Scoop Feedback: Controversial New James Bond
The following is a selection of feedback and other unsolicited email received by Scoop recently. The opinions they contain do not necessarily reflect those of Scoop.
They do not appear in any precise order.
Send feedback to Scoop: http://www.scoop.co.nz/about/feedback.html or editor@scoop.co.nz
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Great Song About Plight of Jammu/Kashmir------ Liquid Blue, an act from the United States that has performed in more nations than any other act in modern history, has released a song called KASHMIR which may be one of the best songs ever written in English about the region and its people. The track was produced by grammy winner Joe Chiccarelli and is available on the bands highly acclaimed, multi~award winning album, Supernova.
The band would like to donate the song to charities that provide relief to the Kashmiri people. Please contact manager Scott Stephens at manager@liquid-blue.com if your organization is interested in using this song to raise money for Jammu-Kashmir on a compilation CD or other media.
Link to song-
http://www.broadjam.com/artists/artist_playlist.asp?artistID=13774
Link to lyrics and story behind the song-
http://www.liquid-blue.com/music/themes/01KashmirTheme.htm
Link to Liquid Blue website- www.LiquidBlue.net
Peace,
Scott Stephens
Manager
Liquid Blue
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[Possibly re: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00276.htm or http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0510/S00179.htm]
Your blurb on the Prime TV Video of Paul Holmes' interview with Prime Minister Helen Clark [21 October] falls into the common trap of dubbing Messrs Peters and Dunn centre-right politicians.
They have been and continue to be two politicians of the centre.
Only a misguided media desire to apparently maintain a first-past-the-post system [r.i.p] come what may, would locate them either 'left'[Labour] or 'right'[National].
It's time to politically upgrade and catch up with the play.
What has been stitched together for the next three years is a new government that clearly has moved from the centre-left to the centre. This is an accurate reflection of how all voting New Zealanders cast their ballots.
You could even call it 'mainstreaming,' possums!
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Hi there,
I see you carry a regular column of commentary from the Maxim Instutite. Where is the Scoop piece on the Bruce Logan plagiarism affair? I've used you search engine but it does not bring anything up.
Regards
Geoff V
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To all of the synchophantic left-wing media who wrote off the possibility of a shift to the political right after the election. Always make sure that your words are sweet and tender in the future, for one day (today being that day), you will have to eat them. The dog control officers of United Future and NZ First have tamed the Labour hound. Now don't you journalists be shy, when tucking into that humble pie!
Yours faithfully
Steve Taylor
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Regarding the comments of Judge Philip Recordon on domestic violence, I noted that he failed to recognise that women can also be perpetrators of violence.....oh wait, that's right, nobody cares about that branch of domestic violence - only women and children can be victims, not men. Until society recognises that domestic violence is perpetrated by both genders, we will never be able to rid ourselves of this problem.
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Well, hopefully those who intended to vote Greens but didn't and went for Labour as a "defensive move" won't do that again!
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Dear Editor
“Spending too much” NZ Herald, 15 October 2005
Whilst Alan Bollard is busy telling us we're "spending too much," on page-A8, the Commerce Commission are suing 50 small credit providers for “failing to meet their obligations to customers.” Apparently for having their fees too high and giving insufficient consumer information.
What hypocrisy! These criticisms have applied to the banking system for decades. These small providers aren't the only ones “screwing the people at the bottom of the stack.” A friend was "fined" an accumulated $71 without warning for overdrawing after the bank withdraw its fees. The five foreign-owned banks also produce credit, in the same way, out of fresh air. There is little wonder that our overseas debt stands at $124 billion. While we live under this debt-based monetary system, our associated economic despair will continue. Because of it, most Kiwis are of necessity “up to their neck in mortgage debt,” that is unless unlucky enough to be a student, in which case they have two! As for a Superannuation, isn’t that why we pay tax? How about Dr Bollard gets government to issue its own (real) money instead of constantly going cap-in-hand to the foreign-owned usurers we call banks. It would cure Dr Cullen’s “fiscal loosening” worries.
