Reading Paul’s request that the Labour leadership candidates produce substantive manifestos rather than blather about shared values, the question occurred to me: why have a leadership election at all? Why not simply use a lottery to pick a leader from the five candidates?
Such a procedure has four things to commend it:
1. In picking Gordon Brown in 2007, the Labour party has shown itself to be a poor judge of who’ll be a good leader; granted, he wasn‘t elected, but this doesn‘t affect my argument because he was widely supported at the time. If your judgment is bad, why rely upon it? Why not use another selection mechanism?
This is especially true now not just because the candidates’ bland talk gives us little guidance as to how they’ll behave as leader, but also because the circumstances the leader will have to deal with are hugely unpredictable: will the next election take place with a weak economy or strong one? What sort of strains will there be in the Con-Dem coalition? and so on. Is the Labour electorate really capable of choosing the leader best able to deal with an unknown environment? What edge does it have over chance?
2. The use of lotteries to pick leaders will reduce incentives for factionalism. If Gordon Brown had known that Tony Blair’s resignation would have given him merely a (say) one-in-five chance of becoming PM, he’d have been less motivated to plot against him. The history of New Labour would have been a happier one.
3. Lotteries reduce the legitimacy of the leader. This is a good thing. Strong leaders can produce weak organizations: look how RBS ended up under the strong leadership of Fred Goodwin, or at the legacy at BP of John Browne’s strong leadership. Top-down organizations can lead its members to become mindless drones as they look to the top for guidance, whilst leaders - as Kenneth Boulding memorably said (pdf) - end up “operating in purely imaginary worlds.“ A Labour party that is less hierarchical might be one that’s more energetic and innovative.
4. Choosing a leader by lottery would have cultural benefits, in at least two ways.
First, it would signal a break with the ideology of the boss class. One of New Labour’s biggest failings was that it bought into the idea that leaders are all-important. Choosing them by lottery would help consign this notion to the dustbin where it belongs.
Secondly, in increasing the salience of luck, it would remind the party that fortune plays a crucial part in human affairs. The overwhelming cause of our wealth or poverty is brute luck: the luck of being born in England rather than Ethiopia, of having the right parents, of encountering an inspiring teacher, of chance meetings at work, and so on.
A party leader who owes his position to luck will be more sensitive to the role of chance, and less so to the role of “merit“, which is largely a fictitious entity used to legitimate unwarranted inequalities. He is, therefore, more likely to be attuned to the need for policies that redress bad luck.
Which brings me to a paradox. Most of us on the Left, surely, think that luck plays too big a role in our economy and society. And yet, in some contexts, it plays too small a role. Luck exists where it shouldn’t, and doesn’t exist where it should.
Such a procedure has four things to commend it:
1. In picking Gordon Brown in 2007, the Labour party has shown itself to be a poor judge of who’ll be a good leader; granted, he wasn‘t elected, but this doesn‘t affect my argument because he was widely supported at the time. If your judgment is bad, why rely upon it? Why not use another selection mechanism?
This is especially true now not just because the candidates’ bland talk gives us little guidance as to how they’ll behave as leader, but also because the circumstances the leader will have to deal with are hugely unpredictable: will the next election take place with a weak economy or strong one? What sort of strains will there be in the Con-Dem coalition? and so on. Is the Labour electorate really capable of choosing the leader best able to deal with an unknown environment? What edge does it have over chance?
2. The use of lotteries to pick leaders will reduce incentives for factionalism. If Gordon Brown had known that Tony Blair’s resignation would have given him merely a (say) one-in-five chance of becoming PM, he’d have been less motivated to plot against him. The history of New Labour would have been a happier one.
3. Lotteries reduce the legitimacy of the leader. This is a good thing. Strong leaders can produce weak organizations: look how RBS ended up under the strong leadership of Fred Goodwin, or at the legacy at BP of John Browne’s strong leadership. Top-down organizations can lead its members to become mindless drones as they look to the top for guidance, whilst leaders - as Kenneth Boulding memorably said (pdf) - end up “operating in purely imaginary worlds.“ A Labour party that is less hierarchical might be one that’s more energetic and innovative.
