Comments on: Market Making versus Market Taking in Politics

By: Crooked Timber » » Political pure plays

Crooked Timber » » Political pure plays — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:36:10 +0000

[...] My post last week about Rick Perlstein’s pamphlet got some interesting reactions (and some wrongheaded ones too). I was particularly taken with Matt Yglesias’s reworking of Perlstein’s argument and suggestions for how it might be applied. This said, I think Matt is wrong when he claims that the argument over market-making versus market-taking isn’t really an argument between the left and the center of the Democratic party. While there’s no reason in principle that the one set of disagreements should map onto the other, there’s an enormous degree of overlap in practice. In internecine battles over policy, New Democrat/DLC types have made hay with the claim that leftwing policies simply don’t sell in the marketplace of American politics. As a result, they tend to exaggerate the extent to which these market rules are a given, and to discount the possibility that they might be changed. A case in point, which I’ve just come across, is this review by Ed Kilgore of Perlstein’s book on Barry Goldwater . Kilgore implicitly criticizes non-centrists for defying the commonsense view, based on extensive political experience, that Democrats can best meet the contemporary rightwing challenge by occupying the abandoned political center and peeling off moderate, independent, and even Republican voters. [...]

By: Franklin Delano Sinatra

Franklin Delano Sinatra — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 02:46:30 +0000

abb1, Rick means that unions even today contribute very significant money and volunteers to political campaigns.

And to Rick, your work is great, but in 1992 Perot drew nearly equally between people who would have voted D or R. And I think in general you underestimate the importance of external circumstance in political elections. I think that there is no way a D could have come within 10 points of Reagan in ‘84 because of external circumstances.

More recently, how ‘bout that hurricane that blew through Florida and gave Bush millions of dollars of free media in that state in ‘04?

By: BigMacAttack

BigMacAttack — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:09:04 +0000

modus potus,

Millions of ‘ordinary’ Americans shoveled billions into dot coms and millions visit casinos every year.

I am not claiming that most are high flying risk takers. I am just pointing out that they are not pathologically averse to risk.

I was just pointing out that aside from the difficulties in delivering economic security as opposed to leisure you might want to question your assumptions regarding the ordinary voters need for greater economic security versus higher return.

But hey I couldn’t care less. Don’t consider leisure.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 09:46:45 +0000

Yes, unions, where are they? It’s almost impossible to organize a union. I remember how this surprised me: LECHMERE, INC. v. NLRB, 502 U.S. 527 (1992), because I was working for that company at the time.

So, where are the unions? Read this: Wal-Mart store tells workers to be ready to work any shift. “Workers who cannot commit to being available for any shift between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., seven days a week, will be fired by the end of this week.“. It’s crazy fucking shit, man. Boeing…

By: goatchowder

goatchowder — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 06:35:46 +0000

This is beautiful. I’ve been saying this for years, but Perlstein has found a new and interesting metaphor with which to communicate the idea. I hope he succeeds.

Democratic officeholders anxiously watch the polls, as a sort of a barometer of what they should do in order to properly serve the people. But Repugs drive the polls, by selling ideas and attitudes, and telling the public what they should want. This is why those “market makers” succeed.

I think the “marketing” metaphor works well because, first of all, “the business of America is business”—business analogies are very widely-understood, with perhaps only sports analogies being moreso. Secondly, the Repugs have not only used marketing analogies, but, far more importantly, employed marketing techniques, with devastating effect, for 40 years. Karl Rove and Company was a direct-mail firm. Reagan was a shirt salesman. The captains of industry who have funded and continue to fund the right-wing takeover of this country are all businessmen with a keen understanding of marketing, markets, and the modern techniques of hucksterism and bullshit which fester and seep out of Corporate Marketing departments. Hell, even their “think tanks” are little more than “sales and PR firms”—not much thinking comes out of there compared to the alarming amount of punditry, bloviation, advocacy, and evangelism which does.

