Have Political Parties Lost Their Power? Yes.

A Washington Post piece asks if our political parties have lost their power, and then rambles on at length about whether or not they have. Right question, wrong answer, WaPo. The correct answer is unambiguously “Yes they have.”

The Internet and the flood of transparency-inducing information it brings eases and streamlines almost all social and economic transactions. That’s bad news for middlemen of all kinds, whose primary function in our society has been the easing of transactions of all kinds, generally using proprietary information to make those transactions easier and faster. Think travel agents, stockbrokers, mortgage brokers…and political parties.

Political parties have traditionally served as middlemen between voters and their government, helping organize, aggregate and sort candidates, policies, and money. And like other traditional middlemen, extracting “rent” of one kind or another, economically speaking, from the economy at large. The value of the parties was in finding and grooming candidates, helping develop party platforms and policy ideas that were broadly attractive and coherent, and helping raise money and organization support for individuals seeking office.

But today those functions are easily and efficiently accomplished online. Obscure but compelling candidates often go viral through Facebook-shared Youtube videos and snazzy websites. Party platforms are de facto kicked around in the Daily Kos and RedState.com. Money flows in low double digit increments from credit card-wielding individuals to the likes of Ron Paul and Barack Obama, and the best organizing platforms are Twitter and MeetUp, not a state party convention. Nothing being done by Organizing for America can be done better by an antiquated, telephone-based organization of earnest grandmothers or laid-off autoworkers.

The iron laws of the Information Age are bearing down on the Industrial Age construct of political parties, just as they’re doing to other no-longer-applicable information-brokering structures across American society. Something tells me we’re all better off for it.

Text 7. (Psychological science)

Applied psychology

Applied psychology uses methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behaviour and experience. A more precise definition is impossible because the activities of applied psychology range from laboratory experimentation through field studies to direct services for troubled persons.

The same intellectual streams whose confluence produced psychology as an independent discipline toward the end of the 19th century led to the later development of applied psychology. In 1883 the publication of Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development by Francis Galton foreshadowed the measurement of individual psychological differences. In 1896 at the University of Pennsylvania, Lightner Witmer established the world’s first psychological clinic and in so doing originated the field of clinical psychology. Intelligence testing began with the work of French psychologists Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon in the Paris schools in the early 1900s. Group testing, legal problems, industrial efficiency, motivation, and delinquency were among other early areas of application. At the Carnegie Institute of Technology, a division of applied psychology was established as a teaching and research department in 1915. The Journal of Applied Psychology appeared in 1917, along with Applied Psychology, the first textbook in the field, coauthored by Harry L. Hollingworth and Albert T. Poffenberger.

Early emphases in applied psychology included vocational testing, teaching methods, evaluation of attitudes and morale, performance under stress, propaganda and psychological warfare, rehabilitation, and counseling. Educational psychologists began directing their efforts toward the early identification and discovery of talented persons. Their research complemented the work of counseling psychologists, who sought to help persons clarify and attain their educational, vocational, and personal goals. Concern for the optimum utilization of human resources contributed to the development of industrial-organizational psychology. The development of aviation and space exploration fostered rapid growth in the field of engineering psychology.

In response to society’s concern for treatment of the mentally ill and for development of preventive measures against mental illness, clinical psychology has shown tremendous growth within the broader field of psychology. Psychologists have studied the application and effects of automation, and in developing countries they have helped with the problems of rapid industrialization and human resources planning.

Regardless of applied psychologists’ professional focus, their job description is likely to overlap with those of other areas. The applied psychologist may or may not teach or engage in original research. In addition to drawing on experimental findings gleaned from psychological research, the applied psychologist uses information from many disciplines. The scope of the field is continually broadening as new types of problems arise. Other branches of applied psychology include consumer, school, and community psychology. Prevention and treatment of emotional problems have received a great deal of attention, as have medically related areas such as sports psychology and the psychology of chronic illness.

Text 8. (Sociological science)