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Is the populist/demagogue vs technocrat dichotomy being a bit overblown in this thread? By my reckoning aren't the extremely technocratic, and largely (party) apolitical few and far between? Maybe Monti in Italy a few years back counts? Is technocrat being used here broadly as "not a demagogue"?
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Oct 11, 2017 22:57
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Halisnacks posted:Is the populist/demagogue vs technocrat dichotomy being a bit overblown in this thread? Yeah, it's pretty dumb. Successful social movements usually have both populist and technocratic elements so both terms are usually employed to suggest that a politician or party only has one and is therefor selling either a wild-eyed fantasy or inhuman logic. It's the same old "head vs. heart" debate and people think they're very profound for noticing that you need both to survive. People who Imagine themselves to be very serious policy wonks usually still have feelings and biases and people who "shoot from the hip" are still capable of being reasonable and ethical, so really it's an issue of style as much as substance.
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Oct 12, 2017 01:23
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Populism is bad because at its root, it assumes that there are always simple answers to complex problems. Most people don't think too hard about politics or the externalities of policy so simple solutions seem attractive. Reduce crime by increasing prison sentences, lower unemployment by kicking out immigrants, run the economy like a household budget, etc. Populists tap into these 'common sense' beliefs only to find that actually simple solutions don't work. If they did, then those problems wouldn't even exist anymore.
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Oct 12, 2017 02:46
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So does technocracy, only the simple prejudices are held by wealthier people and they spend some money to commission a group of people to produce a report that supports their prejudices so they can claim it is fact. Same thing, different class interests and slightly more convoluted process.
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Oct 12, 2017 02:59
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Helen Highwater posted:Populism is bad because at its root, it assumes that there are always simple answers to complex problems. Most people don't think too hard about politics or the externalities of policy so simple solutions seem attractive. Reduce crime by increasing prison sentences, lower unemployment by kicking out immigrants, run the economy like a household budget, etc. Populists tap into these 'common sense' beliefs only to find that actually simple solutions don't work. If they did, then those problems wouldn't even exist anymore. Some problems really do have pretty simple solutions though. Stuff like "increase taxes a bunch on the rich and give the money to the poor" is fairly straight-forward. The problem is that you often end up with heavily over-engineered solutions in situations where there's no need for such complexity (and it's not a coincidence that these over-engineered solutions often pop up in situations where the correct option is "increase taxes a bunch on the wealthy and redistribute the money"). As others have said, populism isn't inherently good or bad.
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Oct 12, 2017 04:16
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OwlFancier posted:So does technocracy, only the simple prejudices are held by wealthier people and they spend some money to commission a group of people to produce a report that supports their prejudices so they can claim it is fact. But that's lovely technocracy (though given that leaders are generally trash the most common type in reality), proper technocracy would have you specify a set of goals and you'd have to follow the most efficient path to that goal even if you find it offensively ideologically impure/personally inconvenient
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Oct 13, 2017 00:05
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:But that's lovely technocracy (though given that leaders are generally trash the most common type in reality), proper technocracy would have you specify a set of goals and you'd have to follow the most efficient path to that goal even if you find it offensively ideologically impure/personally inconvenient In practice it's difficult to ensure that the technocrats specify the correct goals and are actually creating good solutions. The only people in a position to judge them are likely going to be other technocrats. All this being said, I think that it depends on the issue. Technocrats can be a problem when talking about policy intended to help the poor/disadvantaged (or that might in some way harm the interests of wealthier people), because the vast majority of technocrats aren't going to be a part of those groups. It's like having a bunch of white people guiding all policy related to racism. But technocrats can be good/necessary for the multitude of government issues unrelated to issues like class.
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Oct 13, 2017 00:13
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blowfish posted:But that's lovely technocracy (though given that leaders are generally trash the most common type in reality), proper technocracy would have you specify a set of goals and you'd have to follow the most efficient path to that goal even if you find it offensively ideologically impure/personally inconvenient Right and proper communism involves enthusiastic participation in politics by all members of the working class in order to secure true representation and accountability in elected administrators combined with material empowerment of that class so I trust you'll be signing up with your nearest IWW branch immediately.
