Left Politicians Are Simply Bad at Negotiating

So, we have observed lately Obama's repeated failures at negotiation and adopting right-wing framing of issues. I also have an example from The Netherlands about how politicians on the left simply such at negotiating.


The results of the last election made it very difficult to form a government. The biggest reason why is that the right-wing fascist PVV got third place. Previously, the party seemed like they could never be allowed in government, but with those results, it becomes hard to get enough other parties to work together to get a government without the PVV. The second difficulty is that there are 11 parties in The Netherlands. After the election, three possibilities emerged. First, a right-wing government with three parties: the stable two right of center parties who just finally let the PVV into government for the first time. Second, a centrist government formed by the parties on the left and the VVD, which is more to the right of the other stable right of center party, the CDA. This is what the left proposed, but they failed. The third possibility is that the left parties band together and then invite the most moderate of the three right of center parties (the CDA) to join them. I must add that the CDA has done this multiple times in history. It seems very logical to me, but that was not even put on the table!


What ended up happening is the first option, with a slight modification. Instead of the radical, fascist, PVV having ministerial seats in government, the two right of center parties would form a government and appoint all of the department heads themselves and the PVV would co-negotiate and sign the government's policy program, support the government in parliament, but not take any ministerial posts. Well, even with this arrangement, the government had a majority in only one of the houses of parliament. So, now, they have to also rely on the two votes of a tiny, right-wing Christian theocratic party. The result, in my opinion, is just a disaster. Who would have thought, much less wanted, the entire country to be held hostage and every policy decision held hostage by a fascist party that was previously though incapable of governing and a theocratic Christian party that both its members and other parties view as incapable of governing (it calls itself a 'witness party'). Absurd.


So yesterday, a Dutch poll asked people about their desired government after the last election. The third option of a center-left government (PvdA, CDA, SP, GL, D66) had only 1% less support than the current right-wing minority government. Oh, and it would have actually had a majority, which I thought was rule #1 in a parli system! Instead, the left proposed a centrist cabinet (Paars Plus), which failed. 


My conclusion is that it is simply pathetic how the left can't be forceful and can't work together. When the party opposite you threatens to back out and go with a radical solution that is win-lose (they win, you lose), then you have to counter-threat with a solution that is lose-win (you win, they lose) in order to force a compromise and also to prevent an option that is absolutely unacceptable. Once they threaten to go with an unacceptable, unreasonable option, you cannot just shrug it off as unreasonable. Unreasonable results happen in negotiation when you are unwilling to play tit-for-tat and when you do not have a back-up plan. You always have to have a back-up plan because having a back-up allows you to evaluate the point at which the negotiated agreement with the other side is not worth signing onto because it is worse than your back-up plan. Then you are confident enough to walk away and work on your back-up plan. However, the left never seems to get this. Why is this?


I submit that is has to do with a difference between left and right worldviews. You see, the left-wing people tend to study political science and hard sciences. They belief in the Enlightenment dogma of the inherent goodness and rationality of human beings, and they approach social situation with that worldwiew in mind. In contrast, conservatives are more likely to go to business school and to believe in the free market ideology that holds that aggressive pursuit of self-interest leads to the best societal result (the 'greed is good' economic and political hypothesis that drives Thatcherism/Reaganism). 


So, what happens when two people from these different backgrounds sit down at a negotiating table? The left person assumes that there is an objectively correct position for society that they are all working toward. Thus, the propose that solution right away. The example given here is the centrist Paars Plus proposal from the left. However, the right thinking person believes that negotiation is part of the social process of parties with divergent interests aggressively pursuing their self interest unhindered by social convention. Indeed, the writer that Republicans worship as a prophet, Ayn Rand, argues that is is immoral (!) to let one's pursuit of self-interest be hindered by social conventions and morality. Thus, from this perspective, the right thinking person proposes the most far right-wing idea and the starting point for negotiation and then tries to get as much as the can for themselves and their supporters regardless of the overall wishes of the voters or social convention and niceties. 


We have seen this over and over again in the US as well. I will provide three examples.


First, we saw this with the health care debate, where Obama proposed the center-right individual mandate, a policy proposal originally offered by the right-wing Heritage Foundation as an alternative to universal government-driven health care. The Republicans then moved further to the right and their proposal was to do nothing and let fifty thousand people continue to die each and every year due to a dysfunctional health care system. The end result as no public option, and a plan that is very unpopular across ideological lines in the US and is half-way between the center position and the extreme right-wing. There was no public option, the centrist position of a public option is not there, not is expanding medicaid or medicare coverage to include more people, there is a center-right individual mandate, long-term cost containment and structural issues are not addressed, and doing a truly universal single-payer system was never even part of the negotiation. 


Second, the exact same process happened with the negotiations over extending the Bush tax cuts. Obama took the reasonable, centrist or center-right position that the government should keep the tax cuts for middle-income people during the recession, but that the tax cuts on the higher-income people should expire as they were planned to do in order to help pay down the deficit. The republicans took the position that they only care about the tax cuts in the highest bracket and those cuts must be extended. Thus, the higher-income tax cuts were extended in exchange for Republicans not shutting down the government. What a crappy deal! 


For a third example, the same dynamics played out in the recent deficit deal. Obama proposed the most centrist position possible -- we raise the debt ceiling as we have done 27 times without any fuss. The Republicans counter-proposed that the government cut one trillion in spending, including medicare and social security, or the Republicans will destroy the country, the government, and the economy. Obama should have never negotiated on such a silly proposal and in such 'crisis' circumstances. Obama certainly should not have started negotiating without a back-up plan, such as declaring the debt ceiling to be raised using a good Constitutional argument, or letting the Republicans sabotage the government and then use his executive power to make the cuts he wants, and blame the Republicans for any unpopular cuts. Thus, Obama had to give in repeatedly. Obama started with a moderate proposal of 50% tax increases and 50% spending cuts, and it went all downhill from there. In the end, he gave the Republicans more than 100% of what they initially requested (they initially proposed 1 trillion in cuts, which people thought was bold and absurd). The end result was a Republican bill that Obama signed that did 2.7 trillion in cuts, with 0 dollars in increased tax revenues! Absurd and pathetic result. 


The medium compromise point keeps moving further to the right  and there has been nothing to stop it.