Sunday, February 27, 2005

Politics and Peppers

Wizbang: "The fact that Republicans don't always practice what modern conservatism preaches leave them vulnerable to an effective opponent. The problem is that the liberalism espoused by Democrats isn't really an alternative"

This comment
by Dave of The Glittering Eye is worth noting:
I think that this is making things way too complicated. The Democratic Party is having a problem on the national level because it is the party of Fordism. Fordism isn't, strictly speaking, socialism. It's the American response to socialism. Fordism is the combination of mass production, mass consumption, and intervention by government “experts” in management, labor, production, and consumption to keep the system in order.

The problem is that Fordism is collapsing everywhere under the combination of globalism and the intrinsic complications of the system itself. The machine is just too big and too complex for any expert to manage it effectively.
First, I don't see how this simplifies anything. Second, when we talk about Leftism/liberalism we mean it in a general way specifically to include socialism and its softer cousins like Fordism and Keynesism, etc.

The problem with Liberals is precisely that they do not see the connection between these softer forms and Socialism proper. One benefit of American Conservative political philosophy is that it rejects these forms on principle.

Still, it is a good point and we should remember the distinction. Plus, Dave knows a Scotch Bonnet when he sees one, so he's probably right.
[edit: see comments]

2 comments:

Endymion said...

Dave of litterig Eye Said:

I guess I was referring to John Leo's values analysis rather than Kevin's point. The simplification is that understanding what's going on doesn't require sorting out the values that Democrats do or don't stand for. For goodness sake, Democrats can't even do that (never have been able to).

In cities like Chicago where the Democratic Party's policies are working out pretty well, the Party's position is pretty secure. Where the policies aren't working out nearly as well particularly at the national level, the Party's fortunes aren't faring nearly so well.
Dave Schuler | Homepage | 02.27.05 - 11:54 pm |

Endymion said...

Endymion Said:

Ah, I see. Thanks for setting me straight there. You are certainly right that not having to argue values would simplify things. If the Democrats would readily abandon policies and strategies that do not work, they would have no crisis. Of course, you are also right in the sense that they lost because their policies are bad and that is all we really need to understand.

I always try to distinguish Democrats from Leftists, Liberals and Progressives because of this. The latter endorse policies based on ideological values in spite of failure. But again, if our political system is healthy enough those people will lose often enough. Thankfully, it is just barely so.
Endymion | 02.28.05 - 3:20 am |