At a time when we’re seeing that Gordon Brown is not up to the job of being PM, Glenn Hoddle is setting up a scheme to revive the careers of young footballers rejected by their clubs.
There’s a link here. Hoddle is taking the view that even top football teams are bad at spotting talent. And Brown’s agony shows that Labour MPs are also terrible talent spotters; remember, just a few months ago, these were so confident Brown was up to the job that they didn’t even bother to have an election.
So, could it be that the old adage is right: “the one thing rarer than ability is the ability to spot ability”? Certainly, many managers believe that lots of hiring decisions were mistaken.
And could it be that what often look like successful hires are in fact sheepskin effects? If we treat someone as if they very able, they will act as if they are - and even if they don’t groupthink will stop doubters pointing out that the emperor has no clothes: this was the theme of the film Trading Places.
I ask all this not merely because it is relevant for political and business decision-making, but because it also matters for egalitarians.
If many hiring and rejection decisions are mistaken, then it’s hard to argue that inequalities in income are closely related to ability or “merit”*. Instead, they have a large arbitrary element; I, for example, can easily imagine that, with different luck, I would be ten times as rich or poor as I am now.
In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger.
* The objection to this is that it only takes one correct decision of many for ability and jobs to become aligned; it doesn’t matter if nine of ten employers fail to recognize your ability, if the tenth does. But is this objection decisive in the face of oligopsonistic hirers or path dependency? Narrowly failing or succeeding in getting into Oxbridge, or onto Goldman Sachs’ graduate trainee programme, can permanently affect your life prospects.
There’s a link here. Hoddle is taking the view that even top football teams are bad at spotting talent. And Brown’s agony shows that Labour MPs are also terrible talent spotters; remember, just a few months ago, these were so confident Brown was up to the job that they didn’t even bother to have an election.
So, could it be that the old adage is right: “the one thing rarer than ability is the ability to spot ability”? Certainly, many managers believe that lots of hiring decisions were mistaken.
And could it be that what often look like successful hires are in fact sheepskin effects? If we treat someone as if they very able, they will act as if they are - and even if they don’t groupthink will stop doubters pointing out that the emperor has no clothes: this was the theme of the film Trading Places.
I ask all this not merely because it is relevant for political and business decision-making, but because it also matters for egalitarians.
If many hiring and rejection decisions are mistaken, then it’s hard to argue that inequalities in income are closely related to ability or “merit”*. Instead, they have a large arbitrary element; I, for example, can easily imagine that, with different luck, I would be ten times as rich or poor as I am now.
In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger.
* The objection to this is that it only takes one correct decision of many for ability and jobs to become aligned; it doesn’t matter if nine of ten employers fail to recognize your ability, if the tenth does. But is this objection decisive in the face of oligopsonistic hirers or path dependency? Narrowly failing or succeeding in getting into Oxbridge, or onto Goldman Sachs’ graduate trainee programme, can permanently affect your life prospects.
"In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger."
Why not just have an insurance market?
Posted by: ad | May 26, 2008 at 12:57 PM
I've long believed in the cock-up theory of humanity. It's not the right decisions (which largely pass unnoticed) it's the wrong ones that point up mistakes. So as we blunder along, every now and again something goes right by sheer luck.
This is clearly seen with Gordon Brown. Everything he has ever done has been a cock-up, which has been spun and spun until finally it couldn't be spun any more - at which point the disaster he surely is became obvious.The problem is he is incapable of recognising he has made a mistake, far less of changing it, which most of us are.
Mind you, that does rather argue for him staying in place. As a Senator remarked when appointing Alan Greenspan, " Everything you've ever done has been wrong - why should it change now?" In the event, if the cock-up is big enough and goes on long enough, people think you're a genius. Until it falls apart.
Posted by: kinglear | May 26, 2008 at 01:32 PM
ps - I love your gratuitous use of Jamie Lee Curtis with very few clothes on - or anyone else really.
Posted by: kinglear | May 26, 2008 at 01:35 PM
«Inequalities in income are closely related to ability or “merit”*. Instead, they have a large arbitrary element; I, for example, can easily imagine that, with different luck, I would be ten times as rich or poor as I am now.
In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger.»
«oligopsonistic hirers or path dependency? Narrowly failing or succeeding in getting into Oxbridge, or onto Goldman Sachs’ graduate trainee programme, can permanently affect your life prospects.»
This is the usual ridiculous use of the Rawlsian veil -- which is ridiculous because policy is not decided by philosophers, but by voters and influence purchasers, who already know and very well if they have won the lottery and been anointed to wealth Oxbridge or GS.
Policy is driven by the fully vested, who could not care less to waste their money on insurance against the risk that they might not have become fully vested, because that's in the past.
"F*ck you! I am fully vested" is the basis of much policy by Tories and New Labour alike, because their voters are largely middle aged, self-congratulating, asset rich winners, and their only desire is for the government to insure them against the decline in the price of their 4 bedroom homes and rental apartments.
Most of the young english voters are the expectant, cant-be-asked inheritors of the fully vested, and the only insurance they want is against having to pay any tax on their splendid windfalls.
Posted by: Blissex | May 26, 2008 at 05:43 PM
Wasn't Glen Hoddle the guy whom Blair got sacked as the England's football team manager just because he was a Buddhist?
Posted by: Bob B | May 27, 2008 at 02:31 PM
The Irish hooker Ken Kennedy once said:
"England have the players. What they have to do is find the selectors who will pick them."
Posted by: Jonathan | June 01, 2008 at 03:37 PM