Sincerely
Robert
Anderson
Tauranga
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See the replies to
Roger Kerr interspersed in the
article below prefaced by
MZ:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0510/S00183.htm
Ideology And Pragmatism In Public Policy
Wednesday, 12
October 2005, 11:16 am
Speech: New Zealand Business
Roundtable
11 October 2005
Ideology And Pragmatism
In Public Policy
Roger Kerr Executive Director Wellington
New
Zealand Business Roundtable
Delivered at Stokes
Valley Rotary Club
An exchange at the meeting between
representatives of the Green Party and the business
community in Wellington a fortnight ago stimulated the
reflections in this talk. One of the Greens present
described support for free trade as an ‘ideological’
position. What did the speaker mean by ideological, I
wondered? After all, Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard
Keynes were all free traders. A pretty broad ideological
spectrum, you might think.
That’s not the first time
I’ve had occasion to reflect on the term ideology, of
course. Critics of New Zealand’s post-1984 economic reforms
bandied it around freely. Indeed, as a recent book on
globalisation put it:
It is close to a conventional
wisdom that over the past two decades a group of
ideological fanatics, called ‘neo-liberals’, have succeeded
in imposing their creed on an innocent humanity, at the
expense of democracy, prosperity, equality, the
environment, human rights, decent treatment of labour and,
indeed, everything that is good and wholesome. This view of
the history of the past two decades is almost entirely
mistaken.
First, while liberal ideas (not ‘neo-liberal’,
since that is an incomprehensible piece of neo- Marxist
jargon) have made progress over the past two decades, they
have not done so through the offices of passionate
liberals. On the contrary, the policy changes that go under
the heading of ‘neo-liberal’ have been introduced as often
by long-standing socialists and communists as by parties
that would be considered on the political right. The
principal reason for this transformation was failure of the
alternatives, symbolized so powerfully by the collapse of
the Soviet empire between 1989 and 1991. For a time, some
theoreticians of the left, including some in New Zealand’s
Labour Party, tried to find a ‘third way’ between socialism
and a market economy. The project failed; we seldom hear
talk of the ‘third way’ today. In reality, the drive behind
the market-oriented reforms in New Zealand was the
practical recognition that alternative policies had been
tested to destruction. The focus of the reformers was on
policies that worked – as demonstrated by orthodox economic
reasoning and results.
MZ: The economic aspect of any policy question is just one of many that are considered in policy making. Shared values is another. Many aspects of economic development actually works against local business, agriculture and neighborhood cohesion. Here in Albuquerque,New Mexico, USA some want to provide incentives for high-tech industries in spite of the conflict that this raises with a limited supply of water. Housing is sought in outlying areas and undeveloped regions that seeks to replicate the impact of the Megalopolis and surburban boom of the 50s. The social costs of inner city decline, crime, and marginalized communities are disregarded. Because of their political influence at the local level the economic interests of one group, the home construction industry and developers becomes the focal point for the discussion. Wal-Marts are increasingly view by neighborhood associations with a Not-In-My-Back-Yard attitude for good reason. Policies work for different segments of the economy for different reasons. Industrial Revenue Bonds work to attract multi-national corporations, they do not work for local businesses that seek to grow. What works for corporations is low wages. What results are wage levels for the entire work-force of the region are depressed wages and importation of an outside labor force of technical experts. Likewise, deregulation of industries have worked to the benefit of financial and corporate interests. The downside is a loss of public oversight and accountability, as was seen in Enron and the Savings and Loan debacle in the US. Environmental laws that increase the cost of business were designed to ameliorate the situation in cities such as Pittsburgh where the smog from the steel mills made it difficult to see beyond a block at noontime. The experience of the Union Carbide poisoning of thousands in Bhopal demonstrate the real danger in making the economy the sole criteria of policy-making. Similarly, the recent events in New Orleans demonstrates that public infrastructure and conservation of the wetlands is not something that any city can take for granted for the benefit of maintaining economic growth.
