Enemas of reason

I have established to my own satisfaction the prime source of everything that is wrong with British politics.

Surprisingly, it is not the Daily Mail (at least directly).

The problem is our first-past-the-post system of voting for MPs. This allows parties to gain power despite not having a majority of voters actually vote for them.

Further it means that politicians are not interested in garnering a wide base of support, they are only interested in attracting the votes of "scorekeepers" in marginal constituencies.

Scorekeepers, as detailed in this article by Danny Finkelstein, are people with no particular ideological commitments but who vote for the party (or more accurately, the individual at the head of the party) who they believe to be the most effective manager of the government:

The Scorekeepers “are non-ideological pragmatists who trust or distrust each side equally. They tend to see politics not as a contest of world views, but merely as alternate teams of possible managers of government, each contending that they can do a better job. The Scorekeepers are not choosing directions in their votes, they are hiring managers.”

The problem is that these scorekeepers are engaging in the same folly as managerialists or progressives. The notion that all our problems could be solved if only we all followed this or that political programme, or this or that heroic manager.

If the history of the 21st century teaches us anything it is that grand schemes for the improvement of the masses rarely work, and often have strongly negative outcomes for everyone. And all those scorekeepers are bound to be disappointed, so their support gradually wanders over to the other control party after a few elections.

Polly Toynbee highlights this here:

Our electoral system is the reason why each campaign seems more reductionist and vacuous than the last. The parties are competing for an ever more cleverly identified few thousand wavering voters in marginal constituencies. Pollsters find these few vague voters hardly think about politics at all. They are difficult to engage even for a fleeting moment, don't read papers but may vote if taken by some slogan that catches their eye. Most people are not like that: even if party tribalism has weakened, these target voters tend to be exceptionally uninterested in politics. Yet everything depends on them.

What matters most in politics is the constant churn of debate and argument and conversation and trial and error. I don't believe there is or can ever be one ultimate solution to political problems, rather there must be (controlled) conflict between parties against a backdrop of individual freedom, democracy, and an open society.

This outcome is best served in this country by the replacement of the current FPTP parliamentary system with an STV proportional representation system, a written constitution, separation of powers, and a reduction in the power of the executive relative to the legislature.

Sanctimony in the UK

I've been trying to determine exactly why I feel so uncomfortable with the condemnation of MPs over their expenses claims.

The answer is I have been revolted by the sanctimonious priggishness of the newspapers. Sanctimonious priggishness is only fun when it is me directing it at others: even seeing someone else direct it at a third party is unpleasant, possibly because of rays of sanctimonious priggishness being reflected in my direction.

Daniel Davis calls it right: the MP who said that he deserved his taxpayer-funded duck house is exactly the kind of guy I'd vote for. Honest, to-the-point, pro-duck. Too bad he was a Tory.

Anyhoo.

During my working day I am exposed to a lot of newspapers.

As such I end up reading a lot of front pages. I'd rather not, but it is an occupational hazard, just like putting up with idiots buying shitloads of crap they don't need and then objecting to paying one penny for a bag "on principle".

Newspaper headlines are full of bile and self-rightous indignation at the best of times, but the tabs, and The Telegraph, have outdone themselves with their inane rantings on the issue of MPs expenses.

My objection is not to the reporting of the facts of MPs expenses (they should of course be public knowledge as a matter of course), rather it is to the attitude of the reaction to the reporting.

There is my visceral dislike of the vox-pop faux-outrage of TGBP as they rant away at their elected representatives whilst ignoring the various ways they're being fucked over by businesses, the media, their bosses, popular culture, and 21st century life in general.

But there is more to my dislike of this story.

Let's step back a moment.

In a society there are a few problems that need to be solved. One is the problem of how you identify error in a complex society. Another is how that error is broadcast, such that a solution may be found.

In a civilized society (or, in the absence of a civilized society, a pluralistic liberal democracy such as wot we 'ave 'ere) if you identify a problem you broadcast it, it is debated, critically analysed, and many solutions are proferred.

A solution or group of solutions will be selected after various deliberations and debate and compromise, then you move on. At some indeterminate time in the future the solution is tested or re-evaluated.

The way our system of liberal democracy has developed has lead to an important part of this process (primarily the identification and broadcast components, or as I shall call it "I/B") being carried out as a worthwhile byproduct of the profit-seeking activities of a collection of businesses called newspapers.

Newspapers are run by humans, so as I/B systems newspapers are subject to all the usual cognitive biases, and are therefore prone to horrible failure modes.

