Cascading Intervention Failure, Sentiment Coordination and Political Platitudes

Initial central planning, orchestrated by special interests through politicos, meaning central planning has become the order of the day, begets more central planning in the form of special interests and their politico ilk. How so?

When the initial central planning doesn’t work as intended the failure begets another special interest/politico intervention based on the last set of “plans” that failed. In turn, the new-newest plan fails which begets yet another set of special interest/politico intervention based on the new-newest plan failure and so it goes resulting in cascading intervention failure.

One might know the concept of cascading intervention failure under another title: It will be different this time. Yes, the concept that it’s not the plan that fails, it’s merely the people instituting the plan that failed. Therefore, new people will make the plan succeed. Yet the plan fails again.

Maybe, just maybe: It’s a plan failure and not a people failure? Nay, nay. It will be different this time! -Or- is it really: It will be different this time, like it wasn’t last time, nor will it be next time.

Sound familiar? Sounds like Greensboro in the last thirty years?

How can one spend thirty years, untold millions of dollars, and yet the city decays? How can one spend thirty years, millions of dollars, the city decays yet do the same thing over and over with only occasional opposition?

There certainly are many reasons, however, one reason, in particular, that encompasses most of the other reasons, is purposeful sentiment coordination by those orchestrating the cascading intervention failure. Sentiment coordination? How so?

Sentiment coordination is the attempt to make all believe in a common experience. That all, believing in a common experience, then need to act as an integrated entity in order to enjoy the common experience and achieve the ends of the common experience. Politicos yearn to be the focal point of the common experience and promote the image that individuals should act as an integrated entity so as to support the common experience and its ends. (1)

If one steps back for a moment and ponders the concept of common experience one will find that individuals do not display sentiment coordination as they lack common experience across the entire array of individuals. Jamal, Jose and Sam have differing experiences/differing sentiments. Even when individuals, such as Jamal, Jose and Sam display some level of voluntary coordination of sentiment, such as joining a club, the club generally has many members exhibiting many, many sentiments and the common experience differs widely among club members.

Regarding politicos and their attempt at sentiment coordination, exactly who sets the sentiment that needs coordinated? Is the sentiment cloaked in platitudes?

You guessed it! Politicos attempt to set sentiment coordination as a platitude. Maybe the following sounds familiar: job creation. Hence everyone is lead down the political path of sentiment coordination of “creating jobs” and being that job creation is a platitude, how could anyone be “against job creation”? Therefore, regardless of cascading failure in the realm of job creation, the failure is supposedly not the point as one needs to feel warm and fuzzy, in that, they support the common experience of job creation. Insidious, huh? (2)

One ends this exercise with unabated, constant and continuous cascading intervention failure. The failure is perpetuated as the sentiment coordination of a platitude makes all naysayer(s) politically framed as against the platitude i.e. “against job creation”. Regardless of the path of failure and multi-millions of dollars wasted, the failure and waste are politically-purposely framed as good… as one merely needs to feel the warm and fuzzy common experience of the political platitude.


Notes:

(1) The People’s Romance, Why People Love Government (as Much as They Do), Daniel Klein, The Independent Institute, Summer 2005

http://www.academia.edu/2802162/The_People_s_Romance


　

(2) Unsustainable platitudes, Pittsburgh Tribune, Donald Boudreaux, 08/14/2014

http://triblive.com/opinion/donaldboudreaux/6556379-74/petroleum-sustainability-policies#axzz39n9x2J8b


　

　

Political Platitudes

Platitude: Noun . 1. a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound. 2. the quality or state of being flat, dull, or trite: the platitude of most political oratory. (1)


When listening to rhetoric of politicos of all stripes and their ilk, bureaucrats, and special interest groups one needs to be aware of and identify platitudes within the rhetoric. Platitudes are the tools of the political class and its associates.


“A good way to test if someone is speaking in platitudes is to ask yourself if you can imagine a normal human adult believing the opposite.



Suppose someone informs you that he favors policies that promote human happiness. Can you imagine, say, your neighbor responding, “I disagree. I favor policies that promote human misery”? Probably not.



If you cannot imagine any normal person disagreeing with some proclamation, then that proclamation is a platitude. It tells you nothing of substance.



Consider today's fashionable calls for “sustainability.” The academy, media, cyberspace are full of people proclaiming support for policies that promote economic and environmental “sustainability.” So whenever you hear such proclamations, ask if you can envision a sane adult sincerely disagreeing.



You'll discover, of course, that you can't imagine anyone seriously supporting “unsustainability.” Therefore, you should conclude that mere expressions of support for “sustainability” are empty. And they can be downright harmful if they mislead people into supporting counterproductive government policies.” (2)


Some oft used platitudes favored by politicos and there associates are: favoring the creation of jobs, favoring a strong middle class, favoring less crime, favoring more education, add your favorite political platitude here à _________ .


Moreover, the deployment of political platitudes is not without stratagem. One might identify the stratagem as political slight of hand. How so?



The politico begins with the political platitude knowing the audience is in agreement with such platitude as disagreement is nearly impossible. Hence the politico has one’s agreement e.g. more jobs. Now comes “how”.


Yes, now comes the particular notional proposition of creating “more jobs”. As poorly thought out as the notional proposition might be, how can one be against such proposition as one agrees with “more jobs” i.e. the platitude.


Therefore, if one disagrees with the “how” (particular notional proposition) then one is attacked based on the platitude: “So you are against more jobs.”


The politico, bureaucrat, and special interest group will deflect opposition to the platitude, rather than an examination of the “how”.



Which then brings us to the public choice theory observation: platitudes are a poor basis for public policy.



Notes:



(1) dictionary.com



(2) Unsustainable platitudes, D.J. Boudreaux, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 08/12/2014



http://triblive.com/opinion/donaldboudreaux/6556379-74/petroleum-sustainability-policies#axzz39n9x2J8b