'technocrats'

[gwnn]

So looks like if a country is in trouble, the best is to have non-politicians make new laws. However, aren't politicians professional lawmakers? It sounds to me a little bit like "if your car is broken, take it to the service, but if it's really broken, don't take it to the service, they are corrupt and will charge you much more and make it worse. take it to someone who does not work for the evil car service companies, for example I know John who is a Harvard graduate in mechanical engineering. maybe he knows something about cars?".

[Fluffy]

yes, sounds like that, and it works because politicians are proffesional thiefs, and popularity award winners, not lawmakers.

[kenberg]

The car analogy has some legs. I bought my first car in 1954, and my first brand new, off the showroom floor car, in 1966. After years of making do, I decided I would do it right. No more tinkering, I would take it to the dealer for factory authorized service. After doing this for a while I received a card in the mail explaining that they had some new electronic gadgetry for diagnosing a car's ills and they would be happy to demonstrate this to me for free. So, naive 27 year old that I was, I took the car in. They ran their tests and explained I needed new plugs and points. I explained I had had the car in two weeks previously and had been charged for new plugs and points.

 

Back to the do it yourself plan!

 

Actually I have had several variants on this experience over my lifetime.

 

Far and away my best experiences were back in the 70s when I had a VW bug. There was a local Sunoco with a mechanic that I completely trusted. If I had a problem I would bring the car in, say a few general words about why I was there, and tell him to do whatever he thought right. It was a real pleasure.

 

We need my Sunoco mechanic to run the country, so to speak. I don't know diddly about economics and don't really plan on correcting that deficiency. Having someone in Congress who did know at least a little diddly would be very nice.

[babalu1997]

So looks like if a country is in trouble, the best is to have non-politicians make new laws. However, aren't politicians professional lawmakers? It sounds to me a little bit like "if your car is broken, take it to the service, but if it's really broken, don't take it to the service, they are corrupt and will charge you much more and make it worse. take it to someone who does not work for the evil car service companies, for example I know John who is a Harvard graduate in mechanical engineering. maybe he knows something about cars?".

 

how does one become a professional lawmaker?

 

in my neck of the woods i think a voter revolt is in the making.

 

 

at this time a great majority of elected officials are lawyers, and the up and coming change political party has a great number of working people and business folk in it.

 

they cannot possibly be worse than the incompetent economists, lawyers, bankers who messed up the economy for their own gain

 

lula, the factory worked turned president in brazil, did more for the country overall than the chicago-educated economists of the 1970s.

[phil_20686]

There are different views of democracy. There is the "populist model" where politicians exist to represent the views of their constituents, the "representative" model, where we elect people somewhat like us but they are expected to make their own decisions on important matters - ie delegation of decision making, and finally there is the "collectivist" model where everyone is expected to vote in the best interests of the country, rather than their own, but this basically boils down to the representative model in practice.

 

It has been an interesting piece of political history in Britain to watch the zeitgeist move from collective to individualist/populist. I mean, the idea that people shouldn't vote in their own best interests has become almost unknown. Look at how the affluent people who say raise taxes are called hypocrites. Its bizarre.

 

In general technocrats to not make good leaders as its rare to find someone who becomes an expert in a narrow field while keeping a good idea of the big picture. Good leaders tend to be generalists who can apply different frameworks to different puzzles. However, when you have a crisis that essentially relates to a single issue, a technocrat might be useful.

 

I basically think the ECB is pursuing self destructive policies though, so the people it is getting elected are just going to do more of the same. The EU running roughshod over the voters is all going to end in tears. One way or another. I have to admit, I used to be quite pro europe but have become more sceptical by the year.

[y66]

The technocrats got Europe into this mess by creating a shared currency whose guiding principle was supposed to be "a set of rules to limit a country's annual deficit to three per cent of gross domestic product and the total accumulated debt to sixty per cent of G.D.P. It was a nice idea, but by 2004 the two biggest economies in the euro zone, Germany and France, had broken the rules for three years in a row."

 

Hard to see how people who think this way are going to get Europe out of this.

[barmar]

In an ideal world, lawmaking would be like most other professions: you hire experts (or at least with more expertise than yourself) in a particular activity to do it for you. So why does this mostly work for auto repair, but not government?

 

Because the auto mechanics don't get drunk with power. The old adage about power corrupting is true, and lawmakers are subject to it.

 

And even if they're not corrupt, they often think they have a mandate, and they can't fulfill this if they get voted out (or their party loses control). So even with good intentions, they spend much of their effort on jockeying for power and campaigning, not solving real problems. The "agenda" takes priority over all else, it doesn't matter who gets hurt in the process.