The Business Roundtable’s approach
has been based on the same principles, firmly grounded in
experience. Nevertheless, it is still sometimes put to me
by critics that our proposals are ‘ideological’ as opposed
to ‘pragmatic’. This contrast is false. Everyone involved
in the debate about public policy argues on the basis of
some set of principles or ideas, whether or not they are
conscious of them or make them explicit. Conversely, those
who want their ideas to have an impact on public policy
have to be ‘pragmatic’ in the sense that they must pay
some regard to the practicability of their proposals and
the compromises that may be necessary in implementing
them.
MZ: Practicality is not the same as “the greatest good for the greatest number” as a criterion for policy implementation. What practicality should mean is whether there is within the proposed laws the accompanying measures to raise the revenues necessary to implement them. Greens have long advocated tax reforms, carbon taxes and other measures to begin to address the social costs of pollution and to pay for the research and development needed for a transition to alternative energy sources. The Dutch chose to make a significant public contribution to the levees it needed to avoid a catastrophe. ABC Nightline reported after New Orleans: Netherlands, Sept. 17, 2005 — Half of the Netherlands sits below sea level, so the tragedy in New Orleans hits home with the Dutch. They have been through it themselves: In 1953, a huge flood in the Netherlands killed nearly 2,000 people and left 70,000 homeless. The flood led to dramatic changes. The Netherlands spent $8 billion over 30 years fortifying the coastline with a sophisticated system of dikes, dams and levees. Dutch law now requires that coastal defenses protect against the worst storm imaginable.
The attempt to endow the term
‘ideological’ with unfavourable connotations and
‘pragmatic’ with favourable ones likewise involves a
certain sleight of hand. The Oxford English Dictionary
(2nd edition) gives the following as the primary meaning of
‘ideology’:
The science of ideas; that department of
philosophy or psychology that deals with the origin and
nature of ideas.
No problem there, then. As the
secondary meaning it offers this:
Ideal or abstract
speculation: in a deprecatory sense, unpractical or
visionary theorizing or speculation.
Note that even
this secondary meaning is not necessarily ‘deprecatory’.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong, and much
intrinsically right, with ‘ideal or abstract speculation’,
even though the word ‘ideological’ can be used in a way
that conveys disapproval of it.
What then about
‘pragmatism’? One Oxford dictionary definition is
“matterof- fact treatment of things; attention to facts”.
That’s certainly something to aspire to. A further,
political meaning is attributed to the term, and it’s this
that our critics have in mind: Theory that advocates
dealing with social and political problems primarily by
practical methods adapted to the existing circumstances,
rather than by methods which have been conformed to some
ideology.
I see nothing wrong with employing “practical
methods adapted to existing circumstances”, but the issue
is the implied contrast with “ideology”. That may or may
not exist. An ideologue, to use the term in a pejorative
sense, will use methods sanctioned by an ideology even if
they cannot be “adapted to existing circumstances”.
There is no sense in which a policy can be correct in
theory but wrong in practice: if the practice goes wrong,
the theory is defective (as socialism demonstrated). But
the deeper point is that, whatever practical methods are
used, there has to be some body of ideas that explains why
they work, even if those who employ those 3 methods are
unaware of them. Understanding what works and what doesn’t
– which we need to do if we are to improve our practices –
involves grasping the theory behind it.
MZ: It is not ideologically based to apply what is commonly known as the Precationary Principle in the evaluation of policies, actions and inactions. “Although there is no consensus definition of what is termed the precautionary principle, one oft-mentioned statement, from the so-called Wingspread conference in Racine, Wis., in 1998 sums it up: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." http://www.biotech-info.net/uncertainty.html It is no more or less than anticipating the impact of certain policies given the real science- based potential for public harm that remains a distinct possibility. How do you make this “practical” when it suggests that the interests of a few represents a distinct public danger to the many? Why are nuclear waste disposal sites so far from populated areas? If Love Canal, NY has taught people nothing than we are doomed to repeat scenarios of inaction followed by periods of crisis and devastation, such as New Orleans.