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Oct 13, 2017 00:17
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blowfish posted:But that's lovely technocracy (though given that leaders are generally trash the most common type in reality), proper technocracy would have you specify a set of goals and you'd have to follow the most efficient path to that goal even if you find it offensively ideologically impure/personally inconvenient Who specifies the goals?
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Oct 13, 2017 00:53
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I don't know what populism is but I definitely know it describes everybody in government I hate.
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Oct 13, 2017 04:07
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One thing about populism (as a pejorative) is that it's meant to imply the leader of a movement or author of a policy is a con man, telling the unwashed masses anything to gain personal power. Hence why it's used to describe Trump's campaign, but also why centralists use it to describe people like Sanders and Corbyn. Economic conservatives want to cast themselves as the pragmatists who tell the people hard truths.
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Oct 13, 2017 05:11
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Populism is bad because it's just as easy to sell a mob on good populist solutions as bad populist solutions, actually the bad ones are probably easier because it's a lot simpler and more straightforward and more appealing to our apebrain biases to convince people that other slightly different looking/sounding people are the cause of all the problems and the solution is to smash their different-looking heads in with rocks than it is to educate them about class consciousness. The pragmatic technocratic solution to populism is of course to use all of the resources and expertise and data available to implement the good populist solutions to prevent the bad populists from gaining a following, but turns out in practice technocrats are smug morons who prefer to embubble themselves in a world of high finance and black tie cocktail parties, and are just as vulnerable to believing the same aprebrain fables that their in-group is special and everyone else is messing it all up. Only their in-group falls more along class and income lines than race and nationality so here we are.
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Oct 13, 2017 05:12
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Populism is the opposite of elitism, which any elite will naturally disfavor. It's not a hard thing to figure out.
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Oct 13, 2017 07:56
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Also as for that idiot ronya referencing arrow's impossibility theorem: The theorem doesn't say what it thinks you say, and had you any mathematical background in the matter, you would have understood that.
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Oct 13, 2017 07:57
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blowfish posted:But that's lovely technocracy (though given that leaders are generally trash the most common type in reality), proper technocracy would have you specify a set of goals and you'd have to follow the most efficient path to that goal even if you find it offensively ideologically impure/personally inconvenient Except for the setting goals part, this sounds like what civil servants ought to be doing more than a technocrat. And when we talk setting goals, we're right back to where that can not be done in a technocratic way. Deciding what the goals are going to be is inherently ideological and thus political.
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Oct 13, 2017 08:58
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Orange Devil posted:Except for the setting goals part, this sounds like what civil servants ought to be doing more than a technocrat. Civil servant is synonymous with technocrat This is why Trump and his fellow enemies of the administrative state have appointed so few
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Oct 13, 2017 17:28
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Civil servants don't rule things they implement the policy of the decision makers, technocrats want to be decision makers who set policy.
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Oct 13, 2017 18:33
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To me "populist" policy is policy enacted or proposed primarily with the intent of increasing popularity of the enactor. If some politician proposes a policy that people with authority on the topic consider retarded for being either inefficient (lets get super green energy from bio fuels), unnecessary (lets ban violent videogames) or both (lets build a wall with Mexico to keep the Bad Hombres out), there must be some motive other than actual welfare of the state. If you rule out outright personal malice and economic gains to be made but the proposal is popular with people, I think it's fair to assume it's a populist proposal.
