I was at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, on Wednesday to first hear Adair (Lord) Turner speak and then have dinner with him and others afterwards.
Adair Turner is a man who has been on a journey. Still very much part of the establishment, and quite possibly still a Conservative (as he was in his own Cambridge days) there is no doubt that he has changed his views a lot, and most especially since 2008.
He gets the significance of the new understanding that banks create money and are not intermediaries.
He realises that large and often very well remunerated parts of the current economy - including much of financial services - do not add to the net sum of human well-being, let alone happiness. They do instead simply redistribute wealth, at some cost to society and quite possibly against its best interests.
He realises GDP is a hollow measure.
And that robotics are going to dramatically change the world of work, and those new (mostly very lowly paid) jobs that are going to be created.
When promoted (by me) he was entirely in agreement that we are building a rentier ecnomy.
There is no doubt he appreciates why we need redistribution and realises all the risks that can flow from not doing so.
He did not mention helicopter money once, but did progressive taxation, as well as the need to reduce growth to deliver sustainability. Conspicuous consumption appears to baffle him as much as it does me (but I suspect that, unlike me, his suit and shoes were not from M&S).
There was then much to agree with until he was pressed for solutions, when he had little to say. Here is journey is not complete.
That worries me. Do we really live in a world where it is so hard to answer the question 'what next?' I have never thought so, and will continue to write on the basis that thinking another world is possible is the essential first step to building it. I think Adair Turner has bravely changed his mind. But now, like many others, he needs to accept new thinking means we'll have a very different economy and society in which to live. That could be better or worse than the one we have. The challenge is to imagine a better one.
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Agree, fine thoughts from Lord Turner, and an excellent related blog from you. I think there’s another facet to this issue that also comes into play, though. We might summarise it as “how long is it possible to maintain a fiction (or more accurately and less politely, “lie”)? Readers of Richard’s blogs will be familiar with the extent to which the data and forecasts on which Osborne has built his “austerity = economic success” narrative can be regarded as overly optimistic, based on dubious assumptions, or just plain unsustainable when analysed in any detail. Nevertheless, Osborne and the Treasury, and the government in general, have stuck to that narrative rigidly, and, backed by the Tory media (which now has to include the BBC, and is rapidly capturing C4 News too), have run a very successful, and for most people, highly convincing PR campaign on the back of that narrative — witness the Eurobarometer survey reported here. But this week’s budget and its follow through indicate that the fictions that underpin the narrative are beginning to unravel. Indeed, as in all cases of lying, the bigger and more complex the lie becomes the harder it is to maintain. One outcome of this is that people and organisations who were happy to go along with the fiction while it was convincing begin to signal a distancing from it. We saw this with the OBR this week. And we also saw it via the media’s wider reporting of the IFS post budget analysis. Of course, Osborne’s raid on PIP generated a lot of negative coverage. But leaving this aside, for the first time since 2010 we saw the underlying claims on which the “austerity = economic success” fiction is based start to be exposed. The question now is, therefore, how much longer can that fiction be shored up? And, what will be done to replace it when it becomes evident that its day is done? My view would be that Osborne (assuming he survives the EU referendum) has the autumn statement and one more budget before the fiction unravels beyond repair. And I don’t see that being any different for another Chancellor given the Tory party has wholeheartedly nailed their colours to this fiction since 2010. So the question is, then, what comes next? What new fictional narrative can be constructed to maintain their grip on power, and thus the completion of the neoliberal project to dismantle the state by 2020 to such an extent that the damage done is irreversible. Given the Tory party and those who sit at its ideological core are entirely wedded to disaster capitalism (or the shock doctrine if people prefer that term) then what doomsday scenario will be concocted from a mish-mash of fact, half truths and fabricated material to produce the new narrative? I assume that if we vote to leave the EU then the intended and unintended outcomes will provide the necessary fodder for the new, post 2017 narrative. But if we are still in the EU? Global terrorism? Global warming? Bailing out Scotland? Who knows, but one thing’s for certain: by the autumn they’ll be some brainstorming going on somewhere in dark places of the elite to make sure a new narrative can be seamlessly slipped into place at some point in 2017.
Your time lines appear as dodgy as your name
Slicker , above is a piss-taking oik and trying to reproduce a ‘generic rant’ as a way of mocking this site -why not delete it? The bar-steward should just carry on watching head to head episodes of Top Gear and abasing himself in front of a Clarkson efigy.