What
many critics are doing, however, when they draw a contrast
between the ‘ideological’ and the ‘pragmatic’ is to use
these terms as codes respectively for ‘less government’
(meaning that it’s bad) and ‘more government’ (meaning that
it’s good). For example, David Skilling of the New Zealand
Institute is reported in the National Business Review of 6
August 2004 as advocating a move away from a policy of
avoiding distortions in the private sector to a policy of
selective intervention. He is quoted as saying: This is a
less pure, more pragmatic approach to economic policy that
is aimed at crowding-in economic activity and assisting New
Zealand business to create wealth, and is less concerned
about the possibility of crowding out.1 It isn’t obvious
why a policy of greater intervention should be “less pure”,
“more pragmatic” or more desirable than one of less
intervention. Surely the focus should be on which works
better? Answering this question requires some theory about
how government intervention affects the economy and
society. As the saying goes, there’s nothing so practical
as a good theory. What matters is which of the alternative
theories is the sounder, and that comes down to which of
them is more consistent with the evidence, as well as the
values that they embody or promote. I’m happy to defend the
Business Roundtable’s proposals on those terms. But let’s
get away from the false notion that certain policies are
somehow ‘pragmatic’ by definition, as if we know in advance
that they will work, whereas others are ‘ideological’, as
if they are supported regardless of whether or not they
work.
MZ: The position of the Business RoundTable
contradicts the claims of the author of this piece. It
prefers not to integrate the social costs of private
investment as a contributing factor in reviewing policies.
In other words, government is fine when it comes to
providing mechanisms that enables corporations to build a
new facility, but it is interfering when it requires they
pay for the use of the region’s resources that they deplete
that can’t be renewed. British Columbia is spotted with
regions that were clear-cut by Taiwanese and Japanese
timber companies without replanting or restoration of the
forests. This raises the moral issue as to why corporations
are permitted to damage the common resources of the people
of a region or a nation without just compensation. Due
process than becomes, “I own it, I do what I want with it”.
This is not practicality at all. Nor is it “the greatest
good for the greatest number”. The RoundTable prefers to
blame GreenPeace and a worldwide consensus on the medical
impact of DDT. It points to the cost in lives of malaria to
demonstrate its point. They are not two mutually exclusive
propositions, but they are made so by those who met with
the Green Party in New Zealand in an article posted at this
same website:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0510/S00118.htm DDT is
not the only possibility to limit mosquito populations. In
New Orleans they have used the insecticide Dibrom (also
known as naled), after the flood, that has fewer
demonstrated health risks associated with it.
Once we
have agreed that all positions about the role of government
rest on some general idea, or ‘theory’ if you like, about
how government works, to characterise policy proposals as
either ‘ideological’ or ‘pragmatic’ is at best a confusion
and at worst a rhetorical trick that appeals to
antiintellectualism as a substitute for serious argument.
Of course, there is always a market for anti-
intellectualism, that is, an impatient insistence that 1
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=9796&cid=18&cname=Opinion
4 we don’t need theories because the facts, once we have
them, speak for themselves. But facts never speak for
themselves. Even the simplest combination of data gives
rise to controversy about how it should be interpreted
(just consider, for example, the endless debate about the
link between gun control laws and gun-related crime).
Interpretation involves drawing some general idea, whether
sound or not, about how the world works. Serious policy
debate cannot proceed unless these ideas are articulated
and tested.
MZ: Interpretation also implies that there is in fact agreed upon standards for cumulative impacts on the public health and safety of certain policies and actions whether they be governmental or corporate-based. Chernobyl took place in the absence of such standards and represented a public policy that did not integrate the worst case scenario into the development of the nuclear industry in the Soviet Union. Sound policy cannot be structured on pseudo-science, whether it is the denial of global warming or the belief that the groundwater under Albuquerque, New Mexico amounted to the equivalent of Lake Superior.
