"Rather good at it"

Phil reminds us of the answer David Cameron once gave to the question, why do you want to be Prime Minister? “Because I think I’d be rather good at it.”

Well, that didn’t work out too well did it? We’ve had plenty of PMs whose policies we didn’t like. But Cameron was, as Owen Jones says, “a failure on his own terms”. He wanted to eliminate the government deficit and keep us in the EU, and failed on both. I’d add that this his counter-productive pursuit of austerity contributed – at the margin – to Brexit by creating a climate of insecurity and xenophobia. In this sense, Cameron’s failure was down to deliberate ineptness rather than to facing insuperable odds. For this reason, he is probably one of our worst-ever Prime Ministers.

This poses the question: what, then, was the basis of his belief that he’d be “rather good” at the job?

It’s not that he had a great grasp of economics or politics. His mindless drivel about a “global race” and the “nation’s credit card revealed utter ignorance of the former. And I’ve long said that Cameron’s government failed to grasp the nature of politics – that it consists in ameliorating problems of collective action.

Instead, his confidence was rooted not in facts but in class. It’s a cliché that going to a top public school often gives one confidence and arrogance which others lack. Here’s Jimmy McGovern (16’20” in):

Particularly in the working class north, the one thing you do not want is arrogance…so the slightest sign of arrogance in your child you knock it out of them. But in knocking out the arrogance you knock out the ambition, the self-respect, the self-esteem.

So much is obvious. But this poses a question. We are all cognitively flawed. Only some such flaws, however, are penalized. Public school overconfidence, however, seems to be actively selected for: 19 of our 54 PMs went to Eton, and public schoolboys are over-represented in most professions. What are the mechanisms that allow such irrationality to thrive? Here are a few, in no order.

First, there are competence cues. Cameron Anderson and Sebastien Brion show that overconfident people give out more “competence cues” – such as fluency and body language – than others and that these cues are mistaken for actual ability, with the result that the overconfident are more likely to get jobs, regardless of ability. This might have been true of Cameron: in 2005 ConservativeHome said his leadership campaign was “transformed” by “two compelling performances” – exercises in fluency and confidence.  

The converse of this is that the under-confident but able don’t apply for jobs in the first place: this might mean there’s a case for positive discrimination or quotas.

Secondly, there are overconfidence bubbles. Once you’ve gotten a job through no merit of your own then your overconfidence will tend to grow, perhaps causing you to become dizzy with success and so making a fatal error. We know this happens in financial markets: lucky traders take more risk. It might well have happened with Cameron: his success at winning the Scottish independence referendum made him think he could repeat the trick with Brexit.

A third factor is deference. I’m not thinking here merely of underlings deferring to bosses out of self-interest, but to a tendency identified by Adam Smith:

We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. (Theory of Moral Sentiments,I.III.29)

Contrast, for example, the way the media indulged “Boris” with its othering of, say, John Prescott.

A further selection effect is the desire to overcome agency problems. It’s natural for hirers to want people they can trust, and we trust people like ourselves. Public schoolboys will therefore hire public schoolboys, even if they have no deliberate nepotistic intentions. This can lead (pdf) to a lack of cognitive diversity and to groupthink and the Dilbert principle.

My point here is that selection mechanisms – in politics and in markets – don’t necessarily weed out irrationality. Quite the opposite. They sometimes select for it. It is these mechanisms that must be dismantled. In this sense, if we are to be better governed in politics and business, we need more class war.   

Comments

[Ralph Musgrave]

Brexit causes a climate of xenophobia? Complete and total BS.

But if there’s anything in that idea, then presumably anyone in the world who doesn’t want their country to join some sort of equivalent to the EU (e.g. the North American Free Trade Association) is also a xenophobe. The world is awash with people who hate foreigners according to the political left.

And the claim that UKIP members and Le Pen supports are all xenophobes according to your average foul mouthed brainless leftie is a bit difficult to reconcile with the fact that UKIP and Le Pen supporters go abroad for their holidays just like everyone else.

All a bit puzzling: I mean if you “hate foreigners” why mix with them when on holiday?

[gastro george]

Somebody once said that all Prime Ministers are either vicars or bookies. After Cameron you can add PR man.

[David]

Calm down Ralph and read the post properly before you comment.......
Yes, the spivs and the pieds noirs have always enjoyed feeling superior, and telling all the frogs, wops and a-rabs just how superior.....
Lording over a foreigner is always done best whilst throwing a bit of cash, and far more satisfying when on a relaxing holiday in their midst.

[Blissex]

D Cameron has been rather successful: he has been handed a rather weak hand, with massive voter abstention, and many voters being pissed off at the Conservatives (and New Labour) for being too neoliberal and voting first Liberal and then UKIP.

He has managed to win, thanks to New Labour complicity, the AV referendum and the Scotland referendum, to destroy the Liberals quite cleverly. He has managed to keep his party semi-united.

I doubt that *anybody* could have delivered on the EU referendum, given that 70% of the sponsors of the Conservatives are pro-EU and 60% of its voters (and probably 90% of its members) are anti-EU.

That's a pretty fundamental split, even worse than that in the Labour party between centrist socialdemocrats who support Corbyn and tory-lite neoliberal who support Mandelson.

[D]

@Ralph

".... is a bit difficult to reconcile with the fact that UKIP and Le Pen supporters go abroad for their holidays just like everyone else"

I tend to agree with your broader point (that lefties overstate the racist-ness of brexiters), but this is just stupid.

[Doug]

It's not just a climate of xenophobia that Brexit has produced, it's a climate of open verbal abuse in the street physical violence and murder. To claim otherwise is utterly dishonest/politically motivated (delete where applicable).

There's plenty of people I'd happily see chucked out the country asap. I'm sure a list could be compiled fairly easily, starting with those on old BNP membership lists.

[Churm Rincewind]

This post would make equal sense if the term "public schools" were replaced throughout by "Oxbridge" - indeed, it would have considerably more force. For example, try replacing:

"Public school overconfidence, however, seems to be actively selected for: 19 of our 54 PMs went to Eton, and public schoolboys are over-represented in most professions."

with the equally true:

"Oxbridge overconfidence, however, seems to be actively selected for: 42 of our 54 PMs went to Oxbridge, and Oxbridge graduates are over-represented in most professions."

This seems to be a point which Chris is keen to avoid.

[SimonB]

It's interesting that you can clearly show that Cameron understood neither politics nor economics given his first class honours degree in PPE at Brasenose. The glowing descriptions of him from Vernon Bogdanor and others also rather contradict the facts you describe.

Cameron is self-evidently useless at politics and economics which really ought to get those dons nervously quivering lest they be called out for their part in the whole bloody mess.