Obliquity, & the Labour leadership

One book that’s had an especially big influence upon me is John Kay’s Obliquity. He argues that in a complex and unpredictable world our goals are often best achieved indirectly:

Happiness is not achieved through the pursuit of happiness. The most profitable businesses are not the most profit-oriented. The wealthiest people are not those most assertive in the pursuit of wealth…Soviet planners managed the economy far less successfully than the adaptive, disorganized processes of market economies. (Obliquity, p8)

People tend not to fully appreciate this point because of the outcome bias. We tend to look at success and infer that those who achieved it had a conscious strategy for doing so when in fact they might just have gotten lucky. As Alasdair MacIntyre said:

When imputed organizational skill and power are deployed and the desired effect follows, all that we have witnessed is the same kind of sequence as that to be observed when a clergyman is fortunate enough to pray for rain just before the unpredicted end of a drought. (After Virtue p75)

This brings me to a question: does obliquity apply to the Labour leadership context?

What I mean is that the direct, non-oblique approach is to get a leader who is more “electable” – one who plays by the Westminster rules and who fits the mould of a “credible” leader. This is the appeal of Owen Smith.

By contrast, the Corbynistas’ approach is the oblique one – rely less upon a leader and more upon a mass party, and hope that disenchantment with conventional politics leads to support for radical alternatives.

You might reply that Labour’s poll ratings suggest this particular oblique strategy has failed so a change is needed. But this is not certain.  For one thing, Corbynism is a long game: it relies upon a slow process of changing the ideological climate from the bottom up. And for another, there’s no assurance at all that Mr Smith would greatly improve things. Like any leader, he’ll face massive opposition from both the media and ideology. And he might well suffer big drop in party membership.

(There’s also the possibility that a “coup” against Corbyn would alienate tens of thousands of bright, energetic young people whom he has inspired to become political. I don’t like the potential long-term effects of this.)

It could be, therefore, that if Labour changes leader it will see the same results as when a failing football team changes coach – which is to say no change in the longer-run.

The fact that you’re losing does not turn a bad bet into a good one.

Now, I don’t say all this to defend Corbyn. My point is that, given the fluidity, complexity and unpredictability of politics, I just don’t know which of the direct and oblique strategies will work.

But there’s something I do know. One lesson of Corbyn’s victory last year, the rise of Trump and the vote for Brexit is that those who talk about “electability” know much less about the future than they pretend. As Adam Kotsko said, “electability” is “a purely speculative property.” All statements about the future must be heavily discounted. When pundits blather about “electability” they tell us little about Corbyn, but plenty about their own overconfidence, failure to learn from past mistakes and under-appreciation of the importance of complexity and obliquity.

Comments

[Metatone]

I feel like Corbyn (and to an extent Miliband before him) really haven't taken their own understanding to the logical conclusions.

The press is never going to praise him, not for anything. So rather than half-measures, that gives him a chance to be radical.

Here's a minor example. We all know PMQs is a theatrical nonsense. Instead of trying to reform it by asking Qs from the public and getting endless abuse from the press, he should boycott it with the demand that it is reformed for actual accountability. Right now it's meaningless, when is the last time it changed government policy.

(Of course to do this he'd have to come up with a proposal for what to replace it with, which is where my concerns about his abilities surface.)

[James]

Quite true that we often get different results (for good or ill) from what we are aiming for. But alienating swing voters, associating with illiberal "friends" and generally not being particularly competent at his job is not the oblique route to power but the orthogonal one.

We've just had an election where the government wasn't particularly well liked but people were not able to trust Labour as an alternative. Has that story changed under Corbyn? Politics is fluid and unpredictable, but I worry that all Corbyn does is make it more predictable.

[Blissex]

«We all know PMQs is a theatrical nonsense. Instead of trying to reform it by asking Qs from the public and getting endless abuse from the press,»

That is immensely radical. That means bringing some hints of seriousness, some substance to what was a puppet show.

In part it is "gesture politics" like J Corbyn likes, but *real questions* gets asked. Can't be much more radical than that.

[Dave Hansell]

A point which needs to be made on the issue of competency in this context. It needs to be appreciated and understood that the statement in this article.......

