Thank you for giving a name to the idea of “flexible maximalism”! I think you are right that a lot of the people in this position – who have a maximalist vision but are open to incremental approaches to get there – get accused of preemptive compromise. But often, I think that’s because people in this flexible maximalist group (myself included) often fall back on “hey, this is what’s realistic right now,” rather than offering a strategic analysis of how increments build toward a vision. One thing I thought a lot about with some of my colleagues at Arabella was, “What is a good increment?” Meaning, when we are faced with an incremental change that seems like it might be in the right direction, how can we tell whether it’s something that builds towards that maximalist vision, or when it’s the opposite, something that will end up setting us back? And even though it’s something that’s really difficult to tell in the moment, we started to think of a few criteria. One might be whether the increment creates new infrastructure that you can later build and improve - or, put a different way, what is the ladder of policies you are trying to climb and how is this increment helping us climb one more rung up? Other criteria might be whether the increment contributes to political pressure rather than sapping it, or to what extent the increment feeds into opposition messaging that could hamstring future efforts. Whatever criteria you use, I think it's incumbent on flexible maximalists to be clear about why increments are strategic and not just expedient.
Thanks Andrew, great comment! I really like the idea of putting criteria in place to assess at what point the cost/benefit analysis of an increment tips one way or the other-- I talk about a version of that idea in Part II, but if you're OK with it, I may also cite your way of describing it?
Thank you for giving a name to the idea of “flexible maximalism”! I think you are right that a lot of the people in this position – who have a maximalist vision but are open to incremental approaches to get there – get accused of preemptive compromise. But often, I think that’s because people in this flexible maximalist group (myself included) often fall back on “hey, this is what’s realistic right now,” rather than offering a strategic analysis of how increments build toward a vision. One thing I thought a lot about with some of my colleagues at Arabella was, “What is a good increment?” Meaning, when we are faced with an incremental change that seems like it might be in the right direction, how can we tell whether it’s something that builds towards that maximalist vision, or when it’s the opposite, something that will end up setting us back? And even though it’s something that’s really difficult to tell in the moment, we started to think of a few criteria. One might be whether the increment creates new infrastructure that you can later build and improve - or, put a different way, what is the ladder of policies you are trying to climb and how is this increment helping us climb one more rung up? Other criteria might be whether the increment contributes to political pressure rather than sapping it, or to what extent the increment feeds into opposition messaging that could hamstring future efforts. Whatever criteria you use, I think it's incumbent on flexible maximalists to be clear about why increments are strategic and not just expedient.
Thanks Andrew, great comment! I really like the idea of putting criteria in place to assess at what point the cost/benefit analysis of an increment tips one way or the other-- I talk about a version of that idea in Part II, but if you're OK with it, I may also cite your way of describing it?