Author Archives: Diane Coyle

Technocracy vs democracy

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Ever since I read Daniel Bell’s [amazon_link id=”0465097138″ target=”_blank” ]The Coming of Post-Industrial Society[/amazon_link], I’ve been struck by how prescient it was about the tension between technocracy and democracy. Bell argued that as societies become more complex and require technical expertise in areas ranging from healthcare and engineering to economics, there will be increasing conflict with the populism engendered by democracy. What would he make of Twitter-based political dynamics?! The technocratic government in Italy, post-crisis, was a vivid illustration of Bell’s dilemma in action.I spoke recently about the trade-off again in my recent Pro Bono Economics lecture, the likely conflicts between the “what works” agenda in public policy and political populism. Crises or slow growth make the trade-off worse because they encourage populism and because there is no additional output to compensate losers – it’s zero sum.

[amazon_image id=”0465097138″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Coming Of Post-industrial Society (Harper Colophon Books)[/amazon_image]

In the fascinating Mark Mazower book I’ve now almost finished, [amazon_link id=”0141011939″ target=”_blank” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_link], he cites Hans Morgenthau’s 1946 [amazon_link id=”B0007DKTKQ” target=”_blank” ]Scientific Man versus Power Politics[/amazon_link], which from the title touches on the same theme. Mazower says the book attacks the naivety of technocrats and the Saint Simonian tradition of belief in rational universalism. So it seems like this is a constant theme, played out in every era.

As a footnote, the Mazower book has given me another technocratic hero, the Australian Robert Jackson who ran the logistics for the Allies in the Middle East during World War II, having first helped organise the defence of Malta while in his 20s, then helped run UNRRA after the war. There is a biography by James Gibson, [amazon_link id=”0955396808″ target=”_blank” ]Jacko, Where Are You Now?[/amazon_link]

Weightlessness

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Reading a review of Mark Miodownik‘s new book, [amazon_link id=”0670920541″ target=”_blank” ]Stuff Matters[/amazon_link], brought to mind my own first (1996) book [amazon_link id=”1900961113″ target=”_blank” ]The Weightless World[/amazon_link] (or as a free pdf). It looked at the way technology was changing the structure of the economy and society, and used the idea of dematerialisation as a link – the economy becoming increasingly intangible, manufactures becoming smaller and lighter, value inhering in the design and service etc, rather than the stuff.

[amazon_image id=”1900961113″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Weightless World: Thriving in the Age of Insecurity[/amazon_image]

So I was very struck by the aerogels, graphene and other innovations highlighted in the book. Is even stuff becoming weightless now?

[amazon_image id=”0670920541″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World[/amazon_image]

Giant lizards and geeks

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The former TV presenter David Icke, when he left the small screen to set up as a new age guru, developed a theory that the world is run by an elite group of giant alien lizards. The theory features in Jon Ronson’s very funny book [amazon_link id=”0330375458″ target=”_blank” ]Them: Adventures with Extremists[/amazon_link]. Since we read Them in my household, my husband has teased me about being a giant lizard every time I’ve been appointed to a public body or attended a fancy conference (he doesn’t mention it when I get an application rejected, nor every year when I don’t go to Davos).

[amazon_image id=”0330375458″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Them: Adventures with Extremists[/amazon_image]

The giant lizard theory came to mind after reading the chapters in Mark Mazower’s book [amazon_link id=”0141011939″ target=”_blank” ]Governing the World: The History of An Idea[/amazon_link] about the role of technocrats in shaping international governance in the early and mid-20th century.

The story has given me a new hero, the Belgian Paul Otlet, “the founder of modern information science and bibliographer extraordinary.” Otlet invented metadata, and created a Central Office of International Institutions to co-ordinate and share information among the growing number of new bodies, then congregating in Brussels. His aim was a ‘Universal Book’ in which all knowledge about knowledge would be recorded. I can’t believe I’ve never before heard of M. Otlet!

