In the 1970s, Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould published the idea of punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution does not occur along a gradual Darwinian trajectory, but through relatively short bursts between longer periods of genetic stability.
The moderate position is that we should push for incrementalism, for change that is gradual and continuous, but is that a reasonable goal? I posit that political change tends to happen in a way that is analogous to punctuated equilibrium. We may say that incrementalism is bad, but not much has gone into describing what non-incrementalism would look like, allowing proponents of incrementalism the freedom to think of the alternative as a revolution that is messy and potentially violent and something to be avoided at all costs. What I describe here may seem like stating the obvious (and has already been said in some form by people such as political scientist Frank Baumgartner) , but I think it is necessary groundwork for building the intellectual framework for opposing centrist ideology.
If the opposite of incrementalism doesn’t have to be a revolution then what can it be? We want change. What does change look like, other than “not this”? Rapid change in a relatively short period of time doesn’t have to mean burning it down, but it does mean making some people uncomfortable. It does mean accepting transitional costs that may harm some people in the short-term because the right change is an overall net positive.
So, why is incrementalism bad? The standard response is that it lower EV than a more aggressive push for change, but another criticism is that the world doesn’t really work that way. To use health care as an example, incrementalism is a way of fine-tuning Obamacare in a way that accepts the general framework of Obamacare, Incrementalism is not a viable path for getting from Obamacare to a single-payer system.
In a democracy, public opinion theoretically drives political change. (How democratic the United States actually is is open for debate.) A model for political punctuated equilibrium would suggest that creating change is a matter of driving public opinion so that a shift in policy is more like a dam bursting than a trickle of progress. Instead of slowly building public support, it would be more effective to find triggers to inflame public passions.
Framed this way, the problem with incrementalists isn’t the policies they pursue so much as their narrative for how politics works.
I’d be interested if anyone has examples of large scale progressive reforms that occurred incrementally. Seems like most of the signature progressive improvements over the years all kind of happened with large scale sweeping legislation.
I think you could find some support for your general thesis in studies of historical social movements, and social movement theory in sociology. If “incrementalism” is taken to mean the belief that smaller changes are generally preferable to larger ones, than I agree that this can be criticized on the grounds that it misunderstands politics as collective action. It tends to treat politics more as a managerial task, and underrates the role of activism, particularly the necessity for social movements to frame issues in simple and compelling ways that resonate with large groups of people.
On the other hand, I’m tempted to describe myself as an anti-anti-incrementalist.
Where “anti-incrementalism” is taken to mean the belief that more radical change is inherently preferable. Making things a little better is also good. I don’t think we should confuse the roles of activist, legislator, and manager, or think the latter are more important than the former. But the latter are also important and useful. I doubt a completely general rule could be compelling. In a rough way I can buy at least some strategic argument based around the notion of finite political capital, e.g. as a reason to support M4A over plans to reinforce Obamacare, because if you’re going to expend all your capital you should maximize the gains. But I think it’s easy to overstate the argument. For one thing, it’s not clear that support for M4A would be as high without Obamacare having been implemented first. It at least seems like it changed the conversation. And I’m not sure the strategic point generalizes to all cases either.
So, it seems possible to accept some model a la punctuated equilibrium (and think like a social movement activist) but also encourage and embrace incremental improvements in an opportunistic way.