I try to anticipate its movement, as does everyone else. The market is a model, not of utopian uniformity, but of human equality in action . In the stock market, when I claim that a stock is worth a certain amount, the mechanism of the market may force me to revise my claim, sometimes quite drastically. Yet I do not feel that my integrity has been compromised. In the political world, on the other hand, I consider whatever claims I make to be dictated by a set of ethical principles , and I vote for politicians who purport to share these principles.
Principles are qualitative, non-negotiable .
Even quantifiable financial expenditures express support for policies, and if I am unalterably opposed to a certain policy, I may consider even a penny to be too much. Yet because my fellow citizens and I differ in our principles, our representatives are compelled to arrive at compromises, just as a stock price is a compromise of the claims of its buyers and sellers, as described by the law of supply and demand . Some politicians are more powerful or more persuasive than others, but no individual, not the President nor even the Speaker of the House , possesses the power to dictate the outcome of the process. The Republican Congress has not been able to fulfill the contract signed by a majority of House Republicans. If democratic politics is conceived on the model of market negotiation, then to stand above politics should mean to uphold one's convictions in opposition to the process of compromise.