In discussions with people about economic matters, I often face the claim that the middle of the road “interventionist” mode is the pragmatic approach and that adhering to either ideological extreme (either socialism or laissez faire) is simply dogmatic.
How do I respond to such a claim? It sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? Only extremists occupy ideological positions. Inevitably, they will be dogmatic about their beliefs. The pragmatist does not cling to any ideology, is willing to consider any proposal on it’s own merits.
The pragmatist must be reasonable and right because he ocuppies the middle ground.
is it being dogmatically asserted that the ‘pragmatic’ approach is ‘superior’ to laissez-faire?
unless you are using a very particular technical definition of ‘ideology’ this sounds like a glaring howler to me. plus its open to the above response…
this is some bizarre notion that if you hear passionate argument from two opposing sides and you have not the intellect to look for wherein the truth lies, one is certainly tempted to ‘pragamtically’ take a little from column a and a little from column b.
does this middle of the roadism apply to other concepts , like justice?
on the one hand there is judge A. he makes just decision the vast majority of the cases, only failing to be perfect by virtue of his human imperfectio.n here is jude B, he makes unjust decisions the vast majority of cases, only failing to be perfectly unjust by virtue of his human imperfection.
is Judge C who settles cases on the toss of a coin superior to both B , AND A ?
It can be frustrating. It’s nice to think that regulators are fighting an eternal battle against greed while still having faith in humanity.
I’d just point out how shifty it is to say that any fault that arises is due to a misbalance of the two, and say then pull out some historical economic slippery slope example.
No particular judge is superior to the other, what is important is the history of jurisprudence and the historical reference to it considering the culture and specificities of a society.
The only way to rank judges is within the system, appeals courts overrule regular courts, the Supreme Court overrules them all. Otherwise any judge’s decision hold as if it were the decision of any other judge. The personal opinion of a citizen concerning the “score” or a judge within the judiciary system is irrelevant.
What is pragmatic about mixing in bad ideas with good ones? Successful People and organizations identify good ideas and strategies, and then execute them fully without reserve. The same is true with economic policy. Bad economic ideas create bad results, while good economic ideas executed properly create good results.
The whole pragmatic moderate theory is an excuse to stop thinking and challenging ideas. Ideas that seem moderate today are extreme tomorrow and moderate the next. Today, in , moderates believe government should control the media. Since government needs to control the media to function, only an impractical extremist would consider the idea of free and independent press. Moderate and extreme are relative terms and entirely subjective.
Middle of the road economics? Between Socialism and Laissez Faire?
Look up information on Fascism. It was always about “getting things done” and “action”, taking a pragmatic approach.
Socialism was the Middle of the Road between Capitalism and democratic communism/anarcho-sydicalism. Bismark was a Socialist so he could remain in power but still give the revolting masses what they wanted.
Mussolini was a Socialist before he started the Fascist Party
Pragmatism in economics usually leads to nationalism, because radical socialism was about universal revolt of workers across national borders, and in true Capitalism where you lived would not matter because unrestricted labor movement and immigration would rend borders pointless. between to principally different universal approaches, the middle would be nationalism/mercantilism, which is an abysmal failure.
make sure they’re not closet utilitarians first. many self professed pragmatists that I have met have been of this persuation: i.e. once pressed to define ‘what works’ they belie their utilitarian leanings e.g. what works = best for the public good, or something such (and every thing else including moral positions are subsumed under this over arching, unsupported goal).
Not a guarunteed solution but often seems to be the case and easy to undermine in my personal experience.
On the contrary; when an opponent appeals to “the impracticality of the alternative” to justify intervention, it is far more likely that he simply lacks the intellectual credentials to imagine that the market might be able to repair itself, or that the intervention is merely superficial and will in the long run cause far greater harm than the good it aims to achieve. It is really the pragmatist who is being dogmatic, though he bases his reasoning on popular fallacies and fear of uncertainty rather than principle.
