Re: [tlug] RMS is at it again

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Gernot Hassenpflug writes:

 > I am getting more interested in economics at long last, and noticed
 > one interesting quote about the difference between politics and
 > economics: politics focusses on the goals and assumed results, while
 > economics (and any decent science) focusses on mechanisms, effects and
 > that sort of thing.

This is unfair to both political science, which focuses on mechanisms
and effects as much as economics does, and to practical politicians,
who are analogous to engineers and project management, not scientists.

Propaganda, on the other hand, does indeed focus on goals and assume
that if the speaker gets his way it will comes to pass as he claims.
However, I don't think any successful politician relies exclusively on
propaganda.