Negative credibility

Take three recent events:
1. Gordon Brown says there's little interest in a petition calling for an early election, leading thousands of people to sign the petition they had previously ignored.
2. When Schillings try to stop Craig Murray making allegations against Alisher Usmanov, hundreds of bloggers and MEP Tom Wise refer to those allegations, giving them far more publicity than they'd have got if Schillings had done nothing.
3.  After the FSA, Chancellor and British Bankers Association say Northern Rock is solvent, despositers rush to withdraw their money from the bank.
These are examples of statements by the ruling class - politicians, lawyers, bosses - being wholly counter-productive, leading to events that would probably not have happened had they stayed quiet.
These might just be examples of counter-suggestion - and our rulers' ignorance of this shows how little they understand of human nature. 
But might something else be happening? Could it be that the ruling class now has negative credibility? Maybe people are now taking seriously the old Yes, Minister joke - that one should never believe anything until it's officially denied.
If so, doesn't this have serious implications? It means not merely that the managerial class has lost one of the weapons it can use to control us, but that the weapon, when used, actually fires upon its user.

Comments

[dearieme]

That's precisely my interpretation of the run on Northern Rock. A decade of the Loathsome Wee Twat had left even a bunch of pensioners assuming that the truth is that which is diametrically opposite to an official statement.

[Pseudonymous]

I think this is a bit of an overreaction. Everything you learnt at school was told to you by a servent of the state.

And yet, you believe most of it.

Certainly people are skeptical of statements made to influence the listener, rather than inform them - but there is nothing new about that.

[Zorro]

Chris, you are quite correct and Pseudonymous is quite wrong.

I being a cynical bastard have thought this way for around a decade but the general public are finally catching up with me...

This /is/ happening, you saw it when they interviewed people queueing up outside NR branches. They said basically if the govt was saying X then they believed NOT(X).

Z

[mat]

Speaking of which...
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/1/5113
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/1/6355

[Sage King]

Wisdom of crowds in action...fancy a vote on capital punishment?

[Matthew]

Surely this isn't how NR played out? When the government gave a guarantee the crowds melted away. They didn't believe the bank's management, fair enough.

[Will]

"These might just be examples of counter-suggestion - and our rulers' ignorance of this shows how little they understand of human nature."

Oh... come on Chris! You're just a clever version of Naomi klein now aren't you Chris?

Have a heart. Maybe they are just human? You know? Not fucking economist, fuckwit automatons? Ever thought of that?

This 'managerial class' or 'liberal class of professionals'of whom you speak -- what is their social/economic basis? Professionals/managers are much too diverse to be called a 'class'. You being a 'Marxist' should surely know that? Maybe you forgot about all that shit when you became part of the very class you pretend to critique?

The master:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1842/free-press/ch06.htm
"It is well known that a certain kind of psychology explains big things by means of small causes and, correctly sensing that everything for which man struggles is a matter of his interest, arrives at the incorrect opinion that there are only "petty" interests, only the interests of a stereotyped self-seeking. Further, it is well known that this kind of psychology and knowledge of mankind is to be found particularly in towns, where moreover it is considered the sign of a clever mind to see through the world and perceive that behind the passing clouds of ideas and facts there are quite small, envious, intriguing manikins, who pull the strings setting everything in motion. However, it is equally well known that if one looks too closely into a glass, one bumps one's own head, and hence these clever people's knowledge of mankind and the universe is primarily a mystified bump of their own heads."

Been to hospital lately Chris? You should have those bumps checked out! And stop looking into your beer glass (or wine glass or whatever).

PS -- Fuck off all the right wing dickheads who comment here. You scum will pay the price eventually! Fuck you all!

[Philip Hunt]

Some more examples:

4. Countries with “Democratic” in their name invariably are not.

5. Government scandals. When the Prime Minister says that a minister has his full support, you know he will soon be sacked or resign.

[Katherine]

Will, please shut up. You are doing the cause of the left absolutely no favours at all. You are trolling, and no one likes that, whatever their political bent.

[Will]

katherine.

Fuck off.

[tom s.]

Philip - that's very close to Galbraith's Law: "Anyone who says he is not going to resign, four times, definitely will."

[mat]

"Fuck off all the right wing dickheads who comment here."

I haven't noticed any. Can you name some?

[pommygranate]

""Fuck off all the right wing dickheads who comment here."

Classy guy.

Chris - these aren't statements from managers, but from politicians. No one believes a word from politicians anymore.

[dreamingspire]

Yes, significant numbers of the ruling class have negative credibility, but I suspend judgement until proven true, and after that they get labelled one by one (lots of them already).