We can see why arguments for less government
attract the label ‘ideological’ and those for more
government ‘pragmatic’. The case for less government often
rests on chains of cause and effect that may be long and
even invisible, whereas the case for more government
typically moves swiftly (if often deceptively) from problem
to intervention to solution in an uncomplicated way.
MZ: The issue of “more government” is not what is at issue here. It is the matter of the public health, safety and welfare that is at stake. So far, corporations have demonstrated a consistent unwillingness to voluntarily accept their responsibilities as members of their communities in providing the measure to ensure public safety. Instead, they prefer to invest in policy-makers who seek to minimize their oversight and accountability. The billions of corporate donations to political candidates is their demonstration of their disregard for the public good. This willingness to circumvent their own obligations, in favor of undermining sound policies that are based on sound science exposes the corporate community as reckless and irresponsible in their approach toward their impact on the ecological systems that surround them.
For
example, the protectionist can point to the benefits of
import controls in terms of the jobs that have been saved
(at least for the moment), but the free trader can’t so
easily point to the costs of protectionism by identifying
the jobs that protection destroys or prevents being
created. Understanding the case for limited government
requires a certain effort of analysis and a willingness to
evaluate a wide range of evidence.
Not everyone is
prepared to make such an effort, yet there is a theory (or
idea) behind protectionism just as there is behind free
trade. Interestingly, free trade is a case of a policy
that is ultimately justified more on practical than
theoretical grounds. To be sure, it rests on the
fundamental economic principle of comparative advantage,
but there are a number of theoretical arguments for
departing from that principle: optimum tariff notions,
strategic trade theory, infant industry arguments and the
like. As a matter of practical policy, however, the vast
majority of professional economists put aside these
theories as unworkable and come down on the side of free
trade, and the evidence is overwhelming that open economies
outperform closed ones. The Greens, however, seem
impervious to facts: their opposition to free trade does
seem to be a matter of pure ideology.
MZ: Saying the issue is “free trade” does not mean that in the absence of these treaties corporations lack the capability to trade freely across national boundaries. Saying it is “free trade” just says that multi-national corporations are now free from national standards that have been established by duely constituted governments. These laws have been passed as a result of the acknowledgement of nation’s policy- makers that problems exist that need to be addressed. Undermining the laws of our own nations to facilitate the corporate interests of other nations puts the cost of such decisions on the backs of the people and prevents them from developing policies in the appropriate governmental entities to represent their interests and concerns.
For reasons I’ll explain in a moment, it is
ironic that Keynes, arguably and unfortunately perhaps the
most influential economist of the twentieth century, should
have stressed the importance of ideas, even for self-styled
pragmatists. As he wrote:
The ideas of economists and
political philosophers, both when they are right and when
they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly
understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt
from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves
of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear
voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some
academic scribbler of a few years back . . . Sooner or
later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are
dangerous for good or evil.
The irony of this is that
Keynes himself became a major example of those “defunct
economists” who enslaved “practical men”. It was Keynes’s
prescription that the balanced budget rule should be
abandoned in times of recession that, more than anything
else, facilitated and legitimised the socalled ‘pragmatic‘
growth of government after World War II by appearing to
release policy makers from so-called ‘ideological’
constraints. That was emphatically not Keynes’s intention;
he argued that budgets should be balanced over the
economic cycle, and that deficit financing during
recessions should be followed by surpluses during booms.
But, as he himself said, “ideas . . . are dangerous for
good or evil.”
Once the idea that governments could
routinely borrow to cover current spending had gained
ground in the wider society, why should they hold back? It
took years of inflation, recession and generally
disappointing economic performance to get that particular
genie back into the bottle, and even now one wonders how
secure the cork is. To make it more secure, New Zealand is
one country that implemented a Fiscal Responsibility Act
to require governments to follow Keynes’ rule that budgets
should be balanced over the economic cycle. Finance
minister Michael Cullen has recently re-enacted that
legislation: he obviously doesn’t regard the balanced
budget provision as ideological or undemocratic.