Maybe he is
If so he is a little way to understanding the issues
My first thought was ‘where are the paragraphs’. But then I realised that a lot of what’s in here actually comes from comments I’ve made on various blogs over past months (note the line with ‘…witness the Eurobarometer survey reported here.’ in it). Weird.
Regarding Turner-i still find that the only thing that impresses me is the £1000 suit and the bouffant hair-do reminiscent of a 60’s beehive. I’m afraid I find this poacher-turned-gamekeeper is an oleaginous creep that trousered his wealth without a murmur, then trousers more wealth lecturing and touring about the ‘faults of the system’. I can’t stomach the bloke. As you point out, he is largely Tory in outlook and would only tolerate modest changes in capitalism where we need root and branch change.
I have to disagree with you, Richard, when you say he has ‘bravely changed his mind’; I would say he has ‘opportunistically changed his mind.’
He has changed his mind
That is always hard to admit
Worth checking out his book ‘Just Capital’. Firmly conservative and capitalist but clearly written by someone with a brain – 10 years old now.
I have watched quite a lot of Adair’s lectures and discussions post 2008 and while I find his analysis of the problems inherent within the financial and monetary systems very interesting, I wonder how much his undoubted self-interest and establishment mentality is restricting his willingness to really explore effective real world solutions.
The same real world looks very different depending on your perspective, for example put a homeless person and Adair Turner on the same London street and they will view it in very different ways I am sure.
Top down thinking from the likes of Adair Turner (despite his undoubted intellect and experience), is perhaps a major part of the problem especially if this is then used as the basis of policy formulation which in my view is only going to compound an already desperate situation for those at the bottom of society.
It is a bit like those awful TV programmes where they put wealthy or famous people into the circumstances of the poor and unfortunate downtrodden in society, but just for a few days of course. Their minds are opened to the problem for a few brief hours, but they know they can return to the comfort of their closeted safe gated world very soon. The result usually being false empathy and empty voids of compassion, knowing that there is nothing they can or will do to resolve the situation because it’s not their problem and life is too good for them to spoil it by considering the unthinkable – that perhaps it is the system which allows the fortunate to prosper in unlimited and excessive amounts, that might in some way be preventing the real solutions to be implemented to help relieve the unfortunate who suffer from the inevitable result of the same system.
Much as I have time for the likes of Adair Turner and admire his analysis of complex financial systems, I doubt he is willing to think the establishment unthinkable to come up with anything more than banal suggestions of how to tinker with the capitalist engine to produce a bit less social pollution.
I am a little more generous
Interesting. In his Radio 4 programme The Debt business
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b066w659
he does mention helicopter money – may be others have talked him out of it! What is your view? Is it in some ways similar to a universal basic income?
No it is nothing like a UBI
Unrelated
It is just a boost to consumption – and we need investment which is why helicopter my bey does not work
M & S?
Profligate.
I havn`t been able to buy any clothes since Laurence Corner closed down.
Ahh – Laurence Corner. Memories, memories. Our family’s favourite outfitter. So much better than M&S.
This interview
http://www.ippr.org/juncture/juncture-interview-adair-turner
gives some more insight on Adair Turner’s position! He like PQE but
“the legitimate concern is that if monetary finance is proposed by people who come from a strongly socialist tradition — a tradition which has tended to reject the idea of any disciplines on public expenditure — there is a danger in practice that it would be used to excess.”
As you said his journey is not complete.
That’s an absurd suggestion about the left
Richard is absolutely right all the evidence is toataly to the contrary; all the evidence suggests the “left” has a far greater understanding of macro economics and a far greater awareness that putting a foot wrong will be pounced upon by the Neo-Liberalists. The evidence suggest that the “left” is much better track record on the economy than the “right”
His words show exactly the problem with his thinking – he can’t or won’t acknowledge is that it is the capitalists that have used monetary finance to gross excess!
What he should have said more legitimately was:
“the legitimate concern is that if monetary finance is proposed by people who come from a strongly CAPITALIST tradition — a tradition which has tended to reject the idea of any disciplines on PRIVATE expenditure — there is a danger in practice that it would be used to excess.”
One simple example shows how prejudiced that is.
Gove spends 25,000 per school in legal fees giving away school property to private “trusts.”
There are many other examples of public money given to the Rentiers – Virgin rail the bank bailouts, private health companies, social care companies.
So it is not only prejudiced, but silly.