 

It's kind of like the Bond villains who thought that they could create a utopian society, and that end justified any means. They weren't all evil, just horribly misguided, and had enough power that they could do incredible damage to achieve their goals.

 

Another reason for bad lawmakers is that this profession is unique in that no one really checks whether you're qualified for the job. When you apply for a normal job, you go through interviews with people who know what it takes to perform the job, and should be able to tell whether you've got it. But a campaign and election is not like a job interview process. In particular, voters aren't particularly qualified to decide whether you can perform the job of governing well.

 

Most of us would be totally unqualified to make the kinds of decisions that lawmakers have to make. So electing "someone like themselves" is a totally wrong way to go about it, but that's what many do (remember that a big appeal of GW Bush was that voters would like to have a beer with him -- he got elected partially on "folksy charm"). We should elect people *better* than ourselves at the job of governing (that's what many of us saw in Obama).

[mike777]

"In an ideal world, lawmaking would be like most other professions: you hire experts (or at least with more expertise than yourself) in a particular activity to do it for you. So why does this mostly work for auto repair, but not government?"

 

 

Experts often ask other people to believe what they say based on their expertise.

 

I believe experts should ask others to believe what they say based on how it accords with the evidence.

 

However they often seem to want people to base their believe on their name or authority.

 

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As far as technocrats I am not sure what that really means. People seem to have different definitions of the word.

As far as a leader of a country I would think you would want a politician. I mean the job is 100% all about politics and leadership in politics.

 

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In general I would think there are just as many greedy,selfish auto mechanics as there are politicians.

 

Evidence is with all the so called state mandated yearly auto safety inspections which auto mechanics lobby for and which the evidence says are a waste of money. They do not improve auto safety.

[nigel_k]

In an ideal world, lawmaking would be like most other professions: you hire experts (or at least with more expertise than yourself) in a particular activity to do it for you. So why does this mostly work for auto repair, but not government?

Because you are hiring someone to fix your own car. If you were hiring someone to fix other people's cars or to take parts off other people's cars and put them in yours, then auto repair and government would not be anywhere near as different as they are.

[Aberlour10]

In western democracies there are only 3 politicans in the single goverment department, 1 ministry, 2 secretaries of state who come and go, all other are technocrates. They do the job, while politicans sell it in front of camera later. Thats all.

[barmar]

In general I would think there are just as many greedy,selfish auto mechanics as there are politicians.

Maybe there are, but they can't do as much damage.

 

The more critical the service someone provides, the more important it is that they have expertise. You might let a neighbor work on your car because he does car repair as a hobby, but would you let someone without a medical degree take out your appendix?

[mike777]

Maybe there are, but they can't do as much damage.

 

The more critical the service someone provides, the more important it is that they have expertise. You might let a neighbor work on your car because he does car repair as a hobby, but would you let someone without a medical degree take out your appendix?

 

 

 

And what or who is an expert politician? Again this job is 100% politics you are not voting for head economist or doctor or auto mechanic or president in chief of services.

 

 

Perhaps it would be better to start from the other side and define politics and really define the job. You seem to define it as chief of critical services provided by the government??

[blackshoe]

Maybe there are, but they can't do as much damage.

 

The more critical the service someone provides, the more important it is that they have expertise. You might let a neighbor work on your car because he does car repair as a hobby, but would you let someone without a medical degree take out your appendix?

 

Bad example. If the choice is between letting the EMT take it out, and dealing with a burst appendix, I'd tell him to go for it.

[barmar]

If the job is "100% politics", then I think we've got the wrong job description. Because it seems like the guys in Washington are pretty good at playing politics, but we actually need people who know how to solve the country's problems.

[mike777]

If the job is "100% politics", then I think we've got the wrong job description. Because it seems like the guys in Washington are pretty good at playing politics, but we actually need people who know how to solve the country's problems.

 

 

 

so in several posts you have stated what the job is not...so what is your definition of the job and the qualifications of who should fill it?

 

I understand you disagree with my definition and that is a start.

 

I grant we are all for peace, love and understanding and someone who is not an idiot.

 

I think the job is 100% politics and the leadership of politics (politics by another name).

 

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edit as a side note at this point as is often the case most cannot even agree on what the problem is let alone the solution.

 

war, peace, hunger, debt, greed, selfish, education, health care, energy, pollution, jobs.... etc etc if we have a hundred problems ok......

