I'm a new diarist to DailyKos, so I wanted to start by simply getting some points out there, and then later expanding these ideas into full diaries in and of themselves.
- I'm a big fan of understanding the link between language and thought, thus I am a fan of "framing" and want to look into some terminology related issues of politics in the US; which I also think is related to education and especially the hard sciences.
- I'm a political economist (the field which combines political science and economics) and one interesting theory we have is from Olson's book The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities.
- I'm a fan of technocratic reform, thus I have some things to say about this.
- I'm also a traditional economist, thus I hope to defend my field to some degree, especially about trade.
- I also live in Europe right now, so electoral reform is another issue for me.
More on these points on the flip side.
- If any of you have studied University level math, you might have come across set-theory. The theory of sets is an excellent lexicon to describe many phenomena in real life, and I often find myself resorting to set theory to explain an idea I have about voting patterns, or budgetary politics. I'm lucky to be in England right now, because they teach Math to a much higher degree than in the US, and thus people here can often understand me.
My proposal is twofold: first is to teach more subjects which utilize precise language, and force students to be precise as well. I think anyone can relate to the vagaries of language that are necessary in the soft-subjects (English, social studies, drama, etc.) but in the hard sciences like physics, math, or biology, language is another tool and must be used like a tool. I think that teaching these subjects should be done more often (K-12 and at Universities), using precise language, and it should force the students to be precise as well. Better education in these areas would provide citizens with better logical abilities to dissect sound-bites and illogical statements of our leaders. Something I think we all agree would be nice right about now.
Second is that "framing" is a fact of life. As much as people are upset about needing 10-second soundbites for TV and want politicians to explain their positions in reasoned arguments, the fact is that 10-second soundbite are all you get these days. The amount of space that the media gives to each argument has plummeted in the last 200 years. Do you realize that Federalist 10, published anonymously in many newspapers at the time, is 3000 words long? That's a full college essay these days; way too much for busy people. So unless you think you can change the media, we have to accept the current atmosphere of short messages, and we had better start our own. We just lost the debate on funding the War in Iraq, precisely because we lost the battle of rhetoric.
- My second point is almost entirely from this book. Basically I suggest reading this book, but failing that, here is my summary of his thesis: in any political system, particularly representative democracies with freedom to petition the government (lobbying), he claims that there is always an incentive to get the government to assist/subsidize a particular interest group, and so that group will organize to get that assistance/subsidy. Since small groups are easier to organize than larger groups, the costs are diffuse (taxes) and the benefits are felt directly by a few (the interest group), they will usually succeed in getting what money they want. Going farther, over time there will be more and more of these groups, each taking from all of us, and directing the profits to themselves. Just something to think about in the context of political parties, agribusiness subsidies, steel-tariffs, oil companies, car manufacturers, etc.
- My point about technocratic reform is more like a correction of GWB's policy of replacing competent employees with partisan hacks. I think the Democrats should be hammering this point a lot more, especially the Presidential candidates. A quote along the lines of "I'll hire anyone who is a respected expert in the area, and if there is consensus on the best way to handle this issue, I'll follow the experts' advice." We could use this a lot for the EPA, DOJ, FDA, etc. After firing the Generals who disagreed with him, Monica Goodling, and the plan-B debacle, this point should be salient to everyone. Maybe this talking-point won't hit home with everyone, but I know that most college-educated voters would appreciate it if they thought that experts were running the country, rather than the GOP's political operatives.
- I've already posted on the forums and had some nice conversations about economics and trade in particular. I hope to continue this, but I warn you about my bias up front: I study economics, work with economists, and generally do not think that they are wrong about everything. My biggest complaint is that I feel like economists are treated analogously to government employees who study the climate, only those who tow the right-wing line are given any prominence. In our field, there are a few big schools of thought, like neoclassical and neo-keynesians. Most economists I have ever met or read are not neoclassical; if you are like most people, then most of the economists you have ever heard of or read are probably neo-classical. The biggest difference between the two schools of thought (IMO) is that neo-classical economists believe that markets are self-correcting and can never be permanently in dis-equilibrium; neo-keynesians think that markets have failures and can be in dis-equilibrium. It's not the only difference, but I think you'll agree its a big difference. Here is my basic point about economics: Scientists don't try to plan a NASA launch with just what they learned in Physics 101, people should stop trying to run the economy with just what they learned in Economics 101.
- I'll keep this one short, since this is really one where the devil is in the details. We all know that the electoral college is a relic of the 18th century. If you know about vote reform, you might know about instant-runoff-voting, single-transferable-voting, and the many other systems. Here in Europe there are lots of discussions on this point, often without reference to the political advantage or disadvantage to a particular party. I support electoral reform because I think the two-party system in the US (combined with our esoteric party primary system, almost unique in the world) is a main part of why we get such silly politicians. Lots of places in the world have districts drawn up by non-partisan commissions, have elections in which voters' preferences translate into candidates who represent those preferences getting into office, and political systems where those preferences then become policy. Sound too good to be true? Well it is possible. I am not a Euro-phile who thinks the US should become Europe, we have plenty of things unique to the US which we are great in and of themselves, I just advocate a little Europeanizing of our political system.
Each of these points are under-developed and not fully argued or explained, but that was my point; I want to go back and write full diaries on each of these points, and others as they come up. If these ideas have been done before, I would appreciate it if anyone comments with links to those discussions; I've been a lurker on the front page for years, but just started to read the diaries and comments. Lastly: so, what do you think?