I suspect in the phase space of all possible ways of solving the I/B problem newspapers occupy a local maxima. There may well be better ways of dealing with I/B (some kind of universal Panopticon and a million bored apes?).

But here the press has failed in that is has chosen to concentrate on a minor side-effect of the wider problem:

MPs were writing the rules for their own expenses. To whom are they accountable?

Half our legislature is unelected. This is a bad joke.

Our executive is more powerful than our legislature. This is a bad idea.

If there is a problem here it is bigger than the problem of MPs expenses, it is a problem with the way our legislature is set up and our government is elected.

So why are the newspapers focussing on the sneering, snide, grumpy, petty, priggish, holier-than-thou, expenses-obsession rather than the actual issues.

The British are possessed of the same peasant mentality as the Americans. Easily distracted by the threat of external foes but fundamentally incapable of addressing the real problems.

I agree with what Joan Smith writes in The Guardian

The British public – not all of them, but the smug guardians of morality who are enjoying this crisis so much – say they are disgusted by the behaviour of our elected representatives. Let me say that it works both ways: for the first time in my life, I am sick of my country. I am sick of the daily undermining of democracy, and sick of the sadistic pleasure people take in humiliating decent public servants. Even so, I will go on urging my friend not to give up her seat. She is a brilliant constituency MP, and I don't believe anyone should give in to bullies.

Indeed.

G20: what was that about?

Since I read The End of Politics by the august Chris Dillow I have become even more sceptical of the capacity of politicians to identify and accomplish worthwhile goals.

So news that the 20 most powerful politicians on this fair globe of ours have got together and have decided that something must be done is not especially comforting, especially as much of what they suggest seems tangential to the main problem of anthropogenic climate change.

This is unsurprising given the other great lesson of The End of Politics is that there is no such thing as a clearly defined national interest or even (within fairly wide parameters) such a thing as a single global interest. Any government policy will result in winners and losers. There will always be tradeoffs between different interests. TANSTAAFL.

And yet rather than focus on the big problem of a powerful, complex, open, and unpredictable system that we also all happen to live inside these 20 individuals chose to focus on a powerful, complex, open, and unpredictable system that we all happen to rely on for ongoing wealth and economic development (I betcha can't tell which one is which!).

Mmm. Tradeoffs at work.

I have not opinion on the credit crunch. I imagine things will be back up and running soon enough. As to the climate it is best to try to tread as lightly as possible and stop pushing the button. We've got a good thing going on here: it would be a damn shame if we continue pissing it up the wall.

And it is not managerialist to desire that governments do something about climate change. Given the potentially huge negative consequences of continuing to vent gas this can be thought of as a case of stopping a crime: one of the few things that it is generally agreed states are pretty good not bad at.

But I repeat: there are always going to be winners and losers.

Which is why it is important that everyone is consulted, everyone's point of view is heard, and the losers are given respect and sympathy for their plight.

That is why the death of one of the protestors at the summit was particularly sad.

The Put People First campaign achieved a couple of it's goals: tougher action on tax havens, and closer regulation of all financial instruments. But there didn't seem to be any particular emphasis on the environment or climate change, undoubtedy the areas where most medium and long-term good can be accomplished.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who can read and has access to a history book. Financial panics and recessions happen every few years.

But if there is one good thing politicians can do it is to try to find some way of averting the negative consequences of anthropogenic climate change.

A global $100/barrel all-border tariff on crude oil would be a good start: such a tax would avoid the colossally complicated, inevitably inefficient, bureaucratic corruptofest that any kind of "embedded CO2" tax system would entail whilst encouraging investment in innovative alternatives to our current oil-based infrastructure.

Combine it with a cap 'n' trade system for CO2 emissions and we're well on our way to dodging the climate change bullet.

The End of Politics: a review

I stumbled across Chris Dillow's blog (entitled Stumbling and Mumbling) after reading repeated references to managerialism in The Yorkshire Ranter and DSquared Digest.

A brief read of Dillow's blog suggests he is clearly too clever by half and, which is more, he knows that intelligence is irrelevant if you don't pay attention to empirical observations, or further are incapable of making accurate empirical observations.

Which leads into The End of Politics - Dillow's book.

Dillow's thesis is that, contrary to the standard caricature of being "all spin and no substance", New Labour does have a distinctive ideology.

This ideology holds that it should be possible to combine equality and economic efficiency, and that there is no trade-off between these two goals. Any problems that emerge can be dealt with through effective management.

