Arnold Kling mentions a Brad DeLong post calling for technocracy that I've been meaning to post on. Brad writes (and has written similar things in the past):
"And it took me only two months--two months!--to conclude that America's best hope for sane technocratic governance required the elimination of the Republican Party from our political system as rapidly as possible.
Nothing since has led me to question or change that belief--only to strengthen it."
Kling responds:
"DeLong's dream of technocratic governance is some people's nightmare. I think the solution is what in the widely-unread Unchecked and Unbalanced I call Virtual Federalism. That is, we allow people to choose their virtual state, regardless of where they live. My neighbor could choose sane technocratic governance. I could choose minimal government. My neighbor and I would need to have a common defense policy and a common foreign policy, just as in the original federalism. But for many policies, my neighbor and I could have different government. For example, my neighbor's government can try to make a Medicare Ponzi scheme last. My government would instead limit government support to vouchers for the very poor and the very sick."
I think they're both right. One of the things that I've been meaning to write in response to DeLong's technocrat dreams is to say that I want a technocracy without the technocrats. I want a democracy that is educated well enough and structured well enough to act like a technocracy and to elect technocrats (or at least other educated liberals who will appoint technocrats to key posts). And I'm not a pessimistic guy - I think we've managed to do that decently well. We'll probably do it better in the future, but we've had a pretty good run in this country, and a lot of it has been due to reasonable, relatively non-ideological (compared to other places around the world), evidence-based policy making. Of course this sounds strange when you focus in on our experiences too closely, but when you think about the scope of human history we've actually done an impressive job.
And of course regular readers know that Kling's call for federalism and local experimentation is one I heartily endorse. Unlike some deductionists out there, I don't think multi-term Congressmen from Texas can derive the right path on all policies from a priorism and old treatises. To a large extent we gain knowledge about how to do things by experimenting and exploring different options that seem reasonable. So federalism is absolutely essential to any technocratically oriented policymaking.
Also of interest - Neil Degrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher recently, and at 1:18 of this clip he waxes technocratic, which I found interesting:
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
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DeGrasse Tyson is exactly right with his businessperson analogy.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, a businessperson has to make his books workd.
At the end of the day, a politician does not.
The concept of technocracy has historically been rather elitist (and sexist) - particularly once it popped out of its initial alignment with industrial democracy. I has almost exclusively been associated with the left.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant piece by Penn: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.html
ReplyDeleteDead Man's Party -
ReplyDeleteThat article confused me. I get the atheist thing, but I don't see how not knowing leads to libertarians. Libertarians are some of the most confident people in their understanding of how society should be structured of anyone out there. It seems to me you have to have incredible confidence in what you know to be a libertarian.
I would have thought that someone willing to admit they don't know would support a constitutionally restricted, democratic, highly federalist and decentralized polity so that different groups of people could (1.) all come together and decide what they want, and (2.) each do something a little different. Instead, the libertarian comes along and says "I know that the best thing is for the government not to get involved in any of this stuff" or, alternatively (every libertarian justifies it somewhat differently) "I know that it's ethically illegitimate for the government to do any of this stuff".
Some libertarians like Arnold Kling or Nozick get more serious about letting people try out different things.
But someone who says "I'm not exactly sure what's best for society", it seems to me, would have to be a radical democrat and a radical federalist and that libertarianism would be far too decisive for them.
Yeah, you are confused.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, painting libertarians like they're some sort of authoritarian menace kind of sort of tells me how you approach a way of thinking or a value system you don't agree with.
ReplyDeleteOh please Dead Man's Party. All I'm saying is libertarians on balance have much more specific ideas about the best way to order society, so it does not seem like a disposition that people who are willing to admit they don't know things will gravitate towards.
ReplyDeleteAnd from personal experience, the libertarians I know are usually considerably more sure they're right than the non-libertarians I know. It's not a gang that's plagued with very much self-doubt.