But
when the Business Roundtable suggested, on largely
pragmatic grounds, that because of New Zealand governments’
tendencies to excessive and wasteful spending, the rule
should be supplemented by a tax and expenditure limitation,
whereby spending growth should be constrained to the rate
of population growth plus inflation unless a government got
support from taxpayers for higher spending via a
referendum, Dr Cullen denounced the proposal as ideological
and undemocratic.
MZ: Clearly, the author is not suggesting a similar proposal for limitations on capital investment where the corporation is required to get public support for the additional infrastructure requirements incurred by economic growth. Impact fees in American cities remain a target of developers who seek to abolish any acknowledgement of the additional costs of their economic activity to the rest of the community. The fact is that many public services and infrastructure needs are virtually subsidized by local governments, while health costs are forced on a declining public health infrastructure here in the US and schools consist of portable buildings in place of new building construction needs. Instead, business invests in public campaigns during issues such as the living wage proposals leaving people to fend for themselves with no social safety net. This did not work in New Orleans, and it will not work in New Zealand.
Yet in
response to democratic pressures, many US states and
several countries with governments of different political
persuasions have adopted such a rule or variants of it. As
the Americans say, go figure! Another area where those who
bandy around the term ideology should look at themselves
in the mirror is the ownership of commercial enterprises.
Socialist ideology embraced the notion of “public ownership
of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.
Our current government is against privatisation of
state-owned enterprises, and indeed has moved down the path
of nationalisation. Yet the evidence is now compelling that
– not always, but on average and over time – privately
owned enterprises outperform state-owned enterprises in
competitive environments, and it is the general rule that
should inform sound public policy. Governments should not
bet against the odds with taxpayers’ money. Thus while a
body of economic literature has grown up explaining why
private ownership of commercial enterprises is generally
superior to state ownership, the fundamental argument for
privatisation is pragmatic: it works. Another point to make
is that, just as ideas are inescapable, as Keynes argued,
so too is pragmatism, in the sense that in all walks of
life we have to make compromises. Business people
compromise and do deals the whole time.
MZ: Privatization is like deregulation, the promises it holds for a certain segment of the business community has no mechanism associated with it for the transition period. In the US, steel workers won a Trade Readjustment Act in 1974 that provided transitional support due to the dislocation of steel mills moving overseas. But, now even that is only maintained for a 26 week period after unemployment compensation runs out. Greens have worked tirelessly to develop a policy regarding renewable energy conversion that addresses the economic impact that this will have on both businesses and the general public. Businesses have resisted such policies in disregard of the oil peak and global warming, preferring to continue as things are with no policy to address changing circumstances.
Yet in a
business setting, pragmatism without an eye to principles
and long-run goals (for example, maximising shareholder
value) can be ruinous. The same is true in politics.
Politics has been described as the ‘art of the possible’,
and that is true as far as it goes. Yet we need to add two
qualifications that preserve a role for ideas in politics.
First, in making political compromises politicians
should still observe certain principles: they can avoid
what we recognise and condemn as expediency. For example,
in the war on terror that some Western governments are
waging, politicians may be tempted to scrap all the normal
safeguards against the abuse of state power and to lock up
terrorist suspects indefinitely subject to minimal
procedures or none at all.
Alternatively, even where
they suspend habeas corpus and detain suspects without
charging them, they can set up procedures to review cases
and hear appeals. These are matters of practical judgment.
Sometimes politicians get it right, sometimes they don’t,
but the point is that we do expect them to marry necessity
with principle so that certain important values are
preserved. Even in a dire emergency, it isn’t necessary for
governments to arrogate to themselves absolute power and
entirely evade the rule of law. Thus we need to distinguish
between principled pragmatism and unprincipled expediency.
The importance of that distinction, rather than the one
between ideology and pragmatism, is perhaps the central
message of this talk.