All governments spend into the economy without discipline, but the right and left have different priorities.
The only other interpretation is that AT does not feel deep down that spending money on services and the poor is disciplined enough.
And of course the banking sector is so renowned for its strict monetary and financial discipline! I’d say that concern about banking is much more of a legitimate concern because they’ve already brought the edifice tumbling down. Britain’s socialist tradition has never done that!
I think Turner is still in the bankers’ grasp as he ignores history but holds up a straw man possibility as having greater importance.
He would have been a much better choice for the BoE than Carney
I agree! But he still isn’t there…
Sorry for previous ambiguous ciomment. I mean that, whilst Turner obviously is a better thinker, he still hasn’t got it!
So I hope his journey continues
I think you have touched on a very important issue Richard, and your clear, lucid description of the problem has led me to offer this analysis.
Lord Turner is a clear-sighted, logical man. He understands the issues you have described above. However, when it comes to solutions, he differs in his philosophy.
If I may put it so, your philosophy is that of a critical realist. You apply intelligence and reason to your problems, and conclude with conditional, rational necessity to your solutions. Conditional, because it depends on your theories being correct, and correctly applied to the real world situations we live in. Rational, because you apply intelligence and reason to your arguments. Necessity, by the simple logic of inference. Once a course of action has been concluded to be intelligent and reasonable, and there are no further relevant questions, then it is only logical to follow up on it.
By contrast, Lord Turner suffers from a very common misconception in this secular, post-modern age. For he is a man who values his experience. He has been a member of the establishment for many years. Consequently, his experience is broad. While you would apply theory to practise, Lord Turner would insist theory must conform to experience. And what does that experience tell him?
1. No theory can be entirely accurate. It only works in ideal conditions.
2. The world is unpredictable. It is governed by chance events.
3. Human beings will always succumb to error, temptation and self-interest.
These ideas are not incorrect, but they undermine faith in the critical realist’s dictates of intelligence and reason. They suggest there is more to the matter than meets the eye, whereas in fact, there is no more to the matter. They would dismiss theory by demanding that it explain the unexplainable, but who can explain statistical, random events? The philosophy of Lord Turner is not so much a philosophy as an anti-philosophy, because it denies the conclusions of intelligence and reasonableness, and appeals instead to the ‘real-world’ logic of things as they are. That might seem obvious, but is in fact a grave philosophic blunder. For what is the ‘real-world’ logic of things? If anyone were to try and explain that, she would be the last to deny she were being intelligent and reasonable about it.
That is not to say the anti-philosophies are not logical and coherent in themselves. The deductions of an anti-philosophy are internally self-consistent, but they are not consistent with the claim that they are intelligently and reasonably held. The only way to keep an anti-philosophy is to avoid the questions that would expose and reveal its limitations. When under attack, they shift their ground, change the focus, repeat all that is illogical, incoherent and evil about the world, and use that to implicitly justify their own incoherence. The anti-philosophies can appear in so many different forms and guises that the only way to eradicate its infection for good is a critical method, that cuts it off at the root.
And so we come to solutions. Believing a better world is possible is certainly a first step. But by itself it would seem insufficient. For the number of possible worlds is infinitely large, and merely imagining a particular one does nothing to assure its realisation. What matters is not only what is possible, but what is probable too. This is the second step, the better world we want to live in must be not only be possible, but we have to believe it is also likely to arise in the future. And from this follows the third step, that the better world must not only be possible and probable, but a harmonious continuation of the world we live in today.
Next, we have to identify some features of this better world that will counteract the evils of the present one. So fourthly, I suggest the foundation of this better world will be some species of love, or charity. There must be a bias for the poor, a progressive system of taxation, an end to the passion and violence that consumes our planet. Fifthly, this better world is the object of hope. For the fact we are talking about a world which is better means the present one is not yet fully developed, and what we do not yet possess we can hope for. The requisite hope must be both confident and without presumption. Sixthly, to assure us that this hope is not a pipe-dream, there must be faith in its eventual realisation. Otherwise our hope and our striving towards a better world would seem fruitless.
In the seventh place, we have to deal with the anti-philosophies, because they will not give up the fight so easily. They will ridicule and scorn such notions as hope and faith, and argue that the real issue is about power. But sadly, we are not able to wield that power in a way to bring about the kind of world we need, although the Tories, and many others, are trying. What we need is intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility in responding to the challenges we face today. But you can be sure the anti-philosophies will fight tooth and nail to preserve their own fragile integrity.
