Faux meritocracy

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked why his new cabinet had as many women as men, he replied “because it’s 2015”. But as Owen Jones notes, when it comes to the UK and educational background, many people still presume that our leaders should come from the elite universities.

In an ideal world these would be different issues. In a truly meritocratic society those going to elite universities would be doing so on the basis of their abilities rather than who their parents were. In the UK and I suspect elsewhere we are some way from that ideal. Although I am pretty sure the reasons for this largely occur before 18, I also agree that Oxbridge could improve matters greatly if they stopped selecting students on the basis of interviews. It is one of many reasons why Oxbridge interviews reduce social welfare.

Here is a more minor observation which I think is quite revealing. As Owen says a big part of the problem with Oxbridge is that those from many backgrounds are put off from applying because they think it is only for toffs. It isn’t, but sometimes Oxbridge seems to pretend otherwise. For example there is the ludicrous Oxford tradition of making every student dress up in gowns and worse when they take exams. It means that just at the time that prospective students come for open days they are sure to see a large number of students walking around wearing funny clothes. If I was thinking about coming to Oxford it would put me off. It is rather sad that Oxford students keep voting to continue this tradition, but perhaps it tells you something about the wisdom of elites.

Which brings me to what I think is the crucial point: why is there this presumption that we should be governed by a meritocratic elite? Ability in a particular subject does not seem to be critical. No one suggests the Chancellor should have an economics degree rather than a 2.1 in modern history. (In the past even numeracy seemed not to be required.) The idea that politicians are having to deploy skills that you can only develop at university is a little naive. Most do not have the time to think very deeply about anything, and when issues that involve any knowledge arise they take advice. This is why I have no problem with the kind of delegation you get with central banks or infrastructure commissions. The main difference in those cases is that the public get to hear about what the advice is.

People in universities talk a lot about non-subject specific skills, like developing critical faculties, but arguably some of the crucial critical faculties for a politician are better learnt by leaving university and doing a job. Good judgement does not come from intellectual ability: Chris Dillow argues there is little correlation between high IQ and career success. Now I’m not going to pretend that, other things being equal, I would be indifferent to whether my MP had an economics degree or an NVQ in catering. But other things are not equal. We have a representative democracy, and one way to make sure it works well is if the people chosen to represent us are to some degree representative of the population as a whole.

Of course compatibility between democracy and meritocracy, and the merits of a meritocracy itself, are big issues. It is telling that the book that coined the term meritocracy, by the great Michael Young, had difficulty finding a publisher and was not reviewed by any scholarly publication. But I suspect what is going on here, at least in some quarters, is far simpler, and is a reflection of Trudeau’s remark. It is 2015, so it is no longer acceptable in public to argue that we should be governed by people from a particular class or background. For people who would still like to make that argument, the next best thing is to talk about which university (if any) a politician has been to.        

Nerds, Elitism and Immigration

Noah Smith’s ‘Nerds vs. The Empire’ is a great feel good post for those who try to advance the cause of evidence based analysis. Nate Silver, the statistician who confidently predicted an Obama victory against Romney but who was lambasted by the Republican establishment before he was proved right, is an appropriate hero for the Nerds.

I can see my own complaints against those who want to take credit for the weakest UK recovery in perhaps centuries in the same manner. ‘The 2013 recovery vindicates 2010 austerity’ is perhaps the nearest you can get in macroeconomics to an Orwellian ‘war is peace’ type statement. The Nerds in this case are the large majority of academic economists who know it is nonsense and say so, and The Empire are the politicians, city economists and - tragically - the preeminent financial newspaper that pretend otherwise.

I think this picture is basically right. Yet there is a danger here. The recent post where I argued this case provoked a reaction among some that could be summed up thus: what arrogance you academic economists have! You cannot forecast, you allowed the financial crisis to happen, you are always arguing amongst yourselves, and you expect us to take you seriously?

Now I have argued that this reaction is missing the point. No one, and I mean no one, has tried to argue with me that the statement ‘the 2013 recovery vindicates 2010 austerity’ is actually justified. No one has disputed that the statement is not being repeated over and over again in the public debate. This means the public are being misled. Yet it remains the case that the way I originally put the argument in my posts allowed the discussion to focus not on those who try to create their own reality, but instead on the reputation of academic economics. It is clear enough why I did it this way, but in retrospect I may well have made a mistake in doing so.

Is immigration another area where there is a potential danger that those arguing for evidence based policy may appear elitist? There are some similarities between the public debate over austerity and that on immigration. With austerity there is a popular view that governments should ‘tighten their belts’ at the same time as households are having to. With immigration there is a popular view that immigrants must displace native workers from jobs and thereby raise unemployment and drive down wages. In both cases economic research casts doubt on these popular views. The evidence is that immigration, like trade, raises long run average income per head in an economy: perhaps at a cost for some groups, but perhaps not. There is even a direct link between the two issues: immigration into the UK clearly seems to improve the medium term fiscal position (and therefore decreases the need for austerity), yet popular discussion is all about the need to reduce ‘benefit tourism’.

There are also clear differences between the two issues. The wisdom or lack of it for austerity during a liquidity trap is essentially a narrow macroeconomic issue, and government debt is not at the top of voter concerns. The wisdom or otherwise of tough controls on immigration deals with issues that are not purely economic, and in the UK is at the top of voter concern.

What might link the two issues, nevertheless, is that there seems to be a divide between the views of most experts and the public at large. One of the most vocal critics of the liberal view on immigration, David Goodhart, has a short piece in Policy Network where he makes a more general claim. Entitled ‘Britain’s Growing Cultural Divide’, his argument is summarised thus:

“The gap that has opened up between the secular liberal graduate baby boomer worldview that dominates party, governmental and social institutions and the political and psychological intuitions of the ordinary citizen is the new cultural/class divide in Britain”

Here is part of what he has in mind.

“And the biggest value gap concerns the security and identity issues ‒ most of which boil down to the common sense notion that we value those close to us more than those who are distant. At the national level this takes the form of “fellow citizen favouritism”. This is not about race, it is about fairness. It is the belief that when the interests of a British citizen, of whatever colour or creed, conflict with the interests of a citizen of another country, the interests of the British citizen should normally come first. Too much of modern liberal politics ‒ whether the EU idea of non-discrimination or some aspects of human rights policy ‒ overrides this basic political intuition.”

Is this an example of the Nerds versus the Empire, where simplistic views and natural prejudices are fanned by a right wing press and politicians, and then dressed up by some as a difference in ‘values’ between a cosmopolitan elite and ordinary people? Or is it an example of overreach by the Nerds (including most – but not all - economists), who fail to appreciate the sociological roots behind seemingly economic misperceptions? At present I do not know the answer to these questions.