The right-wing takeover of our country is but one symptom of the larger corporate private takeover of all life on this planet—“globalisation”. Bush is our first (and hopefully our last) MBA president. Corporations are profoundly anti-democratic, neo-feudal organisations. So I sympathise with those who find the “MBA-speak” and business analogies objectionable, but I think they are very much “reality-based” for today’s world.

Finally, I think one of the reasons why Goldwater/Reagan were able to think long-term is because they had no hope of any short-term wins; they were defeated so utterly and humiliatingly in 1964 that they developed a permanent inferiority complex (which, strangely, their political descendants maintain even to this day), and so deprived of any short-term hope, they were able to focus on long-term woodshedding. Reagan in ‘66 and Nixon in ‘68 perhaps offered them some hope, but for some reason they maintained the revolutionary attitude of a small vanguard forever doomed to be outnumbered by hostile enemy. That kind of pessimism has its limitations, but it also helps prevent “lust of result”, and reduce the risk of getting addicted to—or distracted by—short-term wins. I’m not sure we can or should emulate their technique for maintaining long-term focus, but I think it’s at least worth noting how they did it.

By: modus potus

modus potus — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 01:20:34 +0000

Bigmacattack,

For someone who criticizes the thread for “dubious assumptions,” you seem to have made a whopper [oops, wrong brand] yourself. High-stakes poker players and dot-com crazies aren’t exactly representative. If we imagine a dial that ranges between all-day adrenaline rushes and a predictable satiety of needs, most folks would turn it closer—but not all the way—to the latter. They do want a safety net—but not a safety harness.

By: BigMacAttack

BigMacAttack — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:25:22 +0000

A lot of dubious assumptions and vague propositions.

But as far as delivering a product people didn’t know they wanted and needed leisure might make more sense than economic security. Leisure could actually be delivered. Short a magic wand that creates a permanent boom and a tight labor market economic security is a good deal tougher to deliver. Much.

I wonder if when MY sits down to play some poker or if he ever catches the WSP on ESPN and thinks back to the dot com crazes and a little voice in his head whispers I am absolutely crazy to think economic security is what people want?

By: Rick Perlstein

Rick Perlstein — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:23:24 +0000

abb1, ever heard of, um, “unions”?

By: abb1

abb1 — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:03:20 +0000

Republicans have powerful grassroots network – churches. The Democrats have nothing. It’s as simple as that. Economic populism is a good theme, but without organization it won’t work – opposition’s propaganda will twist your message beyond recognition in 5 seconds.

The only chance is that the Republicans will somehow destroy themselves: some kind of a Watergate-like event or a great depression-like event. Otherwise it’s pretty much hopeless, I’m afraid.

By: ccobb

ccobb — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 19:14:58 +0000

Nicely done. The idea that “new technologies provided it with the opportunity to build a new market” is fundamental. I was a brand guy at Starbucks back in the day, and that essentially was the same approach that Starbucks made its bet on. And the notion that one of “the DLC/New Democrat talking points is to claim that more radical strategies won’t work, because they aren’t what voters want” is the flip side to this equation. As my boss at the time used to say, “you’ll go broke listening to your customers,” which sort of flies in the face of most current marketing approaches.

His simple test was this: if a product’s success is predicated on giving customers what they say they want, then why do so many businesses fail that do exactly that? And why do some companies that offer something nobody knew they wanted until they tried it (think iPods and lattes and jumbo jets) succeed wildly, while also transforming the marketplace? Because they give customers something that they didn’t know they wanted, but find they can’t live without.

But this approach also tells us something about the kind of thinking it takes to make a market, which should tell us something about the kind of thinkers the Democratic Party needs to hire to explore the idea. Unfortunately it probably isn’t the kind of thinking the Dem Party looks for now or is likely to hire anytime soon. It takes a mindset that accepts far more risk than is currently on display by the next crop or presidential contenders, notably Kerry, Biden, Clinton, etc.