In the eighth place, the acceptance of this solution for a better world and the rejection of the anti-philosophies must be undertaken by each individually, with complete human freedom. There is to be no compulsion, other than the rational necessities that follow from intelligent thinking. You can expect the new paradigm to be accepted by some, rejected by others, but this will not stem its ultimate vindication.
In conclusion Richard, I think your work is a valuable contribution towards creating a better world, roughly and schematically indicated above. But I would not worry too much if people like Lord Turner do not share your views. It is merely a human aberration, but one which should stimulate us to defend our views, clarify our points, and drive home the reasons for our belief that a better world is indeed possible.
David
I found that fascinating, insightful and very useful
Thank you
Richard
Thank you Richard.
Look forward to developing together this idea of what a better world would look like.
It is my 2017 book
‘The only way to keep an anti-philosophy is to avoid the questions that would expose and reveal its limitations.’
Quite correct DavidB.
And who or what is enabling this avoidance?
The pro-Tory or too-cynical media, as well too many of our universities who teach dogma in economics rather than using proper scientific methodology to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Good managers know that the cycle is: Plan – Do – Review; then start again (or initiate micro changes as you go along).
The neo-libs have certainly got the Plan & Do bits but I see no reviews based on outcomes that mean anything to my life and that of so many of the people around me.
As a further driver of bad ideas and resistance to change, I came across this quote from Isaac Asimov which although originally aimed at the USA now seems to be more and more relevant to many of our institutions and general public here:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
Very apt I think.
Good, and difficult too
How do you know the other person is ignorant?
And do you know they know?
Serious questions
Bernard Lonergan describes the economic problem in his writings “For a New Political Economy”.
He starts by contrasting the old political economy of the nineteenth century with the new economics that started to emerge in the 1940’s. The former were champions of the Industrial Revolution, the latter presided over the aftermath of the Great Depression. The old political economists may have been guilty of many errors, but they spoke to democracy. They appealed to individual initiative, to release the spontaneous creativity of human enterprise. But by systematising and turning it into a scientific discipline, the new economists eliminated democracy from their subject. That is because there has been no change of mindset, no new paradigm, only a lateral development by moving into the fields of statistics, history, and psychological motivation.
What does a new paradigm consist of? To take a parallel, consider the sciences known by the names of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Einstein. Ptolemy considered the motion of heavenly bodies as cycles around the earth, and of physical objects that fall in a straight line to earth according to their weight. Copernicus corrected the heavenly motion by putting the sun at the centre of the universe, Galileo discovered the law of falling bodies, Kepler introduced a new correction by making the planetary orbits elliptical rather than circular. These are all corrections in particular fields. However, Newton swept them all under one overarching view by postulating the laws of motion. The theories of Kepler and Galileo remained intact, but the theoretical viewpoint was enlarged.
Similarly with Einstein there was a new moment of generalisation by considering generalised geometries of space-time, and Newtonian physics became a special case. The point Lonergan wants to make by these examples is that the new paradigm must be a movement towards greater generalisation, not merely a more penetrating analysis and movement into more specialised fields “that cannot but doubt the ability of democracy’s leaders to follow the labyrinthine course of its thought.” He concludes “what is needed is a new political economy that is free from the mistakes of the old, a democratic economics that can issue practical imperatives to plain men.”
My ignorance is indeed just as good as your knowledge. But with your knowledge, you can do something about my ignorance, if it is true we are all in this together.
Tbanks for another thoughtful contribution
Thanks Richard.
To respond to PSR’s other point about the lack of management reviews, I think this is the problem with the blind leading the blind. Criticism and grumbling doesn’t help, but we need a new constructive collaboration.
My own view – FWIW – is that Turner knows two things only too well:
1) That something is very wrong with the financial system………
2) …….but the resistance to change would be considerable and perhaps impossible until such a time as there is no choice but to change.
He must bear this knowledge for a considerable amount of time it seems.
Have also discovered that a French economist, Christophe Ramaux, (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Ramaux) has suggested that the only reason neoliberalism has survived is because there is a social state apparatus to keep the basics of society going effectively – in spite of neoliberal ideals. And I think we almost forget that there really would be a pitchfork rebellion if, for exammple, the NHS didn’t exist. So he suggests that even if the workings of it were/are privatised the fact of being free at the point of use completely disproves neoliberal ideas.
