dysfunctional-politics
Political conflict between individuals, interest groups and political parties is as old as politics and government. For much of the history of the United States, in fact, this conflict has been essential to social stability, serving as a means of avoiding more dangerous forms of conflict.
In the past few decades, however, the public has become increasingly impatient with partisan politics - for good reason. While politicians have been attacking each other, fighting highly emotional battles over symbolic issues of little real substance, undermining or reversing whatever progress had been achieved by the other party, they have been doing little to address a mounting list of serious long-term problems that face this nation. These problems - which include declining economic competitiveness, an educational system that is failing our youth, a mounting national debt, exploding health care costs, a trade deficit, a growing technology deficit, and global warming - remain ignored or inadequately addressed because such problems require political agreement and long-term cooperation, two things that our current system of politics cannot provide.
A New Economic Environment That this is happening now is no accident. It follows from the fact that we have just passed through one economic era (based on mass production) and entered another (driven by innovation and rapid technological change). Under mass production, companies used high volume production of standardized products to compete based on price within national economies. During this period, the public was focused primarily on material goals and advancing the nation’s standard of living while the primary role of government was to regulate the economy and settle disputes between interest groups over material resources. Within this role political conflict was not particularly harmful - in fact, it was used as a means of sorting out who should get resources. Those individuals, interest groups or political parties that pushed the hardest for their interests were rewarded with economic resources in the form of government programs, legislation and/or tax breaks.
Under the new economics, however, all this has changed. Instead of using mass production to compete nationally based on price, companies now use innovation to leapfrog their global competitors with new or essentially new products. This means government has a much different role to play. Continue reading ‘Why We Need A New Kind of Politics’
