Living with a political barometer

Interesting related post (0.00 / 0)

from Matt Yglesias:

There are many more people in America who are proud to think of themselves as "conservatives who side with conservatives against moderates" than there are people who are proud to think of themselves as "liberals who side with liberals against moderates." What's more, rich people have much more voice in the political system than poor people; businesses have more voice than labor unions; old people have more voice than young people; Fox has a bigger primetime audience than MSNBC; conservative talk radio has a (much) bigger audience than liberal talk radio; etc.

Not saying this is right, just saying that this is our reality.  How do we talk to these people?  I have been living with one for years, and I haven't figured it out.  

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Fri Dec 03, 2010 at 10:58:15 AM UTC

Permit me to put my Economists' hat on.... (0.00 / 0)

...In Economics, we call this "Rational Apathy."  

Most people want to know that when they take an aspirin, it's not going to kill them.  But those same people have no clue who the head of the FDA is, what's on their agenda this week, or what the approval or denial process is.  But that's *rational" for them not to know this:  the additional COST to them, personally, exceeds the additional benefit they can expect to get out of knowing those things.  Because even if someone spent their every waking moment knowing this stuff...the benefit is slight because they're one person in asocity of 350 million with little influence or power.

On the other hand, the pharmaceutical comanies are acting in a different paradigm.  They will hire dozens of well-paid lobbysists to know al these things. Why?  Because the potential ADDITIONAL BENEFIT from knowing exceeds the COST INCURRED in order to 'know.' Hence, we can expect that vested interests will almost always Capture the instruments of government.

Now translate this to political involvement.

To the average person, knowing all the machinations of government and politcis is an overwhelming task, when compared the basic tasks of daily life. The cost of 'knowing' exceeds the potential benefits of knowing...and actual activism is even more dismal.

Except, of course, for those few people who satisfy one of two criteria: (1) they are so passionate about an issue that the benefit of seeing change exceeds the cost of involvement; and (2) someone's life is personally affected by a government action, in which case, the benefit (to them)of involvement and change exceeds the cost of that involvement.

This is why the Tea Party is effective: it promises a PERSONAL benefit ("I'll lower YOUR taxes"), whereas the Progressive message is SO much harder to convey ("We'll help THOSE poor people.")

And that is why I wrote in another thread (and was quasi-crucified for it) that Democrats need to convey the value in specific actions to ALL people, and stop allowing themselves to be portrayed as a mere collection of interest groups.

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by: Tully Fitzsimmons @ Sun Dec 05, 2010 at 18:48:10 PM UTC