In an essay
written over 15 years ago I observed that we were beginning to see a populist
reaction to the rule of experts in the United States and (to a lesser extent)
in Australia. In more recent essays, however, I have tended to see populism as
a manifestation of interest group politics. These explanations are not mutually
exclusive, but it may be useful to consider how the rule of experts and
populism are both entangled with interest group politics.
My 2010
essay
The essay was
entitled: Does Australia also have a ruling
class? It was prompted
by an article by Angelo Codevilla which suggested that Democrat and Republican
office-holders in recent governments in the United States had shown “a similar
presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits and opinions
... than between both and the rest of the community”. He claimed: “They think,
look, and act like a class.”
Codevilla discussed several characteristics of this “ruling
class”. For example, he suggested that they believe themselves to be “the best
and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and
dysfunctional unless properly constrained”. They view the common people’s words
as “like grunts, mere signs of pain, pleasure and frustration”.
I concluded that while Australia also had a self-appointed ruling
class which could be identified with the public service and the political left,
I didn’t think the conservative side of Australian politics was as closely
identified with that ruling class as in the United States. That explains why populist
politicians were not particularly popular in Australia at that time.
In retrospect, however, I think I also displayed some “ruling
class” attitudes in my essay:
“In my view the words of non-experts on complex economic issues do have little more value than a grunt. Whether we are talking about economic policy, brain surgery or plumbing, I think it should be self-evident that the views of experts count for more than those of non-experts.”
I still think that the views of experts should count for
more than those of non-experts, although these days I try to avoid being
offensive. Apart from the tone of my comment, I should have made clear that there
are reasons to doubt that some of those who claim economic expertise know what
they are talking about. The claims that some economists make about the
potential to regulate complex market systems to produce better outcomes deserve
no more respect than the similar claims of non-experts.
In his book, Expert Failure, published
in 2018, Roger Koppl brings an economic perspective to “the problem of experts”.
I will briefly consider Koppl’s line of argument in the following section.
Expert Failure
Koppl acknowledges that we must rely on experts even though experts may not be completely reliable and trustworthy sources of the advice we require from them.
He defines an “expert” as anyone paid to give an
opinion. That definition leaves open the question of whether experts are
reliable or unreliable.
Koppl adopts the Hayekian view that knowledge is generally
emergent from practice, often tacit, and embodied in our norms, habits,
practices, and traditions. His comparative institutional approach leads to the
conclusion that expert error and abuse are more likely when experts have
monopoly power, and less likely in a “competitive” market for expert opinion.
I expect most economists would view that as commonsense, but
it is far removed from standard practice in many fields which rely on expert
knowledge. Based on his study of the use of expert witnesses in law, Koppl observes
that it is common to encounter the view that it is scandalous for the opinions
of men of science to be challenged, even by other scientists. It is often held
that the knowledge of expert witnesses is or should be uniform, unambiguous and
certain. Experts are often encouraged to come to a common understanding rather
than to offer competing views.
Koppl observes that the division of knowledge makes it
impossible for anyone to avoid a limited and partial perspective, which implies
a parochial bias in our perceptions and judgments. That kind of bias cannot be eliminated
by blinding protocols – such as the double-blind requirements used in testing
of pharmaceuticals. It can only be
mitigated by multiplying the number of experts and putting them in positions of
genuine rivalry.
The book contains an interesting discussion of epistemic
systems design in an experimental economics laboratory. In that setting, the
experimenter is in the god-like position of defining unambiguously what the
truth is and examining how close experimental subjects come to it in different
institutional settings. The knowledge gained of which institutional structures
promote the discovery and elimination of error is relevant to the real world. Experimental
systems design studies offer opportunities to test the role of network
structure in producing reliable knowledge in scientific fields.
Koppl comments:
“Rather than attempting to instruct people in how to form true opinions, we might reform our social institutions in ways that tend to induce people to find and speak the truth.”
