Why politics fails

Sean McHale says Ed Miliband should learn from Barcelona. In doing so, he draws attention to why politics is so flawed a discipline.

Sean says that, in the Real Madrid game, Victor Valdes continued to play short balls out of goal despite the fact that doing so had gifted Madrid a goal early doors. He advises Miliband to similarly stick to one track rather than fumble around in the dark.

This misses the huge difference between Valdes and Miliband*. Valdes could draw on vast experience which shows that playing it short is, for Barcelona, a successful strategy.  But Miliband has no such large evidence base to draw upon. And this makes his job far tougher. Valdes could rationally interpret a failure of a single short ball as an exception to a generally good strategy, because he had played countless such balls successfully before. He therefore had a strong Bayesian prior that short balls work, on average. But Miliband, lacking such relevant precedents, can have no such strong priors. If he sees a policy statement fail to win support, he cannot infer, Valdes-style, that this is a rare exception to a successful overall strategy. Instead, a rational Bayesian would be more likely to infer that he is on the wrong track.

In this sense, Sean’s call for Miliband to stick to his instincts might be mistaken. What caused Valdes to continue playing it short was not instinct, but rather a rational judgment based upon experience. Miliband, however, is not in so happy a position. 

Miliband is not unique in this. Politicians very often find themselves in positions where they have few precedents from which to form judgments - a problem exacerbated if they are ignorant of history or of other countries’ experiences. It will, therefore, be far harder to find the right strategy, and even if they do an early failure might cause them to wrongly but rationally change course.

In this sense, politicians are more like entrepreneurs than managers. A defining feature of the entrepreneur - as distinct from the manager - is that, as Israel Kirzner said, he is a person who must act on the basis of limited precedent and knowledge. Such actions are liable to fail.

But there's a massive difference between entrepreneurship and politics. We have found a way of improving the odds of entrepreneurial success. We allow many entrepreneurs to compete against each other, to see who succeeds; this is why free entry into markets and access to capital are so important. In politics, however, competition is much more limited and entry restricted. So the natural selection we have in markets operates much less well.

In this sense, political activity offers us the worst of both worlds. It has neither the body of experience, evidence base and precedent that sportsmen, engineers, bureaucrats, lawyers or some artists can draw upon. Nor does it permit the ruthless natural selection that well-functioning markets do. It is, then, small wonder that, as Enoch Powell said, “all political lives end in failure.”

* OK, there are other differences, not least of which is that Valdes is surrounded by geniuses. I’m confining myself to just one. 

Comments

[Tim Almond]

"In politics, however, competition is much more limited and entry restricted."

This is the main reason that I support electoral reform (to any other system than what we have): FPTP entrenches a two party state via tactical voting and so we have only a vague idea of what voters really want.

[Keith]

I am not sure this is right. There have been great politicians, Bevan came up with the NHS Bismark created the German Empire etc. Some political actors have been creative and had original ideas and audacious big plans. It is just the contemporary tribe of politicos here and in europe and the USA all seem to be intellectual pygmies. With due apologies to that ethnic group.
They are all small and insignificant. Where are the ideas? Why would any one get enthusiastic over them? Would you tramp the streets delivering leaflets for milliband? He might be an optimist about the future, but what is he going to do to make me optimistic about it? I don't think the electoral system is relevant here and people like Tim above need to get real.
Most people care nothing for electoral systems they want to know what they will gain from one party rather than another being in power. Clegg failed the moment he agreed to a referendum on a dud AV change. Only PR introduced at once could make joining a tory Cabinet make sense for a centre party. The implications of a electoral change are moot: Nick Griffin as King maker? Nazis in the Cabinet? A BNP Home Srecretary? Is that progress?

As for the lib dems joining a Labour Government re Balls is that an admission from Balls that Labour is equally right wing as clegg? nice to see Balls admit that he and the rest of the Labour leadership piss on the history of the Labour movement and are as backward as the formerly liberal party.

[Tim Almond]

Keith,

"I don't think the electoral system is relevant here and people like Tim above need to get real."

It's relevant because FPTP is a system that leads to two party state and tactical voting, which means we have a distorted expression of what people want from government.

Since 1950, 11 mainland MPs have been elected in a general election for parties created since 1950. Two parties have something like 90% of all seats, and have done so for at 50 years. Is there any other market that has such a result, where 2 companies have 90% of the market, and have done so for so long?

[aragon]

Ed Miliband is an empty suit lacking conviction, decisiveness, and purpose,
He is caught between Neo-liberalism, and his lack of understanding of the alternative.

It is not that the left doesn't have any answers, it is that Ed is, at best, loosely associated with, and poorly represents, the left.

As for politics:
Neo-liberalism has failed spectacularly and what went before in the 'Golden Era' of Economics, provides a better template for the future.

[Bob]

"In politics, however, competition is much more limited and entry restricted. So the natural selection we have in markets operates much less well."

In social democratic states, there IS in fact free entry into the apparatus of state, and that's the problem.

See Hans Hermann Hoppe on why a free market is desirable in the production of goods but a nightmare when it comes to the production of 'bads' i.e politicians. Free entry into politics is very useful to maintain the anonymous and diffuse character of the modern state - if you or I or the chap next door smile enough and lie enough, then we too can become president of the U.S or prime minister. It then becomes harder to distinguish between the ruler and the ruled, which in turn cultivates the modern tendency to identify society (voluntary interaction) with the state (force). Free entry into politics diminishes actual personal responsibility. Abstract nouns such as "Britain" can go to war, for example, rather than Tony Blair declaring war because after all, aren't WE really the state? WE voted for these people, right? WE can run for office just like they did, right? All politicians are scoundrels by necessity. It's better to have buffoons like Ed in office, an effective politician is totally undesirable! If you must engage in the ritual of voting, pick someone very stupid.

[Emma]

I never thought Barca should be teaching UK politicians a lesson, but it does make sense.