By: James Kroeger

James Kroeger — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:51:36 +0000

Bruce: "Democrats need a policy on trade, which avoids the stupidity and corrupting potential of simple-minded protectionism with a trade policy, which reassures working class people that the Democrats are promoting and defending their interests. How about this Bruce for a starting point? The full proposal takes on all of the questions that Republicans would be sure to raise...

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:55:56 +0000

I think that something that should be emphasized here is that Perlstein’s point, if I understand it correctly, isn’t simply about branding or marketing. It’a point about trying to change the rules of the underlying marketplace, in which this or that branding exercise takes place. As Perlstein acknowledges, this is a risky enterprise, that requires a long term effort with an uncertain payoff. But if it does pay off, it will pay off spectacularly.

By: Bruce Wilder

Bruce Wilder — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:42:52 +0000

Three points:
1.) Branding the Brand X, the other Party, is more important than branding your own Party. Negative advertising works, because voters need some clue to unpack the usually vacuous self-descriptions of the Parties. With the Media completely under the control of the Republicans, Democrats cannot depend on “objective voices” in the media, to “reveal” to voters what the Republicans are “really” doing. Democrats have been almost incredibly bad at hammering home the “real” agenda of the Republicans, to wit, income redistribution in favor of the very, very wealthy.
2.) Political parties are always coalitions or alliances: any “brand identity” is going to have to marry the preferences of disparate groups without alienating. The Democratic Party was critically weakened after 1970 by the civil rights “interest group” organizing, which alienated white, middle class voters, who were implicitly excluded by virtue of their identities from the groups Democrats were nominally trying to “help”. For Democrats in 2005, the biggest problem is tying idealistic, technocratic types to those who are fearful about the pace of change and want the reassurance of patriotic solidarity; “free trade” is a critical issue—Democrats need a policy on trade, which avoids the stupidity and corrupting potential of simple-minded protectionism with a trade policy, which reassures working class people that the Democrats are promoting and defending their interests. This requires some creativity of ideas and expression, to appeal to solidarity: Clinton’s “rewarding those who work hard and play by the rules” was a good formulation, worth reviving along with new inventions along the same lines.
3.) Business success is not just marketing; it is finding a resource base. Democrats have suffered from their dependence on business for campaign funds; the bankruptcy bill revealed that plainly. Democrats need a fund-raising base, which is different from the Republican fund-raising base of corporate executives, and which will not corrupt them fatally on policy. Identifying a fund-raising niche, which is consistent with certain broad policy directions will add a lot of credibility to a Democratic “brand”. Corruption is the greatest vulnerability of the Republicans; the Democrats, however, have to transform themselves to credibly take advantage.

By: anciano

anciano — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:04:39 +0000

Why did sane journalists like Clarence Page accuse Sen. Durbin of being over the top in his Gitmo comments? Why are those journalists silent about the fact that US military psychiatrists and psychologists are participating in “breaking down” Gitmo prisoners? If that’s not a violation of the Nuremburg principles, then war is peace and love is hate.

When Hillary, windsurfer Kerry, cutie-pie Edwards or Babbling Biden step up and say that it was wrong to invade Iraq and that it’s flat wrong to torture people, even if they may be terrorists, then I’ll respect the Democrats. When a major Democrat steps up and says look -stop the baloney about ending dependence on foreign oil. Oil is slowly running out. We must stop the dependence on oil and that’s gonna take blood, sweat and tears, then I’ll respect the Democrats. They can’t see long term, they are thinking of the election one year away and the fact that Joe Six Pack hates to hear anything that suggests that our country has pursued stupid and evil policies. Both the Serbs and the shallow American religious right whipped themselves up into an intoxicated state of victimization. Most religious Americans see through Rove and Rumsfeld. They couldn’t stomach Kerry. Kerry promised the same thing as Bush, only that he would do it better. He tried to straddle the Iraq issue. You can’t do that.
We can hope for Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton as the two main Presidential candidates in 2008, so that a third party might actually win.

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:45:29 +0000

Yikes – I actually hadn’t realized that Rick had read the post and commented when I put up the last. (I suspect the comment was in moderation for a while). What Rick says.