Irrelevant politicians

One aspect of the euro area’s debt crisis that hasn’t had the attention it deserves is that it might accelerate the decline into irrelevance of the political class.

What I mean is that financial markets have more or less given up hope that politicians will solve the problem. Insofar as they still hope that the crisis will be resolved, such hopes lie in the expectation that the ECB, rather than politicians, will act. All Europe’s “leaders” - the word is increasingly absurd - can offer is mindless slogans.

In other words, the political class seems unable to solve problems that are - in principle - soluble; I suspect one could add global climate change to this. And if they can’t solve the soluble problems, there’s no chance of them solving insoluble ones, such as what to do about the investment dearth, or how to create full employment when demand for unskilled workers is in secular decline in the west; feel free to add to the list. 

What policy announcements that are made - such as Cameron’s promise to do something about “troubled families” - usually have more to do with news management than the serious expectation that problems can be solved.

Politicians are becoming meaningless people doing meaningless posturing.

This continues a longstanding one. For years, voters have increasingly recognized politicians superfluousness by not voting. Since the 70s, turnout in parliamentary elections has declined from over 80% in Germany to under 65% at the last election, from 70%+ in France to under 44%, from over 90% in Italy to under 80%, and from 70%+ to 61% in the UK. I suspect that these numbers are only as high as they are because of a combination of force of habit and the desire to self-identify with a faction, rather than our of any expectation that politicians matter much.

One reason why "technocrats" have been able to take charge in Italy and Greece is precisely that orthodox politicians no longer offer much.

I suspect that politicians recognize this only instinctively. One reason for the increasing bitterness of political disputes - be it the vicious factionalism of much of American politics, Francois Baroin’s absurd swipe at the UK or the Europhiles attacks on the Eurosceptics - is that impotence and irrelevance makes people angry. National politics is becoming like academic politics; it’s so vicious because the stakes are so low.

Though they see it instinctively, however, at least three things - on top of their self-regard and self-importance - stop politicians seeing it intellectually.

One is simple self-denial. This post at Labour List gives a good example of this. It draws five lessons of the Feltham and Heston by-election without noting the important one - that seven in ten people didn’t vote. Instead, the low turnout is brushed off as something “invariable” rather than as what it is - a large and growing indifference to politicians.

Another is that the media continues to give politicians more attention than their social impact would warrant. Politicians mistake this attention for public interest, when in fact the media is another faction of the political class.

 There’s a third thing. People confuse politics and politicians. Politics - the question of how public life should be conducted - will always matter. But it does not follow that politicians matter - especially when they have only narrow and inadequate answers to this question.

Comments

[Luis Enrique]

I'm not sure whether the Euro impasse / failure demonstrates that politicians are irrelevant or whether it demonstrates that they can't solve regional collective action problems when they are all constrained the incompatible demands of their respective domestic voters/parties.

[Boursin]

I wonder if you're familiar with Colin Hay's Why We Hate Politics, which is fast becoming a contemporary classic in political science - very deservedly. It makes many similar points to the ones in this post and also in your own book, which I recently bought, read and liked very much.

[aragon]

Politicians can make an impact.

The fact that they don't is more down to the fact that they are often empty suits, and afraid of change, so only make small incremental changes.

They are also constrained by a belief in neoclassical economics and strange ideas about spending and the deficit.

For some reason they also think they have to be popular.

Why should we care about financial markets that are pursuing there own self interest, to the exclusion of the public.

The influence of the financial markets is a major part of the problem (1.2 Trillion UKP bubble/loss), and good luck with the ECB it shows no sign of acting.

Politicians have impacted our lives, unfortunately it has been for the worse.

[rogerh]

Certainly politics is of pretty poor quality. May I suggest something useful for Cameron to do - open up the entirety of English law to the Internet free of charge - now and forever more.

Why? - to encourage the turning of all but the most special legal work into 'Apps'. As a side benefit the consistency of current law might be verified and new legislation be 'modeled' before enactment.

Not an easy job, but the resulting expertise should be saleable worldwide and may lead to new businesses - 'MicroLaw' maybe. A further benefit may be to improve the openness and quality of government not just in the UK but worldwide and make all politicians less arbitrary and more useful.

I might even compose my defence on my Smartphone whilst hiding in a wheelybin.

[gastro george]

As intimated by aragon, politicians are constrained by the economic views of their current paymasters.

It seems ironic that the financial class have lost faith in politicians who are applying the nostrums of the financial class. Now if I was a believer in conspiracy theories ...

[Keith]

Having adopted all the same economic ideas there is little to choose at the ballot box hence disenchantment. The euro crisis is simple to solve once you appreciate that adopting a single currency has failed to reduce divergence between economies. It is an attempt to find a single "big bang" solution to complex problems. If the FT piece is right trade imbalances have increased as a result of capital flows and an inability to adjust exchange rates based on different productivity growth rates. So the euro seems to be making it worse. Time for new ideas.

[James Parry]

So politics is important but politicians are disappointing and often irrelevant, politicians of the democratic, liberal, parliamentary kind. So we try technocrats then we try autocrats. And like the liberal intelligentsia in Russia in 1917, the socialist in Italy in 1922 or the Jew in Germany in 1933 we end up with a very different kind of politician.

[Keith]

James Parry

Well if you hitch your economies to perpetual deflation and spending cuts you might get a rerun of Adolf Hitler. Eventually. My be it would be an idea to try to base economic policy on an attempt to make people richer rather than poorer and defend the welfare state rather than destroying it. A political system, including the Parliamentary system, is merely a means not an end it itself. If it does not deliver prosperity other methods gain in credibility. If Liberalism only enriches the few "National" Socialism may appeal to the patriotic spirit of tribalism.