[lbo-talk] Possible Bright Side?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Nov 11 07:21:39 PST 2004



> November 10, 2004
>
> The Reelection [sic] of George W. Bush
> A Possible Bright Side?
> By JOSHUA FRANK
> http://www.counterpunch.org/frank11102004.html
>
> We are nearing the end of 2004. And if there has been one lesson that we
> should have all learned this year it is that the U.S. electoral system
sets
> all challenges to the power-elite up for a horrifying defeat. Hence the
> reason so many liberal and progressive voters deemed John Kerry our only
> hope for defeating George W. Bush this November. Faulty logic indeed.\

I think this article itself is an example of faulty logic aka rationalization. The main fallacy of rationalization is confusing possible with actual. Mr. Frank tells us that actual victory of Mr. Bush can have a possible positive, from a left's point of view, outcomes. By the same logic, developing pneumonia in July and being hospitalized as a result is not such a bad thing, after all, because otherwise the person may go on vacation and die in a car crash or drown in a lake. This is the crux of religion in its capacity of opiating the masses - basically telling people that whatever happens, does so for a reason. Argument like that are a sad testimony that human mind can be our worst enemy.

Of course, Mr. Frank would deny that accusation and point out to passages in his piece calling for an action, but his call for an action is of the same kind as that called for by religion - wishful thinking. The left variety of such wishful thinking is a call for a mass millenary movement, the religionist version of it is prayer. But both have about the same chance of making the object of that thinking actual.

Public policy and policy outcomes are an extremely complicated matter that received considerable research attention. Although there is no consensus in that area, one school of thought that I find particularly appealing due to its explanatory potential is called "garbage can argument." In short, the argument holds that under conditions of multiple stakeholders with different agendas, and open input/output process (i.e. both the set of stakeholders directly involved in the process and the expected outcomes of that process vary over time) - the decisions reached by that process are such that satisfice (i.e. meet the minimum acceptability criteria) the interests of the stakeholders directly involved in making that decision at a particular time. However, that decision will be publicly rationalized (i.e. ex post facto justified) in term of the shared ideology, such as efficiency if the process involves a business firm, or public interests/demo9cracy if it involves politics.

Another useful perspective on this issue is the path dependence theory. It claims that initial choices and decisions make it more likely that the subsequent choices would be of the same kind, rather than following a different path. It is so, because those initial choices alter the transaction cost structure (i.e. the cost of doing business) in such a way, that following the already established path offers significantly lower transaction costs than starting a new one.


>From that point of view, policy outcomes will not change that much with a
change of the administration, because administration is only one of many stakeholders and thus it must satisfice the interests of other stakeholders (i.e. political interest groups). That does not mean that administration change has no effect, but that such change per se does not produce any dramatic changes in the outcome.

Expecting dramatic policy changes is a delusion created by the drama of the political process. The candidates vie for public support by dramatizing their positions and differences between these positions. That leads many observers to believe that such dramatized differences will translate into dramatic policy shifts. In reality, however, they will likely result in relatively minor adjustments to the current course - which is an outcome of multiple and vested interests, as the garbage can and path dependency theories claims.

The disservice of the literary genre exemplified by Mr. Frank's piece is that it, like religion, offers a false promise that if you are a firm believer say all the right prayers and do all the right rituals, you will be handsomely rewarded for your devotion. This is a delusion that not only leaves nowhere, but actually discourages people from pursuing realistic policu goals and realistic changes.

Wojtek



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