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Oct 13, 2017 21:17
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Squalid posted:Civil servant is synonymous with technocrat Civil servants are apolitical, technocrats are explicitly political
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Oct 13, 2017 21:58
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Populism isn't a coherent philosophy, it's just whatever happens to be popular in with the people in the moment. It was populist when broad swathes of Americans supported Prohibition, it was populist when they all joined up to fight the Nazis in Europe, and it was populist when Americans supported the Civil Rights Movement. It was populist when the US went into Vietnam, and it was populist when the US withdrew from the same. Populism is merely a willingness to let mass opinion guide policy, absent morality or practicality. Technocrats are expert policy makers and implementers. They're an embodiment of the Wilsonian idea that a good government should use educated professionals to guide its efforts. They ideally use a mix of accepted best practices and bureaucratic process to ensure positive results. They are rarely the top administrators, though you could certainly argue that presidents like FDR or Carter were technocrats. A disease pathologist leading the CDC is probably a technocrat, as is a civil engineer leading up the DOT. On the flip side, technocrats can also be people like McNamara, who are overly removed from the personal and emotional aspects of leadership. A populist town government is very reactive - it probably has a strong mayor or city council, and is closely attuned to the latest political conflicts du jour - but at the cost of lacking overriding principles or focus. A technocratic town government is well organized - it probably has a city manager and has a more stable economy and plan for the future - but at the cost of distancing citizens from the levers of power. Changing the policies of a populist system involve exciting the people and altering public opinion. Changing the policies of a technocratic system requires demonstrations that the reforms are merited and practical. The former involves fighting the same battles over and over, which is why people oppose it. The latter almost always take longer, which is largely why other people oppose it. Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Oct 13, 2017 |
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Oct 13, 2017 22:08
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icantfindaname posted:Civil servants are apolitical, technocrats are explicitly political Technocrats aren't explicitly anything. Just like populists they are a vague and inconsistently defined category that we usually don't like for various and inconsistent reasons, though it can sometimes the term can have positive connotations. Someone called a technocrat is slightly more likely to be an appointed bureaucrat in a organization like the IMF than a populist, which is an insult usually levied solely at elected politicians. OwlFancier posted:Civil servants don't rule things they implement the policy of the decision makers, technocrats want to be decision makers who set policy. Implementing policy always involves making decisions. When those decisions are unpopular and the people enacting them subjectively appear as "smug morons" we insult them by calling them technocrats.
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Oct 13, 2017 23:11
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Implementing policy and deciding policy are two different things there are entire systems of government set up around this fact.
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Oct 13, 2017 23:18
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OwlFancier posted:Implementing policy and deciding policy are two different things there are entire systems of government set up around this fact. They are, but a person can certainly do both. And populists and technocrats exist at all levels of a bureaucracy, so it's not like it comes down to one thing or the other. A chief of police is a perfect example of a leader that can be either populist or technocratic, and has to both implement outside polices, as well as decide upon and implement policies of their own. I know this conversation has largely been fielded at the level of head of state, but realistically it matters a lot more at the civic level.
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Oct 13, 2017 23:27
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Populism is the popular thing that I disagree with, and it's bad because it's what the unwashed masses want, those idiotic sheep who don't know what's good for them. Technocracy is the unpopular thing that I agree with, and it's good because it's made entirely of smarts and truth and objective correctness, which is why the dumb rubes don't love it.
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Oct 14, 2017 00:11
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Main Paineframe posted:Populism is the popular thing that I disagree with, and it's bad because it's what the unwashed masses want, those idiotic sheep who don't know what's good for them. Technocracy is the unpopular thing that I agree with, and it's good because it's made entirely of smarts and truth and objective correctness, which is why the dumb rubes don't love it. Populism is the thing that I want and therefore everyone should want. Technocracy is someone in power not doing what I say.
