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Here's something I've always found to be interesting. I think there's a latent political prior model going on that often interferes with political discussion. Namely: What motivates the people in Congress, individually?
Here's what I feel like is a fairly exhaustive list:
Obviously some of these overlap or could both be true. A few approaches (rank them or something?) but I feel maybe the best is simply to answer the question, "What percentage of people currently in Congress (House and Senate) ran for Congress (most recent election) for this as one of the principal reasons?" Here's my take:
Of course a lot of these can overlap a bit, but that's fine. I'm talking about major reasons to run for office in any given election. (PS: should I have split help people into generally vs some specific group?)
Do you think these are about right? Too charitable? Too cynical? I bring this up because I was recently talking to a friend who his mental model had pegged something like 60% of people in Congress as in it for the money and power. Another friend thinks that 70% are pure partisans (ideological purists). Another thinks it's mostly special interests and corporations. You can see how these can subtly skew opinions about almost any given topic.
Of course, to me, I'm correct of course :)
No but actually, if we think about the process many go to first get involved in politics, there's only a few common paths. There's being an activist of some sort and then you (or supported by an org) run as a logical next step. There's being fed up of some specific status quo and starting to run for something on a local level and then you end up working your way up. There's being wealthy and/or having connections (famous sometimes) and jumping in to something directly. There's being a pure egomaniac and running just for that. And then there's some group of people where you're minding your own business and you get recruited into it. And that's actually most paths into politics. Seems to me that there are better ways to make money, and better ways to spend your time, so I think most people run because they actually want to. Congresspeople aren't aliens, they have similar motivations to you and I, at least I think. How many people that you've talked to who have idly talked about what they would do if they were in charge, have given a corrupt reason to do so?
My experience is with Westminster in the UK but having now moved to the US my interactions with politicians here seems to indicate they aren't any different.
I think you are vastly underestimating personal ambition and desire for power. My experience directly with hundreds of those national level politicians is that those are the top motivations for most of them. Some ideological purists but they tend to get ground down over time. Doing the right thing and helping people are what politicians say, but when you are in a room with them hashing out election strategies their revealed preferences show a different side. Maybe they started out that way but by the time you get to national level, your ambitious, power hungry types have outcompeted the rest.
I've worked with hundreds of MPs and there were at best a handful I would call good people who were motivated by helping people or doing the right thing.
If my years in politics have taught me anything it is whatever level of cynicism you have towards politicians it is probably nowhere near enough. Desire for money may be there, but its less than ambition and power because politicians don't get paid huge amounts in general. Though you can leverage it afterwards if you are successful.
No its ambition and power. Top 2, by a lot. If you assume any given national level politician is a borderline narcissist with nuclear levels of ambition, who has to filter that through pretending to be committed to an ideology and to want to do good, then it explains all the various undercurrents in the halls of power.
Politicians are sharks with good PR. That's why they both have big smiles to show off.
You’ve gotten it a little confused. You’re completely correct that politicians are largely motivated by power accumulation, but that isn’t the surprising thing. That a politician should want to achieve power should be no less surprising than that a corporate climber should want to be CEO or that a star athlete should want to win gold. The surprising thing is that most of these people are essentially ideologically neutral or ambivalent. At most, largely by osmosis, they have absorbed some version of the general views of their class and peer circle. What is surprising is that it’s power without real purpose.
Triessentialism would not be surprised that people with an especial intuition of power (its acquisition, maintenance, threats of use used as leverage, etc.) would be ideologically uncommitted.
Assume three basic mindsets of people in this world: people with intuition of power, of logic and reason, or of emotional motivations. I, as a person with intuition of logic (hereafter “a Thinker”), am unfamiliar with power except in its media (nonfiction and fiction) portrayals, and I had to build my own philosophy from scratch for ten years to begin to understand how Feelers use emotions to shape their world.
Movers are intuitive in matters of power, whether they’ve studied and practiced car repair or geopolitics, but without study find logic and emotion to be wastes of time and Thinkers and Feelers mysterious antagonists with hidden sources of power.
I am likely to agree with a Mover if he suggests a course of action. It’s no surprise to me that a Mover would find the most “powerful” Thinkers and Feelers to inform him of what his politics should be; what his purpose should be.
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