So, basically, if the market is so effective why is the NHS free at the point of use?
Which whilst being obvious, most of us are so submerged in the propaganda we seem often to have forgotten…
Be interesting to see what Lord prior comes back with re NHS charges
He is looking possible changes. Wonder what his brief is!
PSR
Well he may not have the luxury of much time to think. I think Richard & others have put forward very farsighted & intelligent commentaries but they don’t understand the markets. We desperately need someone who does to properly explain the problems.
In particular, I’ve been shocked by the extent of the “shadow” financial markets. If you sell shares in a company or bonds from a company or Govermnet, they must be properly registered in a regulated market, but if you create derivatives on those shares/bonds these need not be registered anywhere. The amounts being bet on derivatives may be (& research suggests are) many hundreds of times greater than what is on the exchange.
The free-market capitalist will say, “and what of it? The derivatives must balance & will only follow the actual assets (the shares & bonds & currencies & materials) that they are based on. All the bets will cancel out in the end, some will win some lose. ”
My fear would be that the action on the financial exchanges is creating a disastrously intensified reaction. If a relatively small movement in a currency (say) or a company’s stock can result in trillions of $ changing hands, then, firstly, that makes our markets scarily unstable &, secondly, it encourages the illegal/or undemocratic action because, when there is that amount of money at stake, wouldn’t you rig the market if you could?
I may be being old-fashioned, probably I am, but I thought the justification of all these money men’s arbitrage was that they’d smooth the effects of the real activity not magnify them.
I am now involved in research projects looking at those markets
R
Very good news Richard, as I fear you will find some truly terrible and frightening things if you are able to dig deep enough into this very dark shadow world. The derivatives markets and other forms of unregulated and/or lightly regulated financial markets are I am sure where the next financial crisis will be born (or more likely amplified yet again to destructive capability).
You only have to look at the recent experience of 2008 to see how these artificial financial tools of leverage and so called risk reduction, very nearly turned a small crack in the capitalist system into a full blown terminal collapse.
While it is true that financial regulators have attempted to understand and control this activity having seen its destructive capability, they have no doubt also realised that the system is now so heavily leveraged and “risk insured” that to alter its construction too much and/or too quickly would also bring the financial system to its knees again.
And so we have a rock and a hard place for regulators, allow yet more financial speculation backed only by socially worthless leveraged derivatives and equally worthless risk insurance products or tame the beast such that it no longer functions anymore as the gambling casino of the wealthy asset owners.
As far as I am aware the total global derivates markets has continued to increase since 2008, although trying to get any reliable and consistent data is not easy. The bigger question though is surely what value does this activity provide to the real economy (or more importantly the ordinary man in the street)? Especially as it is the ordinary man in the street who will be forced to pick up the bill when it all goes wrong again – as it inevitably will because it is the financial equivalent of building towers out of playing cards.
Eriugenus
What I was trying to do was balance Richard’s account of Lord Turner – the man – and put forward a viable reason as to why he seems stuck. An intelligent man who seems stymied, cowed somehow.
One explanation no doubt is that Turner may have had face to face contact with those odious characters who are driving this financial madness; he has seen and heard things on the inside that we are unaware of and may very well be held back by those.
I would also be very cautious about calling time on the present MO of the financial world.
I too believe that we are now beginning to see the last days of this sort of perverting financial dominance – but I also believe that it will be a very slow death – it will be between generations. It will not be a quick end I’m afraid. It will drag out.
The reason why I say this is because (1) I still perceive a lack of genuine cohesion in the counter narrative (people who are too quick to disagree with each other – even ego problems amongst those in this group) and (2) the apparatus that sustains the lies of the present financial hegemony is a very smooth running machine indeed and must never be underestimated.
Last paragraph is a very important point. The ego issue is always knotty and we are all embroiled in it to some degree-people have careers to sustain, psychological security to maintain and this is always playing itself out in various way. We also have personal wounds, grievances and resentments that further colour things. We’re complex in that respect.
I agree that the ‘death’ will be slow and could only be hastened by an external catastrophe. Societies , like, individuals, don’t change often until there is a ‘deus ex machina’ event. Sad but I think probably true.
Only the absence of power and status can change this yet we are in a world that, in the words of Elias Canetti, ‘is choking on power.’
