secular university I'm aware of that has officially rejected this premise. [Perhaps the rationale is compensatory--but that supports PDJ's thesis that overall balance is what's important.]
Well if any institution ought to at least TRY to be unbiased, it's universities. No one really expects it of Michelin Tires, whose modus operandi precludes meditating broadly on social affairs.
Do we have to believe that there's any possible way for democracies to work well? I see a lot of energy directed into trying to design a government that, for the first time ever in history, will be highly effective at promoting human progress. Maybe, though, we should think of it more as a disease, and something where we should contain the damage as much as possible.
Maybe the U.S. has succeeded despite its government, rather than because of it. If so, then a "thick" democracy is likely better than a thin one, just because it disperses the power base. Best of all, though, is a general acknowledgment that there's no panacea to be found in putting the right people in Washington. There's also no need for there to be.
The standard rhetoric against academic and media bias tacitly assumes either that all institutions should be unbiased, or that all opinion formers should be. But the idea that all institutions should be unbiased is absurd, since you are never going to have a military that is 50% pacifist, or a business sector that is 50% anti capitalist. The idea that the business sector isnt in the opinion formation business is itself only true in that corporate lobying is a more direct means to the ultimate end of influencing policy, leapfrogging public opinion.
But if you have a variety of institutions with a variety of natural biases, then you overall balance is achieved naturally.
You really don't find it a very convincing argument that it's too hard to come up with a metric that's measurable against reasonable costs and that everyone would agree on?
I'm for limited thick democracy as well. I just thought it was a little spurious to claim that compression barely exists only because sometimes a politician decides to do something that goes against the ideology the ran on (party discipline greatly restricts such behavior for anyone who isn't a president, in parliamentary systems that would be everyone and oftentimes there isn't much of a choice).
While it currently does place those problems before voters, there's nothing inherent in democracy that says it's necessary. Rather than trying to adjust/educate/train voters to the problems, I'd rather adjust the problems to the voters.
Since politicians are extremely self-deceived people, your premise would have pessimistic implications for thin democracy.
I'm for thick democracy--where you don't rely so much on predicting politicians because the masses have more direct access to the levers of power. (Leaving aside how to obtain them.) Robin is too dismissive when he argues that inequalities would remain even if the power of the firms were curtailed. Of course they would, but they're dwarfed by today's specific power inequalities.
Or put it this way: what would you need to see to agree that it is obvious?
The easiest way to track it would be to follow the money-where does most of the money go? Usually it's the GOP though no doubt the Dems have figured out how to be competitive in the arm's race in recent years.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. On CNBC they take it as an article of faith that of course stocks will go up if the Republicans win the latest election.
So CNBC think it''s obvious
That isn't at all obvious.
But the point is firms are pro conservative
Have the universities any hope in succeeding at being (perceived as) unbiased in an environment where evolution and GW are seen as loaded issues, not scientific fact?
The inherent factor that makes it impossible to democratically limit decision-making by the masses to questions of value-based priority is the practical inextricability of normative and factual considerations.
Homo hypocritus conceals its normative positions in an analytic garb.
Well if any institution ought to at least TRY to be unbiased, it's universities.
GMU is the only secular university I'm aware of that has officially rejected this premise. [Perhaps the rationale is compensatory--but that supports PDJ's thesis that overall balance is what's important.]
Well if any institution ought to at least TRY to be unbiased, it's universities. No one really expects it of Michelin Tires, whose modus operandi precludes meditating broadly on social affairs.
Do we have to believe that there's any possible way for democracies to work well? I see a lot of energy directed into trying to design a government that, for the first time ever in history, will be highly effective at promoting human progress. Maybe, though, we should think of it more as a disease, and something where we should contain the damage as much as possible.
Maybe the U.S. has succeeded despite its government, rather than because of it. If so, then a "thick" democracy is likely better than a thin one, just because it disperses the power base. Best of all, though, is a general acknowledgment that there's no panacea to be found in putting the right people in Washington. There's also no need for there to be.
The standard rhetoric against academic and media bias tacitly assumes either that all institutions should be unbiased, or that all opinion formers should be. But the idea that all institutions should be unbiased is absurd, since you are never going to have a military that is 50% pacifist, or a business sector that is 50% anti capitalist. The idea that the business sector isnt in the opinion formation business is itself only true in that corporate lobying is a more direct means to the ultimate end of influencing policy, leapfrogging public opinion.
But if you have a variety of institutions with a variety of natural biases, then you overall balance is achieved naturally.
You really don't find it a very convincing argument that it's too hard to come up with a metric that's measurable against reasonable costs and that everyone would agree on?
I'm for limited thick democracy as well. I just thought it was a little spurious to claim that compression barely exists only because sometimes a politician decides to do something that goes against the ideology the ran on (party discipline greatly restricts such behavior for anyone who isn't a president, in parliamentary systems that would be everyone and oftentimes there isn't much of a choice).
While it currently does place those problems before voters, there's nothing inherent in democracy that says it's necessary. Rather than trying to adjust/educate/train voters to the problems, I'd rather adjust the problems to the voters.
The left wing are really thinking [doom laden chords] "balance is good"?
Since politicians are extremely self-deceived people, your premise would have pessimistic implications for thin democracy.
I'm for thick democracy--where you don't rely so much on predicting politicians because the masses have more direct access to the levers of power. (Leaving aside how to obtain them.) Robin is too dismissive when he argues that inequalities would remain even if the power of the firms were curtailed. Of course they would, but they're dwarfed by today's specific power inequalities.