History Analysis: Political and Economic Theories Going From One Extreme To Another

Populares and Optimates, Saxons and Normans, Republicans and Democrats; Political parties have basically been around since history began, and while the definitions may have changed over time, the overall ideas haven't. There will always be two parties of people who disagree with each other. Each will have their own narrative as to why they're right, and why their enemies are wrong. Each party usually gets a turn to put their theories to the test (this is also true in science, economics, religion, and almost anything else you can think of that involves people). But over time, each party learns to hate the other. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels concluded in their Communist Manifesto (please keep in mind, they were literally wrong about everything else), "Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps". Basically, tension grows between two parties until war breaks out.

People literally die in these struggles for power. A great example is the Russian Revolution. The Revolution started in 1917, and ultimately lead to the execution of the imperial Romanov family on July 16th, 1918, by Marxists (yeah, thanks Karl). Russia is still recovering from the effects Marxism had on its country. Now Russia is slowly becoming Capitalist (extremely strict Capitalism, but Capitalism none the less). It's almost as if they went from one extreme to another.

The Civil War had a lot to do with political parties too. Confederates were generally Democrat, and Unions were primarily Republican. Please note: These political parties are not the same Republican and Democrat parties we have today (They have more or less swapped definitions with each other over time). Republicans back in the day essentially believed that government should have power over the states, while Democrats wanted limited government controlled by the states. The Republicans believed the narrative that Confederates were traitors to their country for wanting to leave the Union, and Confederates believed the narrative that Unions were violating their states rights by not letting them leave the Union. Both sides were correct... kind of. As a result of the Republicans (Unions) winning the war, we are now seeing the effect of having a government that's too big, leading to conservative extremists who want to literally abolish all forms of government (Ron Paul supporters) and Liberal extremists who want government intervention in almost everything.  

Do you see a pattern? After one idea goes through its cycle, it's eventually replaced with an opposite theory. It's like a clock pendulum: Back and forth, back and forth. 

How People Continually Lie to Themselves...

People rarely understand why they don't like or enjoy something/someone. Most people have a gut feeling that's telling them something, but they don't know what it is, and they're lucky if they even know what it's about. When they do know what it's about, then they start looking for reasons to rationalize their feelings. It's actually pretty interesting when you think about it because it's almost as if people are literally making up reasons to try to solve a puzzle that they themselves made.

Here's an example,

You know somebody that you really don't like. When people ask you why you don't like that person, your response is, "I'm not sure, I guess it's just his (her) attitude."

A lot of people do this. It's quite common. Subconsciously, people try to rationalize their beliefs, even if they themselves don't know why they believe it. People ultimately lie to themselves by finding reasons to hate things that they don't like. 

Favor: An Investment That Pays Dividends.

Give someone something today and they'll remember it forever. It's true, favors buy power. The Italian Mafia did it, lobbyists still do it, and the concept has been shown to work numerous times. People have a tendency to repay favors, It's only human nature. Sometimes, people repay favors by doing favors even greater than the ones you did for them. It can almost be thought of as payment plus interest.

By doing favors constantly, you can get people to do random crap for you, right? Essentially, yes. According to a social experiment done by Dennis Regan in 1971, [1]  the force of reciprocity (exchanging things for benefit), is so strong, that most people feel obliged to repay favors from people, even if they don't like the person who originally did the favor in the first place. But of course, there are always some exceptions.

[1] Regan, R. T. (1971). "Effects of a favor and liking on compliance". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 7: 627–639.

Debate: Not Always the Best Tactic

Let's face it, debating rarely changes the opinion of your opponent. You could literally disprove their idea/belief a thousand times, but overall, they will probably make excuses and disregard your arguments. Why is this? Honestly, I blame human nature. In the overall scale of things, people tend to value proving their ideas right, rather than actually believing in ideas that truly are right. No one wants to be wrong, so people subconsciously rationalize their beliefs in a way that makes them still seem creditable.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that debate doesn't have an effect on people's beliefs, because it sometimes  does. Debating usually helps the undecided find the most plausible idea to agree with. But argument rarely changes the beliefs of someone who disagreed with you before-hand.