The Bay Area's mythical Omniscient Politician
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Local officeholders' knowledge on politics is far less extensive than we realize, says philosophy–econ prof Scott Scheall. Instead of these figureheads controlling the Bay's fiscal restrictions/incentives (cough: SCC's ongoing basic income program, anyone?), our economy should be led by the market's “invisible hand”—which is spontaneously assembled from self-interested individuals' interactions. From Substack.
Policymakers* are human beings, and human beings are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Humans are, by degrees and in different ways, ignorant and incapable. Therefore, policymakers are ignorant of various things and incapable in various ways. Some of this ignorance and incapacity might be relevant to their policymaking duties. They might lack knowledge of facts or theories required to design a successful policy, or they may lack abilities necessary to implement and administer an otherwise well-designed policy in a way that realizes its objective. There are potential policy goals that cannot be realized through deliberate political action because the relevant policymakers are ignorant of things or incapable in ways required to realize the goals.**
The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance has two aspects.
The first we might call metaphysical. Policymakers are causally responsible to bring about certain objectives desired by their constituents. It is part of their remit to bring about certain states of affairs consistent with the objectives and goals associated with the various needs, wants, and interests of constituents. However, since they are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, policymakers are constrained by their ignorance and incapacity in the states of affairs they can deliberately bring about in society.
The effectiveness of deliberate policymaking is ignorance-bound, in other words. As much as we might like to, we cannot eclipse the limits of policymaker ignorance to deliberately realize policy objectives that fall within its scope. If policymakers do not possess the knowledge and capacities required to, say, minimize (or mitigate) human suffering during a pandemic or moderate the effects of environmental degradation, these goals will not be realized through deliberate political action.
However, to say that such goals will not be realized deliberately is not to say that they will not be realized at all. Beyond the limits of policymaker ignorance lie goals that may nevertheless be realized, but only if spontaneous considerations which do not figure in the processes of deliberate policy design, implementation, and administration intervene to counter the consequences of policymaker ignorance.
There are several kinds of spontaneity at work in society. Luck is the kind of spontaneity with which we are probably most familiar from our own personal lives. We “get (un)lucky” whenever something happens that played no part in our plans. Thus, ignorant policymakers might get lucky and minimize human suffering from a disease or mitigate the consequences of climate change, despite their relevant ignorance. The most famous kind of spontaneity, at least among academic philosophers and economists, is associated with Adam Smith’s famous “invisible hand” quotation in The Wealth of Nations, and emerges from the interactions of self-motivated individuals in market and other (e.g., scientific and other scholarly) contexts. Thus, policymakers may not know enough to deliberately manage a pandemic or improve the planet’s health, but such results might nevertheless spontaneously emerge from the actions and interactions of individual constituents.
Despite the obvious fact that policymakers may lack some of the knowledge required to effectively discharge various of their policymaking duties, despite the fact that it is always an open question whether they possess the knowledge required to deliberately realize some policy objective (and, therefore, whether spontaneous forces must emerge to compensate for any relevant policymaker ignorance), policymakers are typically treated in political discourse as if they possess special knowledge not available to their constituents. This is true both in formal political discourse, the domain of academic political scientists, philosophers, and economists, and in informal political analysis of the sort performed by political pundits, journalists, and the average voter. We usually assume, at least implicitly and if only with regard to our own personal political predilections, that policymakers possess the knowledge and abilities necessary to bring about whatever policy objectives they might aim to realize, come what may. …
The second aspect of the Problem of Policymaker Ignorance might be described as psychological. It concerns the way in which belief in their ignorance to realize some policy objective affects policymakers’ incentives to pursue the goal. Simply put, if policymakers believe they lack some of the knowledge required to realize some social goal, they are less incentivized to pursue it. …
The logic of the Problem of Policymaker Ignorance suggests that, when policymakers are ignorant of knowledge required to deliberately realize some goal demanded by their constituents, blue-ribbon panels, task forces, and special committees – and, ultimately, disappointed constituents – proliferate.
The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance seems to explain much of what we observe in the political world. As constituents, we do not reflect on policymakers’ epistemic limitations, but convince ourselves, somehow, of their epistemic advantages. So, we demand from policymakers the realization of some very difficult policy goals. We ask them to avoid, solve, or otherwise mitigate health emergencies, environmental crises, economic disruptions, and global military conflicts. However, policymakers either do not know enough or are not capable of realizing many of these objectives. So, believing in their relevant ignorance, policymakers engage instead in political theater: they make it appear that they are promoting, pursuing goals associated with, our interests, while, in fact, mostly ignoring them. The policy goals that we would most like to see pursued are almost never realized, unless to some extent spontaneously. In fact, they’re not pursued with much sincerity at all.
Read the whole thing here.
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