If the late great Kavanaugh nomination hasn't persuaded you, I am here to say that politics is all about tribalism. My tribe against your tribe. My good guys against your bad guys. My good citizens against your crazed rapists and drunkards.
Obviously the tribal impulse to rally together to face an existential peril is a basic human instinct. We see it in its less military aspect in the way that humans all band together and help each other in the aftermath of a natural disaster, like a hurricane. Think Cajun Navy: there are a bunch of guys out there that are longing for a chance to use their waterborne power equipment to help rescue their fellow man from watery disaster. And God Bless Them.
The problem is normal times. When there is no existential peril that requires All Good Men to join together to fight the foe. What are the great heroes going to do then?
The answer is obvious. They make it up.
Well, not the Cajun Navy. In between hurricanes hey just go about their regular business searching out the wily bass hiding out in the bayous.
Back to the "heroes." Remember back in the early 2000s after 9/11? I remember a thoughtful Bill Clinton regretting that there had been no war, no emergency, on his watch. He realized that without such an emergency there was no chance for him to be rated among the bestest of presidents. Great presidents are all associated with wars.
So, you can see that for the average politician or political activist there is a problem. Imagine the world chuntering away in peace, with 3 percent growth and no wars and no hurricanes and nothing threatening except the odd meteorite flashing across the Siberian sky.
Do you see the problem? In such a world there is no need for government. No need for armies. No need for activists. No need for "peaceful protests." No need for heroic figures rallying their people to face the existential peril.
Oh no!
But there must be existential peril! Otherwise ambitious young men and women that imagine themselves in an heroic pose are going to have to get a job.
And, let me tell you, that is much more difficult and challenging than getting money from billionaires like George Soros and Tom Steyer so you can do activism.
Hey, I know. How about we gussy up the existential peril of climate change. Let's fight climate change and let's send all the skeptics and deniers opposed to spending trillions of dollars on renewable energy to Coventry.
How about we all rally against toxic masculinity? There's a problem that has been festering throughout history and nobody has done anything about it.
Look, I don't doubt that there are real problems out there that cannot be solved but by politics and government.
But remember this. When you decide to solve a problem with politics and government you are going to get tribal. You are choosing a mode of action that requires you to divide people into Us and Them. You are going to call the people opposed to your initiative as wrong, and maybe as evil. Your supporters are likely to get a bit overexcited and characterize the people opposing you with vile pejoratives.
The question: Is the problem really that serious and that certain that only the moral equivalent of war can solve it? Is the social division that results from any political campaign really worth it? Is the additional taxation and regulation and law enforcement really worth it?
And suppose that your grand plan doesn't work? See the thing about the private sector is that, if you propose something that doesn't work then your project disappears beneath the waves into bankruptcy or liquidation. Or you get taken over by some other corporation for nickels and dimes. But what about your political project? Would you ever admit that you were wrong? Could you ever admit you were wrong? Would you ever consent to repealing your beneficial legislation? Or reversing the Supreme Court precedent? Or abolishing the government department you set up to fight the existential foe?
It all comes down to this. When you believe in the need for political action, you are calling for tribalism. You are forming a tribe of people calling for "action." That is what the supporters of Christine Blasey Ford did. They formed a tribe of people that demanded everyone believe her story. And, lo and behold, the supporters of Brett Kavanaugh mustered up into an opposing tribe, full of all kinds of reasons why Ford was not to be believed. And a jolly good time was had by all damning the other side to eternal perdition.
Is that the best we can be?
Now it is my belief that the last two centuries constitute an astonishing social experiment. In this experiment the usual supremacy of the ruling class was diminished, more by accident than design, and all kinds of nobodies designed and marketed products and services that they offered up on the market for other people to buy. No, no, said young rich kids like Marx and Engels, it will all end in "immiseration." We must reassert the supremacy of political power -- with the right kind of people in charge, of course -- and beat back the social and economic disaster that is coming.
Only the disaster didn't come. Instead, wherever the price system obtained, and wherever a socialist ruling class did not obtain, real per capita income has increased by 30 times over the last 200 years.
You would think with such an unexpected and unsought result that people would be hesitant about proposing political and government solutions to social problems. In fact the opposite is true. Every young rich kid seems to have some sort of a social initiative that he or she is anxious to impress upon us.
The fact that people, especially ruling-class people, have not reduced their demands for government power is telling.
Could it be that anyone interested in politics is necessarily anti-market? And necessarily against letting people get on with their lives without intense ruling-class supervision? Could it be that anyone with political ambition necessarily is looking for some existential peril requiring government action, and that if they can't come up with an existential peril they will inevitably invent one?