A very thought-provoking and interesting topic. Thanks. Adair Turner symbolises the problem of effecting radical change. He represents the way dying ideas have oxygen breathed into them to keep them alive long after their ‘sell-by’ date. His apparent ‘conversion’ or ‘understanding’ is unfortunately counter-productive. However seductive it seems, it gives false hope that there can be ‘top-down’ change while generating overly optimistic dialogue. Doubtless he feels he has experienced a shift in his socio-economic belief system but it really is only rearranging the deck chairs.
While it may seem clichéd to resort to popular bite-sized quotes, here are two from great minds of the 20th century that address the issue. Surely they can’t both be wrong?
“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.” (R. Buckminster Fuller).
“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.” (Albert Einstein).
I believe that when the history of the 21st century is written there will be a chapter (or two) on how capitalism ultimately imploded by morphing into so-called free market neo-liberalism and the social damage that ensued.
Many progressive academics are revisiting Marx and Engels whose rigorous analysis of and insights into capital will be seen as relevant in the construction of a new paradigm for future society.
But, sadly, I fear, it will not be a peaceful transition. The holders of power rarely if ever give up without a fight in which they care zilch for the resultant damage to the rest of society. They have a sociopathic mind-set. Greece is just a trailer for what is in store.
While the outlook is not pretty there is a massive amount of new and radical thinking which, thanks to the Internet, is spread from one continent to the next in a nano-second. I’ll bet that your blog, Richard, has an ever-growing international readership.
To end with another quote:”The pitchforks are coming … for us plutocrats” (Nick Hanauer, 2014).
That we need new and different thinking is indisputable
I sincerely hope the transition is peaceful
I understand the fear that it will not be
“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.” (R. Buckminster Fuller).
Very good quote John D, and this is where the left should really be focusing their attention so that when the next major financial crisis comes (as it inevitably will sooner or later), there is an alternative socially owned financial and economic system already established and waiting to take up the slack from the failed private financial capitalist banks and corporations.
No more bail-outs, every failed bank and corporation to be handed over to its employees with the state providing the financial backing as the lender of last resort while the social financial and economic system develops to full capacity.
Interesting TED talk on how Special Drawing Rights ‘currency’ could be used for a Green revolution:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_metcalfe_a_provocative_way_to_finance_the_fight_against_climate_change
He overestimates the inflation risk (giving the usual Weimar/Zimbabwe allusions) but gives a useful explanation of the so-called SDRs.
PQE by another name
BTW Richard
How is your move going?
Are you all unpacked yet and settled in?
No!
But getting there
Will be good when I get broadband back…..
‘My ignorance is indeed just as good as your knowledge. But with your knowledge, you can do something about my ignorance, if it is true we are all in this together’.
DavidB
This sounds like a very powerful conclusion to some excellent paragraphs but I having considered it more deeply I remain very troubled by it.
I cannot agree that ignorance is as good as knowledge. That is an untenable situation to me.
I’m interested in the standpoint of your statement. Is this subjective? Or an objective statement concerning other people’s ignorance – the state of ignorance in our society?
Either way though – to me – it remains troubling.
The problem with ignorance – whether wilful (Randian ignorance – ultra individuality?) or ‘benign’ (is there such a thing when one considers that this can also stop factors such as justice and fairness being realised?) is the degree to which those who are ignorant are willing to subject their state to change. How open minded are the ignorant to having their world opened up? This is key.
The other factor of course is that there needs to be an apparatus to deliver the knowledge to change the state of ignorance. We might call these education, the Web, democracy, the media, blogs like this one – all these spring to mind. However depending on who is involved or who controls these – the ability to use knowledge to abate ignorance can be greatly reduced – in fact these delivery systems can actually be used to reinforce ignorance (dialects at work here).
Also a key to unlocking ignorance is how you do it – presentation etc., – all of this we must note is known too by those who seek to reinforce and maintain ignorance.
My attitudes toward ignorance were moulded by when I used to work with tenant groups in social housing and the officers were always putting forward innovative ideas to tackle problems like rent arrears and anti-social behaviour. But tenants would vote down these ideas because they remained glued to old fashioned orthodox views about punishment and reward. Tenants would use their position to reinforce their ignorance – and subsequently some really good ideas (used successfully elsewhere) were never adopted and therefore neither the organisation or the those in rent arrears etc., would ever benefit from them and so the hardship continued. But also, tenant ignorance was now effectively owned by the organisation they had a say in. Shocking really.