MZ: The government that is not based on the “consent of the governed” is not the one that has “absolute” power. It is the one that represents only a small segment of the national community at the expense of the rest. The business community should not presume that it represents the needs and concerns of an entire nation. It may make nifty mottoes, such as “The business of America is business” or “What’s good for General Motors is good for the nation”, but it does not promote sound, well-rounded policies that address the national interest. The national interest consists of a multitude of stakeholders with a multitude of issues relevant to governmental statutes and regulations. Further, “unprincipled expediency” can also be demonstrated through the implementation of restrictions and denial of legal rights to a small segment of the population. Witness the execution style murder by the police of the commuter in the London subway following the subway bombings. Dare we say that this is acceptable, pragmatic policy. At what cost?
The second
qualification to the idea of politics as the ‘art of the
possible’ that preserves a role for ideas is that
politicians can be guided by long-term goals as well as
short-term ones. Any government is inevitably preoccupied
with winning the next election, as indeed is the
opposition.
But it’s possible to do this with an eye on
longer-term political achievements. Politicians who leave a
positive mark on history are those who can make the
necessary skills of everyday political survival serve the
higher purpose of achieving long-run benefits for their
nations. In recent history Margaret Thatcher is an
outstanding example of such a politician. She won three
successive elections but also carried out a
counter-revolution in British economic policy that greatly
expanded conceptions of what was ‘politically possible’ in
other countries as well.
What is perhaps less well
known is that Thatcher was also a cautious politician who
usually knew when and where she had to compromise. She
avoided the inevitable showdown with the coal miners’
union by making concessions to it where necessary over
several years, and stood firm against it only when she was
certain to win. Whether reforming governments of the 1980s
and 1990s could have gone further without destroying their
bases of support is debatable. Sir Roger Douglas has always
argued that it was when they called off their reform drives
that such governments lost support.
But their success
in maintaining political and electoral support as they
abandoned failed economic policies testifies to the ability
of ordinary democratic politics to accommodate necessary
change. Those who like to label the reforms of the
Lange-Douglas government as anti- democratic conveniently
overlook the fact that it was re-elected in 1987 with an
increased majority.
Traditionally, the acceptable
visions in democratic politics have been placed on a left-
right spectrum that signifies positions on the desirable
size of government and degree of redistribution. As these
positions represent value judgments they cannot ultimately
be proved or disproved, but they can be rendered more or
less plausible or practical in the light of evidence and
argument.
Political parties that want to see their
values successfully embodied in public policy have to be
open to new ideas. Much of what is ‘ideological’ in
politics, in the pejorative sense of being impractical,
comes from institutionalised attachment to means rather
than ends; more exactly, the adoption or retention of
particular measures (like state ownership of enterprises)
becomes an end in itself, regardless of whether those
measures have the effect that is claimed for them.
I
would argue, for example, that if the political ‘left’ is
seriously committed to social justice it has to generalise
from the experience of economic reform to reform of the
welfare state.
Centrally planned and controlled
education and health systems have no more chance of
realising egalitarian aspirations than did our old economic
regime of regulations and state ownership, because they too
inevitably operate primarily in the interests of their
employees (such as the members of teachers’ and nurses’
unions) rather than the general public.
MZ: Experience in the US indicates that failing to ensure public education and public health does not provide an alternative mechanism needed to educate the children of a nation and does nothing to secure health care that is accessible and affordable. Instead, it assures that the next generation will not be provided with the education needed for governing a nation and sustaining the economy. It assures that the older generation will live in fear at the prospect of trying to survive when health care is not affordable.
Correspondingly, those on the political
‘right’ who favour a greater role for the private sector
need to attend to the issues of corporate governance raised
by cases of corporate wrongdoing, primarily by ensuring
that existing laws are enforced and by strengthening the
property rights of shareholders against the possibility of
malpractice by management. They should also seek to
overcome the old-fashioned, debilitating employer-employee
divide by promoting fully contractual relationships in
which all aspects of life in the workplace can be
negotiated.