"People tend not to fully appreciate this point because of the outcome bias. We tend to look at success and infer that those who achieved it had a conscious strategy for doing so when in fact they might just have gotten lucky."

.....has its opposite. That is to say that the same factors exist and are at work in regard to failure, which is being claimed here (see the 2nd post on this thread) to be the result of personal incompetance.

The point made about success, above, is therefore equally valid in regard to failure and reading some of the statements of some MP's in the PLP in regard to their negative experiences it would be easy to reach premature conclusions without consideration of not just all the facts but also the context.

Some of those MP's will certainly be "clean" when it comes to scrutinising the year long poisoneous briefings against Corbyn by a proportion of their PLP colleagues. Some of them genuinely feel aggrieved on the issue of competency and certainly do not deserve the blame for the fact that material, such as questions for PM Questions, amongst other things, was reportedly being regularly leaked to the Tories and the media from Corbyns office.

However, by the same standards neither can Corbyn be blamed for that or the resulting and very obvious effect and outcome that such everyday behaviour would have on the effectiveness and competancy of his operation. It would be difficult to find anything more effective than months of negative briefings, leaks etc in producing a bunker mentality which effected trust and working relationships. Those MP's complaining about competency need to look beyond their own personal experiences and consider the actions of a good proportion of their colleagues before rushing to a partial and highly subjective judgement.

It would no doubt be easy for armchair intellectuals to dismiss arguments, facts and points which do not fit their own preconceptions. Particularly in cases where individual and group experience of such contexts in producing failure are scarce or even non existent.

It also needs pointing out that when it comes to competency those in glass houses have little grounds to complain. It takes incompetency to new levels when the bulk of the PLP along with self styled Labour Party Grandees and sections of the NEC spend weeks getting us to where we are now (a rolling and pre publicised coup; prevarication over a challenger; disenfranchisement of the bulk of a growing membership; fantastical claims of over a third of million 'Trots'; gerrymahdering; suspension of democracy; provable lies etc etc) from a position where the PM had resigned, there was no Tory Brexit Plans, and the country was in limbo if not chaos.

Turning an open goal into multi own goal debacle,which is what the 172 members of the PLP and their allies have done, is not competancy and relegates any lack of competency on the part of Corbyn and his team into total irrelevance.

As previously pointed out, these clowns who have played fast and loose with democracy, having already been touted in Scotland, have absolutely no chance of convincing a minority, never mind a majority, of the electorate that they can be trusted with the democracy of the country in Government.

It is they, rather than Corbyn and the team around him, who have made Labour unelectable whilst ever they remain in the Party.

[Dave Timoney]

Obliquity in the realm of politics means implementing policies with uncertain or collateral effects, but whose results are (hopefully) benign. For example, a basic income might reduce demand on the NHS, while we know that rationing in WW2 and after improved levels of health.

Politicians should do more of this, but "Let's try policy X and see what happens" isn't what the ideological frame encourages, and not just because this is seen as risky (in this regard, evidence-based policy-making often inhibits useful experimentation). Politicians are valued for certainty and decisiveness, even when they serially cock-up (see Churchill). Like credibility, these are aspects of performative authoritarianism.

One could go further and suggest that "electability" is merely performative authoritarianism in democratic guise. What was depressing about Smith's criticism of Corbyn's PMQ performance yesterday was the suggestion that May's authoritarianism can only be met with similar nonsense from the Labour benches. The intellectual vacuity of the centre continues.

[Neil]

Surely there's a case to be made that it's Corbyn's team who have the obliquity problem.

They want socialism, and their preferred method for achieving this is to stand up and say "I want socialism" as often and as loudly as possible. And so they get a lot of praise from their supporters for "integrity" and "straight talking", but they also drive away anyone who doesn't want socialism.

The more moderate Labour MPs *also* want socialism. But they realise that striking directly towards the target is not necessarily the best way to get there.

There's a *reason* the emblem of the Fabian Society is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Deviation From The Mean]

"The more moderate Labour MPs *also* want socialism"

No they don't

Corbyn has not really thrown Socialism down anyone's throat since becoming the Labour leader. Actually when it comes to economics he decided not to fall back on ideological assumptions and instead enlisted the help of many world class economists in the hope that a progressive and substantial economic policy could be derived.

