What Is Politics?

Alvin_255 · 2025-03-03T13:21:49+00:00

Little John goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way. I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Mommy is the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you The People. The Nanny, well, consider her The Working Class. Your baby brother, we'll call him The Future. Now go think about this and see if it makes sense." So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying and runs to his room only to find that his diapers are very soiled. So the little boy goes to his parents' room. Mom is sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he looks through the peephole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand what politics is now." "Good son, tell me in your own words then what politics are." The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit. While understanding the concept of Politics we have to understand following aspects: 1) Some scholar present politics as an 'art of government'. Like, David Eston called politics as 'authoritative allocation of values', by which he means binding decision made by government. This view includes Politics as the study of structures, institutions and government apparatus only. Here politics is essentially state bound activity. 2) Other chunk of scholars present Politics as specifically public activity where it is associated with conduct and management of community affairs. They are concern with mainly with political community where 'the good life' can be achieved rather than private or individual concerns. 3) Some people separates military solutions from that of political solutions. Military solutions include use of naked power and arbitration. While political power is highly prescribing deliberations and discussions. So, according to this view Politics is seen as a mean of resolving conflict by compromise, conciliation and negotiation. Thats why they called Politics as 'art of possible'. 4) According to fourth aspect, Politics is associated with production, distribution and use of resources. In this view 'Politics is about Power'. As Herold Lasswell correctly pointed out 'Politics is who gets What, When and How?' Feminists and Marxists prescribe to this view. *Many people consider Politics as a negatively loaded and manipulative term. But with this malign opinion we can not understand true nature of Politics.

Thread starter Alvin_255
Start date Mar 3, 2025
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Alvin_255

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Mar 3, 2025

Dr Chi

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Mar 3, 2025

Jasmoni Tegga

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What Is Politics?

Alvin_255

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Dr Chi

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Jasmoni Tegga

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