Of course his vision was one of the lesser casualties of World War I. The League of Nations subsequently also proved short-lived. But that era saw the creation of many of the technical agencies of international governance that survived the Depression and World War II and survive still. Mazower’s account of how this technical global elite came into being and the role it played in rebuilding trade and then globalisation is fascinating. Discussions of international governance tend to overlook the unglamorous end such as the ITU and the FAO and so on, but they turn out to be more resilient than the more political bodies.

So it isn’t the giant lizards but rather the statisticians and epidemiologists and engineers – all the geeks, in short –  who run the world. I don’t mind being called an internationalist geek.

[amazon_image id=”0141011939″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_image]

Brave and humble economists

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Someone on Twitter (@kestontnt) sent me a link to an article on The Economics of Courage by INET’s Robert Johnson in a recent issue of the OECD Observer. The courage it calls for is that required to stand out against the conventional wisdom, which is what INET is all about of course. I’m optimistic that the conventional wisdom in economics is shifting significantly, although maybe that’s because last week was such an encouraging one, with a workshop led by Wendy Carlin on INET’s new CORE curriculum programme, and a fabulous session at the Rethinking Economics conference.

Robert Johnson’s article cites HL Mencken’s well-known essay on ‘The Dismal Science’ (in [amazon_link id=”1440083754″ target=”_blank” ]Prejudices, 3rd series[/amazon_link]) on a brave Professor Nearing who was kicked out of the University of Pennsylvania for daring to challenge the status quo; and also a book I don’t know, by Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas, [amazon_link id=”0857284592″ target=”_blank” ]Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards[/amazon_link].

[amazon_image id=”0857284592″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards (Anthem Other Canon Economics)[/amazon_image]

The sociology of any academic discipline involves insiders, successful in a discipline in its current form, who are resistant to outsiders suggesting that they’ve got it all wrong. There are also incentives against change in any existing system – promotion and success depend on publishing in the top journals, which want small advances on the existing body of knowledge; there is little reward for changing course materials and teaching methods whereas the time cost is large; for any individual caution is a better bet than radicalism; and so on. Against that, there is the intrinsic reward of intellectual discovery, the humility that really ought to arise from both the recent track record of economic forecasts and an appreciation of the consequences of simplistic ‘market knows best’ thinking – and a bit of courage. But refusniks opposed to the status quo have more company now than at any time in the past 50 years.

 

Forward thinking

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I’ve started reading Mark Mazower’s [amazon_link id=”0141011939″ target=”_blank” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_link]. It traces the idea of international governance back to its origins in the early 19th century. Two chapters in, I’ve already learned a lot. One striking point is that a kind of ‘future mentality’ emerged in the mid-years of the 19th century, and helps explain the acceleration of economic and political change:

“Historians of overseas European settlement have recently begun to argue that what was once written off as a boom/bust mentality of the colonial frontier needs to be taken more seriously as a kind of bet on the future that emerged quite suddenly in the 19th century in response to the shrinkage of time and space, a moment when the pace of change seemed to be accelerating. This ‘future thinking’ drove both capitalism and colonialism. It expressed itself in speculative fevers and land grabs, survived the inevitable crashes, failures and disappointments, and found confirmation in rapidly growing cities, new transcontinental communications, and a succession of technological marvels.”

Economists pay so much attention to modelling expectations, but don’t think enough beyond the mathematical formalities about how the way people think about both the future and the past determines the decisions and choices they make today. The only place I’ve come across this kind of thinking modelled is an old (1991) Paul Krugman QJE paper, History versus Expectations.

I like Mark Mazower’s books, having read both his [amazon_link id=”0140241590″ target=”_blank” ]Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century[/amazon_link] and[amazon_link id=”0007120222″ target=”_blank” ] Salonica, City of Ghosts[/amazon_link]. More on this one when I’ve got my head around his thesis.

[amazon_image id=”0141011939″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_image]