Idealism in Politics

When it comes to party politics, there's idealism and there's pragmatism. Both are necessary for the success of a party. A party needs some idea at its base in order to stake out a broad coherent message, and it needs pragmatism in order to get the attention of a broad audience. However, pragmatism and idealism are not compatible. For a truly broad and coherent message, ideas have to be crystal clear and detailed. This is in direct conflict with pragmatism, where opportunities are grabbed on the fly, and messages are deliberately altered in order to gain the support of marginal voters.

Idealists tend to be detailed to the point where any deviation becomes a violation of principle. This means that only those who fully agree with every aspect of the basic principle will find the party welcoming. With people having different points of view and different basic values, no pure idealistic party can expect to gain support from more than a tiny fraction of the voting public. Such a party will for ever be a marginal entity with no political power. At best, it can influence people in their direction, but a seat in parliament is virtually impossible to attain.

On the other hand, pure pragmatism can easily gain political support. They can get seats in parliament. But once in power, they will have no idea what to do. Without an ideological base, there's no way to stake out a direction. The party comes unglued, and their influence is short lived and minimal at best.

Two examples from Norway serve to illustrate these two extremes. There is in Norway a party that has the removal of toll roads as its only philosophy. It gained several seats in parliament due to its appeal among frustrated commuters. However, the party is today a mere shadow of its former self. With nothing else to keep it together, their party members have ended up aligning with all sorts of different political parties, often in direct conflict with other members in their own party.

A classical Liberal party, on the other hand, has been remarkably clear about its politics from its inception some ten years ago. Everything has been based on Ayn Rand's political philosophy. Every issue has been clearly argued. It's been coherent and broad in scope. But very few people vote for it. Realizing their predicament, this party has become slightly less principled of late. This has gained the attention of at least one populist orator who's now a member. A handful of principles have been tossed aside in return for a star player on the political scene. In doing so, the party has gained substantially in popularity, and may well get a seat or two in parliament after the next election.

None of this is very surprising. Pragmatic posturing is after all the essence of party politics. Principles are only there to give a general direction, and can at any times be changed if it's seen as good politics.

This means that principled people like myself should avoid party politics and focus on practical politics instead. Those of us who want a revolution based on principles must go out and do it ourselves. Communists should join together and create their own communes. There's nothing stopping communists from doing this, so why not just do it? Libertarians like myself should likewise make arrangements that correspond to our basic philosophy. This is not always legal, but why follow laws that can be circumnavigated?

Waiting for a principled party to come to power is like waiting for Godot. It will never happen. However, those of us who start living according to our principles will see real and immediate changes. The reward is there right from the start.

Waiting for Godot

By Fernand Michaud - This image comes from Gallica Digital Library and is available under the digital ID btv1b10329630q, CC0, Link