For myself, I regard my politics as first and foremost pragmatic. I have an ideology, but more than that I want the American economy to work well for everyone. Economics is not a zero sum game; good economic policy is a positive sum game and lots of bad policy is a decidedly negative sum game.
There seem to be a lot of people claiming to be "pragmatists" is that some new spin on Independent or uncommitted?
I only speak for myself, so if "a lot of people" claim to be pragmatists" you would have to check with them to see what they mean. For my self, pragmatism is based on my experience and training. For example, I believe that out of every ten great sounding ideas about eight will be failures. The problem is that the losers generally sound as good as the winners before you try them. So I don't bet the farm on the first idea. I design a fair trial, spend the money, and if it fails, I count it money well spent on information and move on. Every success looks obvious in retrospect.
The opposite of pragmatism is magical thinking. Magical thinking involves coming up with creative reasons for the failure of projects that were a flawed idea from the start. There is a difference between a bad concept and bad execution, but throwing more money at a flawed project does not cure the flaw.
If you don't like one of my arguments, I can be persuaded. Assuming we have compatible goals and values, I will happily abandon any proposal when I become convinced there is something better. In general I find that means that curbing monopoly power is generally good and that market solutions are preferable to command solutions.
I would argue that wanting the American economy to work well for everyone is a pipe dream best left for the likes of Ricardo Montalban on fantasy island. Well is one of those "fairness" words that one has to "feel" to understand. What one person might think of as working well might seem to be completely screwed up for the next guy.
You might want to read some about "Pareto optimality". It has nothing to do with "fairness" or "feelings". If a proposal can leave all members of society at least as well off (or if they can be made as well off with a suitable transfer that the gainers are willing to provide) and at least one member is better off; then society is better off. That's the defining axiom of welfare economics (which is a branch of general equilibrium theory and has nothing to do with government "welfare" programs. That's a pretty tough standard, and I for one would substitute "most" for "all" with the exceptions being skewed toward disadvantaging those who have reached their current state by use of illegal, forcible, or monopolistic methods. I see no reason a society must guarantee the gains of law breakers, for example. I realize these rules are pretty foreign to people who view public issues as morality plays or sports contests, which is what political views of public issues really boils down to, but I think Pareto, Hicks, Arrow, and Debreu et al make more sense than "Hurrah for our side!"
If by well, you mean equal opportunity vs. forcing equal outcome then I might agree, if only disagreeing with the terminology.
I believe in equal opportunity and not equal outcomes. But I also believe that society is better off if those outcomes and not wildly disparate and if the outcomes have a floor on the standard of living. How much of that floor is provided by government and how much by private actions is a matter of effectiveness, and I would support whatever works best. If the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and other such organizations could provide every needy American with minimal levels of food, clothing, shelter, and medical care; I would eschew government action. A society gets to choose how it carries out its responsibilities.
what a bunch of crap....