4. Choosing a leader by lottery would have cultural benefits, in at least two ways.
First, it would signal a break with the ideology of the boss class. One of New Labour’s biggest failings was that it bought into the idea that leaders are all-important. Choosing them by lottery would help consign this notion to the dustbin where it belongs.
Secondly, in increasing the salience of luck, it would remind the party that fortune plays a crucial part in human affairs. The overwhelming cause of our wealth or poverty is brute luck: the luck of being born in England rather than Ethiopia, of having the right parents, of encountering an inspiring teacher, of chance meetings at work, and so on.
A party leader who owes his position to luck will be more sensitive to the role of chance, and less so to the role of “merit“, which is largely a fictitious entity used to legitimate unwarranted inequalities. He is, therefore, more likely to be attuned to the need for policies that redress bad luck.
Which brings me to a paradox. Most of us on the Left, surely, think that luck plays too big a role in our economy and society. And yet, in some contexts, it plays too small a role. Luck exists where it shouldn’t, and doesn’t exist where it should.
The closest real world example to what you're describing is John Major's cabinet. I'm sure he felt lucky to be Prime Minister and he also ran a far less hierarchical government that Thatcher or Blair.
The question is, was Major's government better as a result?
Posted by: pablopatito | July 14, 2010 at 12:05 PM
Might be worth extending the lottery to the whole population. Would achieve aims one to five, while having the added advantage of when a Labour PM uses the word 'people' he/she/TSTD might a clue what they are talikng about.
Posted by: paul | July 14, 2010 at 12:56 PM
Surely a collective leadership frequently rotating in office would make more sence on socialst and anarchist grounds. It would stop the cult of personality that helps produce the abuse of power.
Posted by: Keith | July 14, 2010 at 02:37 PM
well, but we might end up with harriet harman.
Posted by: rjw | July 14, 2010 at 04:26 PM
Would Harriet Harperson be any worse than the crop now on offer?
Labour had the option of Barbara Castle or Denis Healey but prefered sunny Jim Callaghan and various Trade Union time servers.
At least Harman is as upper class as call me Dave and so wont take any s**t from Eton boy.
Posted by: Keith | July 14, 2010 at 05:54 PM
Major was chosen as the least offensive option to the warring factions. He was a Thatcherite (unlike Heseltine), but not a head-banger. The ultimate consensus man, not a lottery winner.
However, maybe we should reflect on the thought that under a lottery Brown (or heaven forfend, Prescott) could have become Labour leader in 1994 instead of 2007 and whether that would have been a good thing...
Posted by: Stu | July 15, 2010 at 09:47 AM
All officials in the Athenia democracy were selected by lot, except military commanders who were elected in an open ballot. Athens has left us some fine literature, mainly by people who opposed the system, and a lot of picturesque ruins.
On the other hand, there's no evidence that the day to day running of the state, such as it was, the courts and the revenue and so forth, was any less effective than in any other late iron age society.
I suspect that a lottery for leadership of the Labour Party, however, would swiftly lead to the demise thereof, through the defection of everybody who didn't like the winner. It's hard enough for elected leaders to establish any kind of legitimacy, let alone one whose position was owed to dumb luck.
Posted by: chris y | July 15, 2010 at 11:26 AM
For an interesting exploration of this general approach, may I commend Borges' short story THE BABYLONIAN LOTTERY, which postulates a society in which ALL decisions are taken by chance.
Posted by: Churm Rincewind | July 15, 2010 at 07:19 PM
"Might be worth extending the lottery to the whole population."
While not quite at the level of the PM, something similar has been suggested for the House of Lords (and by some, urm, 'respectable' people too):
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Democratizing-House-of-Lords.pdf
Posted by: Tomboktu | July 16, 2010 at 10:16 PM