Dillow calls this ideology managerialism. Managerialists believe that the job of government is to behave like managers of a company. Managerialists do not perceive the inherent trade-offs and conflicts of interest that are endemic to politics, and are indeed the reason for the existence of politics. Managerialists believe conflicts of interest can be resolved with good leadership and appeals to a well-defined national interest.

Managerialism is distinct from the scientific management of Frederick Winslow Taylor, which was concerned with organising resources effectively. Rather managerialism is the belief that there exists an abstract concept of "good management" that can be applied to every situation, regardless of the underlying organisational substrate.

Managerialists are obsessed with the idea that the world is new and constantly changing, thus simultaneously justifying managerialist action and ensuring that it is impossible to objectively test the efficacy of a managerialist policy because by the time it is implemented things will have changed.

Dillow also draws a link between Old and New Labour, describing how they are defined by their desire to achieve equality and economics efficiency simultaneously.

Dillow argues that there are trade-offs in politics that can't be managed away.

Further he argues that notions of "economic efficiency" or "equality" or even "rationality" are ambiguous and incoherent in and of themselves. He cites Newcomb's Problem to identify areas where traditional conceptions of rationality are limited.

Dillow shows that the arguments that globalisation have changed everything are false, and that concern over globalised capital and labour is as old as Adam Smith.

Instead, globalisation is used to justify New Labour's managerialist schemes.

Globalisation isn't necessarily irreversible, as the existence or non-existence of tariffs or immigration controls are at the whim of politicians.

Dillow shows that the evidence as to whether the national minimum wage destroys jobs is inconclusive, but taken as a whole, the research generally seems to indicate that the national minimum wage does destroy jobs but this is difficult to detect in aggregate economic data.

The attempts by the Beveridge-report inspired postwar settlement to achieve full employment lead to worker militancy and increased inflation, as workers campaigned successfully for higher and higher price rises in response to increased inflationary pressures that were in fact being caused by inflationary pay rises.

Dillow's arguments are a recurrent theme in what I've been reading. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker and now The End of Politics all have in common an empirically-supported belief that the powers of human rationality are more limited than we tend to assume. That centrally-planned projects often fail and that extensive government oversight of the economy is generally a bad thing.

So if the capacity of political leaders to manage things is inherently limited in all sorts of ways what is to be done?

The title The End of Politics is appropriate: Dillow pours flammable liquid over all the most cherished ideals of all politicians and sets everything alight.

Given the robust and thoroughly empirical nature of this book I am entirely persuaded by Dillow's arguments that most political projects are stillborn. There is never enough information for politicians to make good decisions, even if they were capable of doing so, or even had a clear idea about what qualifies as a "good" decision.

As an alternative to top-down managerialist politics Dillow argues in favour of the open society: that decision making should be as democratic as possible, simply because no centralised authority can possess all the necessary information to make good decisions.

Dillow believes hospitals should be run by doctors and nurses, and schools run by teachers, because no centralised manager in Whitehall can possibly predict "the facts on the ground."

He also suggests the intriguing idea of a citizens basic income as a way of partially solving the problem of welfare vs. working tax credits. It's an interesting idea, and one that appeals to the dilettante in me.

The basic lesson of The End of Politics is that in the complex world in which we live political and business leaders need to be more humble in the face of the inherent limitations of centrally directed institutions.

The best way to get anything done is to create the circumstances by which effective solutions can be evolved from the interactions and daily business of all the millions of people and machines in the world.

Nowadays, as professions become more and more specialised, it is important to hand control back to the professionals. Just as David Allen's Getting Things Done system was defined by Wired magazine as "Taylorism for the modern knowledge worker."

Just as the study of productivity has shifted emphasis from centrally-directed institutions to professional individuals Dillow argues that the response to increasing complexity in the world is to decentralise politics and business.

Both The End of Politics and The Origin of Wealth convey the message that economists and policy makers need to be more humble about the extent to which the economy can be controlled and that the best laid plans gang aft aglay.

Dillow advocates an open society and more genuinely democratic debate in which heterodox views and those who stand to lose out from policies are given a fair hearing. Political debate is likely to be fairer if things are done in the open.

My response to this book was initially fatalistic: if the world is so complex that we can never hope to control it, why bother attempting anything?

Dillow's answer is that government has a role in creating the circumstances in which innovation can take place. But it is not the role of government to attempt to change people or manipulate the economy, because it is incapable of doing so effectively.

In a broader context it is clear that our conception of human nature is changing and altering. We are coming to realise that we are not wholly rational, and even that rationalism itself is a canard.

Dillow has an excellent blog: Stumbling and Mumbling.