Why being vocal and yet trying primarily to appeal to politicians isn't going to save the world.

 

      Word count: 2.900 ~ 12 PAGES   |   Revised: 2018.6.30

 

— 〈  1  〉—

INTRODUCTION

 
One excellent writer on this platform made the following argument.

I basically agree with it. Nor do we disagree in desired outcome.

Only disagree with a small part of the argument.

Suppose the EU or the government of some territory passes a basically rubbishy and harmful law. It's really not much to suppose. That seems to happen basically every month. It's a state of being.

Anyway.

Indeed we cannot say that the EU or that government "wants" to do this or that. For example, we cannot strictly say that the EU, for examples, wants to destroy the internet. That it hates the internet.

Carl Menger long ago made this point. I summarize:

They're not a person ... they are a collection of many, many persons. Moreover they're influenced by organized special interests. They're influenced by lobbies and such.

But there is a part of the argument which I would like to discuss. I suggest it may not be quite correct.

That is the next point. I paraphrase:

"If there is no counterlobby or counter special interest group that objects to these proposals they get passed. Politicians are not at fault. They are mere mortals. Mere humans. Very many are reasonable. But they are influenced by wicked lobbies. Wormtongues giving bad advice. Devious plans of their advisors, of special interests, of their friends, lobbies. But politicians are neutral and we can appeal to them ..."

The argument is basically an old one. It's that the king is good and he is being given bad advice. Or he's under pressure.

I would argue it originates, partly, for a realistic fear that, if the king is also not good, the society is basically fucked.

Yes. That's possible.

I'm a scientist; I take great joy in the truth. Any truth really.

That's a funny way of looking at things.

Were there an asteroid coming, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd still be among those chirping with joy at having correctly measured it's trajectory. And will duly publish a paper. Then the asteroid may hit ... or not. Hopefully not. But that's basically separate.

In the end there is only the truth. And first of all I prefer to be right. (More on that later.)

The issue with the argument is twofold.

One: perhaps the king is good. And perhaps there is pressure on him, or he's being fed bad advice.

Answer: so what. No excuses. (More on that later.)

Problems are technical. And most of this so called advice and pressure are obviously bad in the long run. Unbelievably harmful.

Two: the king is not good. At the very least, he's open to minor pressure, and listens to bad advice. And it takes two to tango. Is influenced by lobbies and special interests. How many other people are not. (More on that later.)

Or worse, he actually doesn't like the internet. 4chan, 8chan, 999chan, whatever, had offended his sensibilities. No, actually he did not, in fact, appreciate being illustrated as fucking his ministers. And certainly not as depicted. I mean: buggering them and being buggered by them. That in order of rank — in a kind of human centipede looping around on itself. You know, doesn't appreciate the art of the people.
 
(I refer the reader interested in such things to Sorokin, 2006.)
 
And moreover, the king did not appreciate that particular illustration going out viral. Nor did he much like that it went out to 100.000.000 people, all who probably laughed at it. Maybe because some part of that was true in an abstract sense. Which is the worst sense. Maybe he didn't fuck his ministers; maybe he was just buggered by a horse. Everything is possible. Who knows ... ? (And who cares ... ?)
 
And maybe ... very possibly ... he's not a king. ... Maybe all those people are really prospective, future voters.
 
Well in that case that's just endangering his job security. His bread and butter. Not good; cannot be permitted.

 

— 〈  2  〉—

Inclined to help?

 
But that's the point though, sufficiently many politicians are "corrupt".

Not merely human; "corrupt". They are not principled. It takes two to tango.

And the market, and the internet, cannot and will not offer enough "support" to counter existing lobby groups.

The free society has a desperate problem. It grows pies and produces many small actors.

Yes: the pie is larger.

But the actors are smaller.

So no, they cannot give "enough support" to an unprincipled actor to balance out, let alone "outbid", a large nonmarket player. That large player is, even if just one, already an organized minority.

It's true that the majority rules. That it has a concentration of force. Very true.

However: that's the point.

The only majority that ever exists in an organized minority.

5 % organized is sufficient.

Meanwhile a homogeneous body of small actors is a mass.

They're not a majority.

So they look like a majority. But they're not. Many things look like what they are not.

The world is not as it seems. Such is the lesson of science. Too bad? Maybe that is good? But it is what it is.

A crowd is not an army.

Gestalt psychologists are fond of declaring that. And they are correct.

So we suppose that the EU passes some bad laws.

It's very bad news.

A vocal and prominent discussion is necessary. But it won't achieve anything lasting.

If institutional players take notice and want to censor, the EU will censor. For real.

The great mass of people will not be vocal. (More on that later.)

And the vocal, organized minority which is not a special interest cannot pay to win.

Else they would have won quite a bit more often. (And more on that later.)

Totally agreed that people must mobilize and act as counter weights to lobbies.

But that is step one ... and by itself will not be enough.

They are simply not a counterweight, as we shall observe.

Don't weight enough. So if what's needed is a counterweight, that particular battle may well be lost already.

It's not about any nefarious plans of anybody, of any special interests.

There may not be any nefarious plans. Special interests groups may not even be devious.

But they have very, very bad incentives. And unless they are utmost principled, being vocal is not by itself sufficient.

That may be step one. And very important, agreed.

Yet technology will be a large part of the answer, I suspect.

It is definitely necessary to make a lot of noise and be vocal when a law comes out that is threatening to the future of progress and extremely harmful in its side effects. Yet this will not generally prevent the law. Reasons follow.

I paraphrase: "Yet if we consider that we must get the attention and sympathy of politicians, we can't talk about and start with the assumptions they are corrupt. If they aren't, they'll be offended: antagonized. And then they won't be helpful and inclined to help. We'll get their attention, but they will be less likely to help. They won't help."