You may well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
Obviously the tribal impulse to rally together to face an existential peril is a basic human instinct. We see it in its less military aspect in the way that humans all band together and help each other in the aftermath of a natural disaster, like a hurricane. Think Cajun Navy: there are a bunch of guys out there that are longing for a chance to use their waterborne power equipment to help rescue their fellow man from watery disaster. And God Bless Them.
The problem is normal times. When there is no existential peril that requires All Good Men to join together to fight the foe. What are the great heroes going to do then?
The answer is obvious. They make it up.
Well, not the Cajun Navy. In between hurricanes hey just go about their regular business searching out the wily bass hiding out in the bayous.
Back to the "heroes." Remember back in the early 2000s after 9/11? I remember a thoughtful Bill Clinton regretting that there had been no war, no emergency, on his watch. He realized that without such an emergency there was no chance for him to be rated among the bestest of presidents. Great presidents are all associated with wars.
So, you can see that for the average politician or political activist there is a problem. Imagine the world chuntering away in peace, with 3 percent growth and no wars and no hurricanes and nothing threatening except the odd meteorite flashing across the Siberian sky.
Do you see the problem? In such a world there is no need for government. No need for armies. No need for activists. No need for "peaceful protests." No need for heroic figures rallying their people to face the existential peril.
Oh no!
But there must be existential peril! Otherwise ambitious young men and women that imagine themselves in an heroic pose are going to have to get a job.
And, let me tell you, that is much more difficult and challenging than getting money from billionaires like George Soros and Tom Steyer so you can do activism.
Hey, I know. How about we gussy up the existential peril of climate change. Let's fight climate change and let's send all the skeptics and deniers opposed to spending trillions of dollars on renewable energy to Coventry.
How about we all rally against toxic masculinity? There's a problem that has been festering throughout history and nobody has done anything about it.
Look, I don't doubt that there are real problems out there that cannot be solved but by politics and government.
But remember this. When you decide to solve a problem with politics and government you are going to get tribal. You are choosing a mode of action that requires you to divide people into Us and Them. You are going to call the people opposed to your initiative as wrong, and maybe as evil. Your supporters are likely to get a bit overexcited and characterize the people opposing you with vile pejoratives.
The question: Is the problem really that serious and that certain that only the moral equivalent of war can solve it? Is the social division that results from any political campaign really worth it? Is the additional taxation and regulation and law enforcement really worth it?
And suppose that your grand plan doesn't work? See the thing about the private sector is that, if you propose something that doesn't work then your project disappears beneath the waves into bankruptcy or liquidation. Or you get taken over by some other corporation for nickels and dimes. But what about your political project? Would you ever admit that you were wrong? Could you ever admit you were wrong? Would you ever consent to repealing your beneficial legislation? Or reversing the Supreme Court precedent? Or abolishing the government department you set up to fight the existential foe?
It all comes down to this. When you believe in the need for political action, you are calling for tribalism. You are forming a tribe of people calling for "action." That is what the supporters of Christine Blasey Ford did. They formed a tribe of people that demanded everyone believe her story. And, lo and behold, the supporters of Brett Kavanaugh mustered up into an opposing tribe, full of all kinds of reasons why Ford was not to be believed. And a jolly good time was had by all damning the other side to eternal perdition.
Is that the best we can be?
Now it is my belief that the last two centuries constitute an astonishing social experiment. In this experiment the usual supremacy of the ruling class was diminished, more by accident than design, and all kinds of nobodies designed and marketed products and services that they offered up on the market for other people to buy. No, no, said young rich kids like Marx and Engels, it will all end in "immiseration." We must reassert the supremacy of political power -- with the right kind of people in charge, of course -- and beat back the social and economic disaster that is coming.
Only the disaster didn't come. Instead, wherever the price system obtained, and wherever a socialist ruling class did not obtain, real per capita income has increased by 30 times over the last 200 years.
You would think with such an unexpected and unsought result that people would be hesitant about proposing political and government solutions to social problems. In fact the opposite is true. Every young rich kid seems to have some sort of a social initiative that he or she is anxious to impress upon us.
The fact that people, especially ruling-class people, have not reduced their demands for government power is telling.
Could it be that anyone interested in politics is necessarily anti-market? And necessarily against letting people get on with their lives without intense ruling-class supervision? Could it be that anyone with political ambition necessarily is looking for some existential peril requiring government action, and that if they can't come up with an existential peril they will inevitably invent one?
You may well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
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