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Date Posted: 12:35:53 10/31/02 Thu
Author: Kafka (Michael)
Author Host/IP: gatekeeper.ngrid.com / 192.146.145.219
Subject: OK
In reply to: Richard (reply to Michael) 's message, "Let's look for the controlling variables" on 19:58:19 10/30/02 Wed

I will use the name "Kafka" here, since there's already another Michael. Our styles are different enough that nobody is likely to get us confused, but no sense having two people with one name.

Another side note: I couldn't get your profile to come up... just a blank page.

Now, to the meat of the argument:

>In your work, you assume the controlling variables are the
>Democrat's economic policies vs. the Republican's policies.

Well, I don't think that's entirely accurate. Granted, that's what I'm trying to isolate, but I actually believe there are multiple, interacting variables at work. If I were just comparing how things went under Clinton vs. under Dubya, I'd have to admit that there is too little data to form any meaningful theories, given the number of uncontrolled variables. From a scientific perspective, I'll even admit that's true when I expand my sample size to include all the presidents from Hoover, onward. Even though some of the variables should, in theory, cancel each other out, leaving just the variables being tested (party affiliation of the executive), in reality, such a tiny sample size (13), is insufficient to accomplish that.

So, I don't make any pretensions of having proven some political law. In fact, it's not even a proper theory. At best, it's a mere hypothesis that has stood up to the minimal rough "reality checks" I'm able to construct, given the irreducably complex nature of the field. It's more of a "best guess, given what we know."

Anyway, I think we probably agree pretty well on the essentials here. That is, we're both willing to stipulate that there's little that can be done to "prove" the effectiveness of one or the other party's policies, given the unwieldy nature of the inquiry. Under any individual president, the economic factors outside of his control are going to seriously outweigh the economic factors that are under his control, so our conclusions based on results will be unfairly skewed.

However, my point is that, despite these problems, we have no choice but to formulate hypotheses. We have been entrusted, as voters, with the responsibility of determining who to put in the executive. Our decision, I think, should be based on who we think is more likely to do well for the citizens of this country (and, to some extent, for the citizens of this world). Thus, no matter how weak the historical analysis is, in either direction, we need to go with the person we think is more likely to bring about a good result, even if it's only on a shakey "more likely than not" basis.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors that go into that guess. We can vote for the man we trust more, or the man with the better personal track record, or the man who seems to understand the world better, or who is more like ourselves, or who with think to be smarter, or to have better leadership abilities, etc. In that mix, though, I'd put the track-record of idealogically-similar politicians in the same role. If idealogically-similar politicians have tended to coincide with desireable results, I think that argues in a guy's favor. There's no doubt in my mind that, in living memory, more favorable results have tended to coincide with Democrats in the White House. Even though that's only circumstantial evidence, and thus highly unreliable, in the abscence of any surer analysis, it is persuasive.

It's just like if you're interviewing candidates for a job opening. There will be lots of things you consider, but, at least in my case, I try to apply past experience with people who had similar idealogies and dispositions. For example, if every time the person in a particular slot is a devotee of high-profile marketing campaigns, the company loses money, and every time the person in the slot is a devotee of budget-conscious marketing, the company does well, then I'm going to consider which of the two a given candidate is. It will be a big factor in my decision, even if I can't prove that one marketing theory will always produce better results than the other. It's a "best guess" situation... and, when it comes to politics, I think that the best guess is that the country will do better under a devotee of Democratic economic policies.

Anyway, I also agree with your points that we need to judge politicians' results based on their particular context. For example, history will likely not remember Clinton as one of the great all-time presidents, simply because he didn't overcome any particularly severe challenge. Yet, in a sense, that's unfair. He did very well given what challenges he faced. In terms of general prosperity and comfort of the citizens, it was almost certainly the finest eight years in the nation's history. Likewise, one could judge FDR poorly given the overall scarcity and hardship of his time in office, but, when you consider it in the context of the challenges he faced (the Great Depression followed quickly by WWII), his performance was breathtaking.

So, I admit that when you "grade" a politician, it's only fair to consider the difficulty of the course. Still, I guess the principle behind my analysis is that if you put enough samples under consideration, the contexts should tend to even out, in reference to the categories (albeit not the individuals). From Hoover, onward: Republican, Democrat, Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Democrat, Republican. That's a fairly random mix, and a very even one, so we'd expect tough challenges to have fallen under both Republicans and Democrats, without any significant cumulative bias to one or the other group. As such, if we're comparing them as groups, I still think that it's reasonable to set aside the individual circumstances of each. It may not be totally fair, but it's one of the few ways we can reasonably cut through the complexity... which we need to do, if we hope to see patterns in the chaos.

>Just like the weather, we can only work withing the
>overall limiting factors it places on us. Just as no
>amount of regulation will produce more good weather, no
>amount of regulation will grow more agricultural product.

True enough. Though, of course, the counterargument is that the real issue is how to maximize your product. Even if you you're forced to operate within limits that are beyond your control, that's no reason to assume you have to treat much or most of it as out of your control.

To play with your analogy, picture the economy as a small farm. Absolute laissez-faire idealogy would have you planting the seeds and then leaving them be until harvest time... assuming that the natural forces of the weather knew best how much water was needed, and assuming that any attempts at controlling pests would have worse "unintended consequences" than doing nothing. Meanwhile, absolute communist idealogy may have the plants over-watered to the point of root-rot, and over-pruned to the point of stunting growth. It would also use such harsh chemicals to control pests that the product would end up inedible.

Somewhere between those two extremes lies the right course... the course that will, on average, maximize your product. My belief is that the Democratic economic policies are a little closer to the optimum mix than are the Republicans. Although, as with farming, there are a million variables, the biggest and most important of which are out of everyone's hands, one set of farmers has had consistently better crops.... and they've done so over a large enough sample size to draw persuasive, though not compelling, conclusions. Draught and blight may be beyond anyone's control, but I'm only suggesting that, more often than not, there will be a more bountiful harvest with a Democrat in the Oval Office.

>So, I have to ask how we can define and isolate the
>variables we can control and then search economic history
>to see how those variables can be applied to our economic
>benefit?

That's a good question, but a very hard one to answer. The very nature of the enterprise makes it hard as hell to isolate variables. That's why politics is much more of an art than a science. As with an art, it's a whole lot easier to make judgments about large, vague tendencies than to break it down into small, discrete components. For example, I can say with relative certainty that hiring Steven Spielberg to direct a movie will produce a better result than hiring Alan Metter to do so... even if I can't isolate all the variables that have made Steven Spielberg movies good and Alan Metter movies bad. Likewise, I'm preliminarily confident that electing a Democrat president will be better than electing a Republican president, even if I can't isloate the exact variables that have made Democratic presidencies better periods, on average, that Republican presidencies.

Anyway, I'm up for trying to isolate the variables in the "art" of presidential leadership, if you are. Any ideas on how to start?

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