The problem is most are corrupt, in the technical sense.

Not principled. Which is why a counterlobby is needed in the first place.

Arguments don't matter as far as most of them are concerned.

They will lose together with you and your arguments. But they want to win. And live well.

If their goal is living well, not being correct, and they are in a position of power, bad news. There's a very harmful equilibrium if they are even remotely rational. The logic of collective action.

They look for a balance of support. Unless they are principled, those whose only tools are arguments and noise and attention are in a great deal of trouble.

One can get the attention and just as well receive no consideration. They may even sympathize. Or not.

Indeed, those who are corrupt, if you pretend like they are not, will not even take you seriously.

Tell them how good they are, and how bad those special interests are, and how they should not listen to them. If they are corrupt, they will smile, and never listen to you again.

Let's see why.

 

— 〈  3  〉—

The logic of collective action. Help not forthcoming?

 
So what's really going on ... ? What is the problem ... ?

I agree with you, when you say "it's not the EU", it's lobbies, individuals.

But when I say "corrupt", I mean they care about "support". In the above sense. And not principles per se.

So that's not merely being human.

Many people have "principles". For the same reason, those people are generally not politicians. A person with principles isn't influenced by a lobby. But that's the point. Most of these guys are. It's pay to play. They do care what the lobbies suggest. Appealing to their principles won't work. They don't see themselves as corrupt, merely pragmatic. But their pragmatism is very short run.

It's the reason George Stigler, and many other scientists complained that what they said never mattered. (They're not wrong; it didn't. So they got that right it seems ... )

Because it doesn't matter. Economists and you and I and anybody can be correct a hundred times over. But we're simply not able to "support" politicians like the lobbies. And we can't assume the politicians are "good" but bent under the influence of the lobbies. Because plenty of people didn't bend. And of them, not all lost political power. (Many have however.)

Appealing to their principles, without paying to play as an organized minority, won't work.

So we can say they are "corrupt".

The various special interests can be as devious and clever as they like, it takes two to tango. Unless the politicians were actually open to passing bad legislation, and enforcing it, in exchange for support, the deviousness of special interest groups just wouldn't work.

But it does work. They're simply not operating based on any principles.

Which means we have a serious problem: because the people who are not special groups cannot offer equivalent or greater support. (They're not a special interest, they don't gain anything other than say freedom, and long run growth years out.)

It's the logic of collective action.

Mancur Olson described this process well. I commend his literature to you, dear reader.

For example, a German finance minister explained: balancing a budget is a pain, and has no real immediate benefit. And it requires other groups to agree to balancing it. They won't. They have no incentives, other than perhaps long run growth to do it. So he won't bother to even try to do it.

At that point, you can only switch topics and talk about how much sulfites the free mineral water in the building has ... or something ... insisting on something that you and he knows won't be done without a good immediate reason ... and where there is no immediate reason ... no matter how correct, will simply mean you were invited the first and last time ... because you'd be impolite in that case ...

Let's take the most common collective action problem.

10.000 individuals get organized and ask for a subsidy once they begin to support some people. It costs everybody else 5.000.000.000. Each of the 10.000 benefits 500.000.

But there are 100.000.000 persons, cost per person is 50.

When you saw a large tree, you get a lot of sawdust, which is still a kind of wood. And that gets passed around. A needs some sawdust, and gives some wood to B from their tree, and B gets some sawdust, and gives some wood from their tree to A. The wood goes to complete projects, the sawdust is kept. Nobody pays attention to sawdust. It's a by product.
Each of the 10.000 support, officially, above the table, their friendly, wonderful, go getter politicians to the tune of 250.000.

And if they do that, 250.000 is still left as per benefit.

: /

Bummer.

Meanwhile we just like freedom, truth, and long run growth. Carlo Cipolla may say, Keynes is wrong, and nations live in the long run. Yes. But careers are short. It's really careers that are in the short run. And the unorganized individual has a cost of 50 which they save, if they can organize collectively, at a cost of 5.000 each, to get the special interest legislation removed. Even if they wanted to, they can't afford that.

There are hundreds of special interest groups, and most never get balanced out. For this kind of reason.
It's a major and very serious problem.

Same reason why activism mostly fails. The activists are saying they are correct.

And maybe they are correct.

Which does not balance out 2.500.000.000 in political support.

That shouldn't matter, so far as correctness is concerned. But remember, that's why most politicians are politicians and not scientists of some sort. They are not scientists; they are politicians.

Basically you and I like to be right? If so, we're the minority. And not an organized one, we have a problem. Being vocal is good and important, but not nearly enough. Those we'd appeal to don't really share our goal of being right.

That's politics.

There is a whole group of humans, millions, who do care about being right. A good part of our scientists. At least most are not intentionally wrong. They don't benefit either way. But they're not politicians. The days when a Paul Painleve or a Luigi Einaudi can get charge of anything are long past.

China banned hard decentralized blockchains not without reason. The people on top over there understand much more sharply than those here the nature of collective actions problems. They realize that democracy software that basically pays even 1.000 or 10.000 to each of the public to suddenly get organized is a major threat to their influence. And when western politicians eventually come to the same conclusion ... another problem.

I don't want to sound too negative, but these are very hard open problems in economics.

Appealing to people who don't care about being correct ... who want to win ... with a strategy where most of them will lose ... is not a very sure bet.

(Olson believed they accumulate and cause the decline of civilizations. No real way to convince instrumental thinkers to basically dump special interests. Why should they? No, really?)

"Instrumental" thinkers, Alan Kay's term, is perhaps a better term than "corrupt", I will agree ...

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