However, at the end of the next chapter, after considering
the problems arising from the monopoly of expert opinion in government - referred to as the rule of experts or the entangled
deep state - the author suggests that the experimental approach of “piecemeal
institutional reform (which is mostly borrowed from Vernon Smith) does not have
an obvious application to the entangled deep state.” He concludes:
“If my diagnosis of the deep state is at all correct, reform is urgently required. I freely confess, however, that I have no specific ideas on how we might attempt to roll back the deep state with a reasonable prospect of success.”
Nevertheless, Koppl offers useful insights into the nature
of the problem arising from the rule of experts. His conclusion that the
problem of experts “mostly boils down to the question of knowledge imposition” is
highly relevant to consideration of institutional approaches to determination
of public policies.
In the introductory chapter to his book Koppl explains that
he values pluralistic democracy and is as much opposed to populism as to the
rule of experts. He argues for pluralism
on the grounds that each of us has at best a partial view of the truth:
“In a pluralist democracy, competing partial perspectives on the truth have at least a chance to be heard and to influence political choices. Decisions in a political system – be it populist, elitist, or something else – that override or ignore plural perspectives will be based on knowledge that is at best limited, partial, biased.”
In the process of developing that view Koppl refers to an
article by Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Accetti (“Populism
and Technocracy: Opposites or Complements?” Critical Review of
International Social and Political Philosophy, 20(2), 2015) which describes
populism and technocracy as two organizing poles of politics which are both
opposed to “party democracy”. I will now discuss that article because it raises
the question in my mind of whether party democracy has more in common with
interest group politics than with pluralism.
Party democracy, interest group politics and pluralism
Bickerton and Accetti
argue that whilst populism and technocracy are usually assumed to be opposed to
each other, there is also an important element of complementarity between them.
Both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit critique of party
democracy. The authors suggest that “if we accept the idea that politics is
increasingly structured in terms of this conflict between populism and
technocracy, then we find that even the very possibility of
articulating a defense of party democracy is excluded from the political spectrum”.
I have no difficulty agreeing with Bickerton and Accetti if
they are just using different words to say that both populism and the rule of
experts are opposed to pluralistic democracy. Technocracy seems to correspond
closely with rule of experts, but “party democracy”, as the authors describe it,
seems to me to corresponds more closely to interest group politics than to the
role of encompassing political groups in a two-party pluralistic democracy.
The authors define party democracy as a political regime
based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the
institution of political parties; and the idea that the specific conception of
the common good that ought to prevail and therefore be translated into public
policy is the one that is constructed through the democratic procedures of
parliamentary deliberation and electoral competition. The role of political
parties in “mediation of political conflicts” is the focus of my concern.
The authors suggest that an important function performed by
political parties is that of “integrating a plurality of particular interests”
and moulding them into “an overarching conception of the common good”. When
political parties aim to do such things, it seems to me that they end up
cobbling together coalitions of interest groups which seek to obtain benefits
for themselves at the expense of others. That is essentially what interest
group politics is about.
In my view,
better outcomes are produced when political parties take on the role of encompassing
political groups in two-party pluralistic democracies. In discussing the
importance of encompassing political groups in a two-party system of
government, Mancur Olson asserted that the leader of a party “whose clients
comprise half or more of the society naturally is concerned about the
efficiency and welfare of the society as a whole” because this affects the
party’s electoral prospects. (See
further discussion and reference here.)
As I have explained
elsewhere (for example in a recent essay on the
consequences of path dependence) the growth of interest group politics has tended
to contract economic freedom, constrain economic growth and increase public
debt levels. As a result, voters have tended to become increasingly disenchanted
with conventional politics.
It seems to me that as party politics has increasingly
focused on pandering to particular interest groups it has helped to bring about a situation where more people
have become more willing to listen to populists who tell them that they are
being disadvantaged by the policies of conventional political leaders. Unfortunately,
most of those populist leaders advance policies that are likely to produce even
worse economic and social outcomes.
The ubiquity of populism, rule of experts, and interest
group politics
Looking at recent politics in the United Sates, it might
seem appropriate to identify the Democratic Party with rule of experts and the
Republican Party with populism. However, that assignment understates the extent
of populism in the Democratic Party, which tends to seek popular support by
attributing economic woes to the wealthy 1% of the population in much the same
way as economic nationalists in the Republican Party attribute economic woes to
import competition and immigration. It also understates the extent to which the
current Administration relies on commercial expertise – dealmaking – in running
the government. It seems that the rule of one group of experts has been
replaced by rule of another group with different expertise. The problems
arising from the monopoly of expert opinion have changed their character but
have not disappeared.
