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Irwin Singer's avatar

David Bernstein’s book "Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America". is an example of incrementalism gone badly wrong. In the late 1970s, the federal bureaucracy decided to create racial and ethnic classifications to be used for data collection purposes only. They established five standard official classifications: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander (the latter later spun off to a new category with Native Hawaiians), Black, Hispanic, and White. Nevertheless, this classification system has been incrementally incorporated into a myriad of government bureaucracies to determine which groups are eligible for affirmative action, are given minority perks, and hundreds of other preferences. Today, incrementalism of a bad idea (racial and ethnic classifications) has become a tsunami of irrational identity politics. Yes, incrementalism is probably better than utopian revolution, but it doesn’t guarantee a good outcome.

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Jon Saxton's avatar

I find this an oddly incomplete argument. Seems to me that, using historical analysis/examples, one could easily make the case for incrementalism or for Grand change. And sometimes for both. It all depends on the circumstances. And strong opinions on many sides of an issue do not necessarily disqualify or recommend either approach.

Our entire last century was precipitated and structured by a grand design, known as the The New Deal. Smaller, but still pretty grand changes came through decisions to enter WWII and transform our society into an enormous, overpowering war-making machine, to create the Medicare and Medicaid programs, to take bold approaches to alliances, boith economic and political/military, and more. And then, of course there are always incremental changes, improvements, innovations that must and do follow.

All of these changes, whether grand or incremental have a common denominator: a vision, a plan, and the leadership and resources to guide decision-making and implementation. And here’s another perspective: Isn’t it generally both/and? How does one take even small, incremental steps without an overall plan? Why can’t you employ incremental steps in adopting an overall grand design? And what would be wrong about a grand design arriving out of the accumulation and results of incremental changes?

The general idea that it is prudent to take things slowly and methodically is fine. But in politics, as in life, there are times when you go big or you go home. Arguing for incrementalism may be a tactic to address the fraught forces battling over the future of our Republic at the moment, but then you need to explain how and what sorts of incremental steps might be contemplated that are better and different from what Biden has been doing, which has been overwhelmingly incremental.

Anyhow, I’m sure there is much more behind this short essay that you did not share. Perhaps you might elaborate at some point.

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