 

in any case if you have the solution of all of them you got my vote but please just tell me the solution.

[BunnyGo]

Bad example. If the choice is between letting the EMT take it out, and dealing with a burst appendix, I'd tell him to go for it.

 

Speaking as a former EMT...I'd rather suffer the burst appendix.

[blackshoe]

Hm. Perhaps my understanding of EMT training is flawed. I was sort of equating "EMT" to "Navy Corpsman", which may be doing a disservice to the latter.

 

In the EMT case, I suppose distance/time to the hospital is a factor. :P

[Gerben42]

Politicians in my view are people who normally do what the majority wants to hear, not what's actually best for the country. Unfortunately here in Germany, it seems that what the people want is exactly that what is bad for the country...

 

So I for one appreciate it when Greece and Italy have a government without politicians so that they can what's necessary.

 

It's apparently too much to ask for politicians who can EXPLAIN why what they are doing is right for the country, even if it might be unpopular.

[SimonFa]

Gerben is right. The idea is that politicians bring in technocrats to make those unpopular decisions. and then when the economy picks up and we get near to elections politicians blame the technocrats for the misery and promise to start spending again.

 

As Guido Fawkes, a British blogger and political muck raker reports today:

 

 

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg , quips..

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

 

 

Simon

[BunnyGo]

Who's a technocrat?:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/boring-cruel-euro-romantics.html?hp

 

And for the record, (from another water cooler topic) Newt Gingrich isn't "clearly the smartest man in the room" he's one of those pompous assholes at a party who can talk about anything impressively but when someone who really understands the subject matter comes around it turns out he's just a bullshit artist who is wrong about things outside his speciality (we can smell our own).

[barmar]

so in several posts you have stated what the job is not...so what is your definition of the job and the qualifications of who should fill it?

I don't have specifics, but it's basically implementing the duties defined in the Constitution: making the big decisions necessary to run the country. There's nothing in there about partisan bickering, which is what they seem to spend 90% of their time doing, except when they're spending 90% of their time campaigning.

 

There's always been some politicking, and that's understandable, but lately it seems to have totally drowned out the governing. We didn't hire these people to create congressional gridlock.

[mike777]

I don't have specifics, but it's basically implementing the duties defined in the Constitution: making the big decisions necessary to run the country. There's nothing in there about partisan bickering, which is what they seem to spend 90% of their time doing, except when they're spending 90% of their time campaigning.

 

There's always been some politicking, and that's understandable, but lately it seems to have totally drowned out the governing. We didn't hire these people to create congressional gridlock.

 

 

1) we often vote for congressional gridlock

2) I just wish we really look at history......

3) partisan bickering common around 1776

 

 

IUn 2012 we debate:

1) building pipelines

2) taxes

3) drilling

4) etc you add.....

[barmar]

3) partisan bickering common around 1776

Yet they managed to agree on the Declaration of Independence. They didn't all like every bit of it, but they were able to compromise. They made progress. They were able to construct an entire new nation.

 

I realize that the problems of running a country of 50 states with 300 million people, in a highly connected world, are far different from 13 states, 2.5 million people, and a world where communication and trade with most other nations takes days or weeks. It's not an easy job, but it sometimes seems like they're not even trying. Whatever they're doing, it's NOT running a country.

[Cyberyeti]

So looks like if a country is in trouble, the best is to have non-politicians make new laws. However, aren't politicians professional lawmakers? It sounds to me a little bit like "if your car is broken, take it to the service, but if it's really broken, don't take it to the service, they are corrupt and will charge you much more and make it worse. take it to someone who does not work for the evil car service companies, for example I know John who is a Harvard graduate in mechanical engineering. maybe he knows something about cars?".

Look at it this way:

 

My country is in economic crisis, I can:

 

a) Get somebody who started as a political researcher and has basically been a full time politician all his life

 

b) Get somebody with a deep understanding of the economy

 

to get me out of this mess.

 

a) will do what he needs to do to be popular and get re-elected and spin it well

 

b) might do what's economically necessary

[barmar]

Exactly. The problem with trying to get (b)'s is that you somehow have to replace many of the (a)'s. But the (a)'s are experts at the art of getting reelected, so they'll thwart you.

 

It would also be acceptable if the (a)'s hired a bunch of (b)'s and delegated responsibility for fixing the mess to them. But for that to work, the (a)'s have to agree to do what the (b)'s come up with, and they're generally not willing to commit to that. It's likely to conflict with the party's agenda, which could hurt their chances of getting reelected.

 

We're so screwed.