Roger Koppl’s reference to the “entangled deep state” reflects
his awareness that the rule of experts is not immune to interest group
politics. He notes that participants in the American deep state “have a variety
of competing and parochial interests”. More generally, interest group politics
is strongly associated with the entanglement of entrepreneurs and interests in
private and public sectors.
Interest group politics seems to have attended to the pleas
of increasingly narrow groups in recent years. As well as seeking support of
broad economic groups such as unions, industry groups, and groups with differing
social and environmental attitudes, political parties have increasingly sought
the support of narrow interest groups by engaging in identity politics. The
progressive side of politics has favoured groups that have previously been
disadvantaged by ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. The conservative
side of politics has pushed back against what they label as wokeness, while
seeking support from some groups, e.g. young men, who perceive themselves to be
disadvantage by it.
Another interesting development in interest group politics
in the United States is the emergence of an alliance between conservative
populists and the high-tech community. It is not easy to comprehend how populists
who claim to be concerned about economic and social impacts of competition from
imports and immigration could be complacent about the economic and social impacts
of AI. Action by the U.S. government to facilitate rapid development of AI has
been accompanied by a change in the economic nationalist narrative away from
its populist roots to emphasize the importance of retaining technological
leadership in AI in the face of increasing competition from China.
The warning of President Eisenhower, quoted in the epigraph,
might now be relevant for reasons that he could not have foreseen. Public
policy is not only at risk of becoming the captive of a
scientific-technological elite supported by the administrative state, it is
also at risk of becoming the captive of a scientific-technological elite controlling
the development of powerful AI models.
However, I don’t think we should assume that a future in
which AI models will have an increasing influence on social and economic outcomes
will necessarily be worse than a future in which the entangled deep state
retains its current influence. It is
possible that rivalry between different AI models will ensure that their social
and economic impacts are relatively benign and consistent with pluralistic democracy.
Even now, greater use of truth-seeking bots has potential to lessen the problem
of rational ignorance, and thus to reduce the susceptibility of voters to populists
peddling false narratives.
Conclusions
The rise of populism in the Western liberal democracies can
be explained to some degree as a reaction to the “ruling class” attitudes of
experts within governments. I have recently
tended to see populism as a manifestation of interest group politics, but it is
worth considering how the rule of experts and populism are entangled with
interest group politics.
The essay has outlined the views presented by Roger Koppl in
his book, Expert Failure. Koppl offers the useful insight that the main problem
arising from the rule of experts is knowledge imposition. Expert error and
abuse are more likely when experts have monopoly power and are less likely when
experts are placed in positions of genuine rivalry. Koppl argues that pluralist
democracy is superior to both the rule of experts and populism because it
enables competing partial perspectives on the truth to have a chance to be
heard.
I have also considered the view of Christopher Bickerton and
Carlo Accetti that both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit
critique of party democracy. I suggested that party democracy, as the authors
described it, seemed to have more in common with interest group politics than with
pluralistic democracy. In my view, interest group politics is largely to blame
for the poor economic and social outcomes that have encouraged the growth of
populism.
My main conclusion is that the rule of experts, populism, and
interest group politics are currently ubiquitous on both the progressive and
conservative sides of politics. Populism is certainly not confined to one side
of politics and populist governments don’t eliminate problems arising from the monopoly
of expert opinion. In the U.S. a populist executive has continued to discourage
rival views, while attempting to substitute expertise in commercial deal-making
for expertise in statecraft.
The emergence of an alliance between the current U.S. Administration
and the high-tech community poses a risk that public policy may become captive
to a scientific-technological elite controlling the development of powerful AI
models. We should not assume, however, that
a future in which AI models have an increasing influence on social and economic
outcomes will necessarily be worse than one in which the entangled deep state
retains its current influence. Rivalry between AI models may even have
potential to produce better outcomes.
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