Of course the media and people like Neil take no notice of this and continue to peddle lies, distortions and untruths.

And this gets us to the point of this article, if we believe the political culture of this country is basically sound and the economic system is just we take the Blair clone route, or simply why not join the Tories??? But if we look at liars like Neil and conclude there is something fundamentally rotten with the political discourse in this country then the only road is the patient step by step approach taken by Corbyn.

Neil's dishonest and intellectually corrupt comment should remind us all that there really is only one road for any progressive to take.

[e]

Chris your point re thousands of politically engaged, young and energetic, is interesting. The potential long term effects you don't like are? As an institution the Labour party, when it gets its act back together,is the channel for that energy. This really isn't just about JC.

[it-was-deliberate]

"Turning an open goal into multi own goal debacle, ... is not competancy ...
It is they, rather than Corbyn and the team around him, who have made Labour unelectable"

I would think that outdoing the Conservatives in comical shenaningans as the Conservatives were shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly was done mostly deliberately. It can't have been done by distraction or mistake; the long drawn out series of resignations from the shadow cabinet was obviously planned, as someone else noticed. They are not that stupid.

Their goal seemed transparently to *make* Labour unelectable, at least as a long as J Corbyn is leading it.

They seemed to be terrified that electorally Labour has been doing fairly well while J Corbyn has been leader.

Some of them obviously think that their career advancement depends on playing inoffensive "opposition" to the Conservatives; some of them instead probably genuinely think that if J Corbyn remains as leader the vast bulk of the media will continue to attack Labour, and hope that with him gone (and after displaying due obedience to Likud) the press will stop attacking Labour.

Whatever the latter think of the merits of J Corbyn's policies, their guess is that there is only space in the "Overton window" for neoliberal+neocon parties in the UK, and that it would be dangerous to challenge that. I don't think so, but not strongly: they may well be right. In other "atlantic" countries there is a long tradition of "limited democracy", where the populace can vote for any party, as long as they are "aligned".

[Blissex]

«They want socialism, and their preferred method for achieving this is to stand up and say "I want socialism" as often and as loudly as possible»

That happens; I call that group the "el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido", and A Blair called the more extreme form of them "resolutionary socialists".

My impression is that is "gesture politics", because their actual programme is far from socialist. Their actual positions are sligthly/somewhat to the right of N Kinnock, and he was a centrist social democrat "modernizer".

The problem with "gesture socialists" is that they use their gestures as tribal tokens of beloging (the managerialist neoliberals have others), without fully realizing that other people take it seriously.

BTW I am not hinting that they are hypocrites, just that their tribal mechanisms make a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

[Blissex]

BTW the person who comes off best in this sorry story so far is J McDonnell, who is a centrist, and still seems sincerely loyal to the party and the elected leader. The second best is J Corbyn, who is keeping steady and trying to spread calm despite everything; he must have seen even worse fights when Militant Tendency was trying to take over Labour. But perhaps this makes him seem weak.

The only good think to come out of this story is that the party has raised £4 million of fresh funds from the £25 donations.

Demonstrating the validity of my general suggestion: if you want something to keep happening, donate to it.

[Blissex]

To translate into a briefer form the idea that stealing the attention from the faults in the Conservatives was not an accident:

Probably many of the New Labourists are more terrified of J Corbyn or a similar successor winning an election and becoming PM, and thus setting a dangerous precedent, than of his remaining leader of the party. That would explain why they attacked him when the Conservatives were weakest and he seemed most successful (unlike with Cameron, 2/3 of J Corbyn's and N Sturgeon's voters followed their lead on Brexit).

The New Labourists may well be terrified that as the Conservatives seem to be trying hard to lose the next election Labour might win them with J Corbyn as leader.

[chris]

@ Neil - that's a good point. You dont' get socialism by demanding it, or even merely by electing a socialist leader.
It's why I've called for a "building blocks" approach to socialism:
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2015/02/dead-ends-or-stepping-stones.html