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Oct 14, 2017 00:20
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Kaal posted:Populism is the thing that I want and therefore everyone should want. Technocracy is someone in power not doing what I say. There are a lot of things that have majority support but will never be offered by either party because both parties cater primarily to rich people and corporate lobbyists. If things were determined by a popular vote we'd have single payer, legal weed, and Wall Street heads on a pike. Populism by itself is inherently neutral but in the context of America it's good because overwhelmingly our politicians do the bidding of a tiny rich elite to the detriment of basically everyone who isn't part of that group. MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Oct 14, 2017 |
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Oct 14, 2017 00:47
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MaxxBot posted:There are a lot of things that have majority support but will never be offered by either party because both parties cater primarily to rich people and corporate lobbyists. This is a common misunderstanding. Populism is not some form of proto-democracy, and it has very little to do with the public/elite dynamic. The sense of the populist group is completely fungible - it's not beholden to society as a whole. Trump is by far the most populist president we've ever had, and his core ideas are all quite populist in nature. This doesn't make him any less of a representative for the rich elite, acting in detriment to the nation as a whole.
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Oct 14, 2017 01:17
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Why is populism *faaaaaaaaaaaaarts* This is why populism is bad. It's just a tool that is used by elites or whatever you'd call the political class to manipulate electors ultimately.
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Oct 14, 2017 04:01
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Being really into "technocracy" is one of those weird nineties things really. It's such a Fukuyaman "ideology no longer exists because liberal democracy won" kinda thing.
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Oct 14, 2017 08:34
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Populism is one of the most dangerous forces facing humanity. We can’t survive on this planet without elites in a general sense and self (or national) sacrifices for the greater good.
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Oct 15, 2017 01:32
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asdf32 posted:We can’t survive on this planet without elites in a general sense Christ, what a loving bleak rear end outlook on humanity. You done broke your own brain somehow.
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Oct 15, 2017 03:14
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WampaLord posted:Christ, what a loving bleak rear end outlook on humanity. Modern society doesn’t exist without experts, large institutions and leaders of those institutions. Experts and leaders are necessarily elite.
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Oct 15, 2017 03:26
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An unironic great men of history advocate. 
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Oct 15, 2017 03:30
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asdf32 posted:Populism is one of the most dangerous forces facing humanity. lmbo *elites crash the world economy due to their own greed and criminality* "Oh yes now it's time for all of you to sacrifice for the greater good, that will be $700 billion please, make the check out to us. And no we can't be punished for our crimes that would hurt your confidence in the financial system"
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Oct 15, 2017 04:05
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asdf32 posted:Modern society doesn’t exist without experts, large institutions and leaders of those institutions. Experts and leaders are necessarily elite. This is true, but it's also true that if elites are given too much power/influence they create systems that enrich themselves at the expense of non-elites.
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Oct 15, 2017 04:05
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Experts are not necessarily "elite" jfc.
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Oct 15, 2017 04:31
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People are confusing elites with cultural or social capital and capitalists.
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Oct 15, 2017 06:14
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qkkl posted:It's bad because it causes the government to heap benefits on the majority population in the country at the expense of the minority. This leads to non-stop wars because even if the current minority population is wiped out, very soon the majority population fractures and a new minority arises.  This isn't what populism is at all holy poo poo
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Oct 15, 2017 06:24
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Populism is just the mass line in action. Populism recognizes 1) that the masses are the makers of history, and that change can only be made by the masses themselves; 2) that the masses must come to see through their own experience and struggle that change is necessary. The question is: what sort of change will the masses bring about? Mere objective need for change doesn't mean that there is also a consciousness for what kind of change needs to happen. We see that all the time in America, where poor whites routinely vote against their own interests. Populism gets a bad rep because no matter the change, it's going to be bad for the old elites. Fascism aligns itself with capital but this tends to be new capital. That's why the Tag von Potsdam is so noteworthy. The Nazis in Germany (as well as the Fascists in Italy and Spain) got rid of the old elites even while installing new ones of their own. Communism (obviously) also clears out all the old elites. So, those with power are going to oppose populism in their own self-interest.
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Oct 15, 2017 08:56
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Orange Devil posted:Except for the setting goals part, this sounds like what civil servants ought to be doing more than a technocrat. agreed but IMO  ) get thrown off a cliff or something
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Oct 15, 2017 09:03
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