This brings us back to policy think tanks
like the Business Roundtable. Precisely because the
pressure on politicians to compromise with immediate
interests for short-term gain is so great, their job is to
frame and publicise the ‘first-best’ versions of policies
for politicians to work with.
MZ: The premise that regulations of corporate entities are sufficient is repeatedly challenged by their abuse of power and privilege. If the Greens can sustain a base of voter support of people unwilling to accept this, more power to them. It is time to demonstrate that business is just as accountable as the general public in its conduct and behavior. They do not represent a greater good in and of themselves.
They do need to make pragmatic judgments
about which new policy ideas are likely to be entertained
by public opinion, and to present them in imaginative and
appealing ways. However, their mission must be to expand
the politically possible, mindful that what today is
accepted as conventional wisdom yesterday seemed
controversial and radical. In principle, they act as
conduits between, on the one hand, the pure theoreticians,
researchers and academics who are professionally committed
to the pursuit of knowledge wherever it takes them, and, on
the other hand, the politicians who introduce the policies
that embody new knowledge. The Business Roundtable has seen
its role as being to engage in advocacy that is accessible
to lay people (as the products of original research are
likely to be) and is not diluted by the pressure to placate
special interests that politicians are subjected to all the
time. By taking ideas and evidence seriously, it aims to
make it easier for politicians to introduce new and better
policies.
Politicians, for their part, are the ones best
placed to judge what is politically possible, and the
practical ways of implementing better policies. But the
most admired politicians are not those who timidly preside
over the status quo; they are the political entrepreneurs
with the will and ability to persuade voters why changes
will benefit them and future generations. In doing so, they
will invariably need to be armed with a body of ideas that
explains why the changes will work. Principled pragmatism
of this kind, with a sound conceptual base, is the best
strategy for advancing good public policy.
MZ:
“Principled pragmatism” does not preclude public policy
predicated on a precautionary principle. It does mean that
business, as well as all segments of the national
community, are accountable for their actions and the
long-term ramifications they may have. Ask California
utility users what they were dealing with, while the
brokers at Enron cracked jokes over the phone.
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[Re: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0510/S00101.htm - Ultimate fashion experience up for grabs: Aucklanders are being offered the chance to win the ultimate Auckland City Fashion Experience… To be eligible for the competition simply buy something from any participating fashion retailer in Newmarket, Ponsonby, Heart of the City, Parnell or K' Rd between 9am Monday 17 October and 5pm Monday 24 October.]
Just the sort of excuse I need!!
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Am I the only one,who is having a problem with this new Bond or what? Let's tell the truth. Piecre Brosnan is the only one who has truely done the role proud since Sean Connery. If you people think Dan Craig is young,handsome and good looking then,I'm Liz Hurley! Maybe it slipped your memories, but it took several years more, than it should have, to get Pierce in the role to begin with! They originally wanted him for the role back in the 80's but, he was still under contract to the ABC TV show "Remington Steele" and the role went to Timothy Dalton. While Dalton is a fine actor, he seemed to myself, as well as many others,to fall short of the bar set by Connery. Finally after several years, and an equal number of mediocre Bond films later, the "True Heir To The Throne" assumed his 00 duties and the world was safe again. I saw the last film,"Tommorrow Never Dies", Pierce looked Great! Much younger than his years! Daniel Craig does not! We all should DEMAND Pierce's Immediate Return to the role! Whatever he wants give it to him Barbara, for crissakes! He earned it! Mock my words, replacing Pierce is going to cost you dearly, more so than if you had appeased his wishes. Whatever He wanted, to continue in the role, certainly couldn't have been beyond reason, considering how much more he draws at the box office over Dalton's version. I personally will boycott the new film "Casino Royale" and urge other true Bond Fans to do likewise and further let EON Productions know by Post of their disapproval! This will be just a cheap, sad immitation of a great character in motion picture lore! Barbara, Micheal boy did you guys screw up on this one!
BRING PIERCE BACK NOW!
A FORMER Lifelong Fan