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
ReplyDeleteI think the deal is that they seem that way because they clash with your ideals re: how to best run a society. Liberals always have a fifty point bullet plan to be implemented from D.C. for how to deal with X, Y and Z. Libertarians don't have such; they tend to have broad ideas about stuff instead. Broad ideas are more flexible ideas.
You think libertarian directives for government are more flexible???
ReplyDelete"I would have thought that someone willing to admit they don't know would support a constitutionally restricted, democratic, highly federalist and decentralized polity so that different groups of people could (1.) all come together and decide what they want, and (2.) each do something a little different."
ReplyDeleteAn important Soto Zen teaching is "Don't Know." I think you've nicely summarazied (quote above) my approach to government. Locally, I'm more inclined to vote for progressives, but nationally, I'm more inclined to vote for a libertarian.
-Ed
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI think libertarian ideas for living are more flexible.
Ron Paul did not invent libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteNice try.
Huh?
ReplyDeleteMattheus,
ReplyDeleteRemember, liberals are empiricists - they have the power of SCIENCE on their side because they say so (never mind of course that most liberals can't get through the first chapter of Hawking's _A Brief History of Time_ much less something not for a popular audience).
On the other hand, libertarians are just old fuddy-duddy types who can't accept the new science and all its wonders.
DMP said: "I think the deal is that they seem that way because they clash with your ideals re: how to best run a society. Liberals always have a fifty point bullet plan to be implemented from D.C. for how to deal with X, Y and Z. Libertarians don't have such; they tend to have broad ideas about stuff instead. Broad ideas are more flexible ideas."
ReplyDeleteDK responded with, "You think libertarian directives for government are more flexible???"
That DK conflates government with society is telling.
Nonymous -
ReplyDeleteDid you not read where he said "to be implemented from D.C."??? That's not a reference to society - that's a reference to government. And it's that that is referenced when DMP says "libertarians don't have such".
I don't conflate government with society - your reading comprehension is just off. That would make no sense to conflate those two. I'm always on here pushing the idea that we have all sorts of non-market governance institutions of which states are only one example.
re: "your reading comprehension is just off".
ReplyDeleteWhich is precisely why it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that this is just another alias for Gary.
No, DK, you're reading comprehension is off. DMP claims that liberal's attempt to run a society from DC by way of a series of bullet plan. He may have meant hard attempts (laws), or he may have meant soft attempts (persuasion, or what not). He didn't say. He then says that libertarians do not have plans.
ReplyDeleteWhether he had laws in mind or not, really doesn't matter much, as "such," refers back to the noun, "bullet plan" which is merely modified by "implemented from D.C."
So long as we're on the topic of miscomprehension, have you bothered to check the data on birthrates by year during WWII? Or, are you perfectly willing to continue your miscomprehension of the graph you posted the other day?
Uh, bother, should read "your reading comprehension. . . ."
ReplyDeleteSo, your strategy when confronted with your own statements is first to accuse me of being a sock puppet, then to hide?
ReplyDelete"I would have thought that someone willing to admit they don't know would support a constitutionally restricted, democratic, highly federalist and decentralized polity"
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason why American individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker famously called themselves unterrified Jeffersonian democrats.
Libertarians are also federalists. They just want several billion governments instead of several dozen.
Most political theorists, BTW, have historically regarded the very notion of imperium in imperio (federalism) a self-evidently insane, closet-anarchistic position. Yet it's worked pretty darn well. Libertarians are to traditional federalists what traditional federalists were to nationalists.
So if you're a federalist, then you're already halfway there. Just give it some more time. :)
Nonymous -
ReplyDeleteYou've just repeated your argument. I could repeat by you're wrong, but it's just going to encourage more trolling from you.
Mike B. -
Federalism implies some localized governance. If you abandon democratic solutions to social problems, I don't see how you can be a Jeffersonian or a federalist.
Well, actually, I didn't repeat my argument.
ReplyDeleteYou know how to diagram a sentence? Do it, and see what turns up.
Also, as to your response to Mike B, why limit the local to the state? Or to the county? Or to the city?
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteHow do you determine the optimal number of states within a federative polity?
I give up - how?
ReplyDelete