In my ongoing efforts to talk to people about the content of this blog even people whom you would call highly intelligent university trained professionals are revealed as ignorant of a lot of economic and financial issues. They consistently fail to apply the logic used in their own field to these issues and fall for the received wisdoms (a form of ignorance?) such as benefit rates being too high and bankrupting the nation or that a nations’ finances are the same as my household’s etc., ad nauseum.
These ‘ignorances’ – lazy consensus’, received wisdoms, urban myths – all exploited by current power bases – can be dealt with but only if there is a willingness to listen and re-appraise by those who hold them and also if their is equal access to the alternatives constituted as knowledge.
That is why in my view the statement ‘ my ignorance is as good as you knowledge’ sets my teeth on edge.
Did you ever read ‘The Cunning of Unreason’ by John Dunn? His writing about ‘partiality’ in politics and political economy is very insightful as he attempts to isolate what could be one of the main drivers of perceived ignorance – ergo – that we choose what to believe based on our own particular feelings about a certain matter – that we are partial to what we fundamentally believe: we favour ourselves first. By choosing to believe something, we effectively set up a cage around us which marks the boundary by which we will not allow ourselves to be told something different to what we hold as true. Is this the genesis of ignorance?
I thought that the enlightenment had stopped this happening a long time ago – but it seems not. This phenomenon has always been there and those such as the neo-libs and their supporters know this better than anyone else I’m afraid. And as social mobility falters and our education seems more subject to those with financial power and wish to retrain it, so our ability to create informed citizens is further retarded and means that there is more ignorance for vested interests to feed on.
As for Richard’s question about ‘how do we know that a person is ignorant’ – well I’m just basing an appraisal of ignorance on what people say.
I do not do this from a point of superiority or pleasure. Although I do find it fascinating.
For example I was discussing with a middle class friend the other day about PQE and all she did was traipse out what happened in Germany and Zimbabwe as reason for a Government not to print money. Her ‘insights’ lacked context; deeper knowledge. Her ignorance was an intermediate appraisal of the situation – if that.
And a final defence in mentioning the concept of ignorance is that both under Richard’s influence and having completed my Masters, I no longer really believe in absolute truths about the worlds’ problems (orthodoxies). In the field of dialectics (as Yanis Varoufakis eloquently puts it) “everything is pregnant with its opposite”. There is always another side or causal effect to every course of action. In other words, although we yearn for certainty and even simplicity in this certainty, we really should accept that the truth is that life is complex and inter-dependent with just about everything around it (I can hear Ayn Rand turning in her grave as I write this).
I take neither a single nomothetic view (that there are certain universal laws that govern the world) nor an idiographic one (where we try to explain the world as a set of one off unique phenomena that are incapable of being managed). This because I truly believe that the world is made up of BOTH phenomena.
To stick dogmatically to one view when the real world is so dynamic is pure stupidity in my view. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of ‘objectivism’ where in my view she is inviting us to disconnect from others as well as disconnect from the effects our ACTIONS have on others is shown as totally bogus to me. Yet this idea is taken up by potentially millions of people and treated as a fact of life. Is this ignorance? My opinion is that it is.
What I learnt on my MBA project was how to try to manage ignorance in the sphere of knowledge management. For example, I may have started off using a particular method to deal with a lack of knowledge about certain processes my team held at a certain point in time. But as time has gone on, I have had to adjust my knowledge delivery mechanisms in order to account for changes in personnel, the age of the personnel, the timing of a project, other external factors such as changes in procedure or accountability.
What I have not done is use my original methods and adopt them as orthodox universal ‘forever and a day’ methods which really would quickly become ineffective as conditions changed; rather the orthodoxy is to adapt and change around the needs of those who require knowledge about their work. That is what I call being heterodox in my approach and I was ignorant of what to call it until Richard explained that concept to me. But I had to be receptive to this idea in the first place – and being that sort of enquiring person – I got it – but rather than just copy it, I have tried to apply it to my own role as a manager because it answers a lot of questions my attempted management of the complex process of housing development poses anyway. Every development we do is different in its own way but still results in an affordable council house being built. But to use one approach would mean lots of problems.
If I just used one approach, I would end up being like one of those modern politicians who would blame his policy failures on the workers or the electorate for not working hard enough or on the education system – yes -it would be their fault – not mine – for why things would have failed. Don’t we see this now in our own polity? Our politicians fail to manage finance or economic policy and then set about blaming our educations system; the unions; the disabled and workless whose fault it is for simply existing?
I’m not saying that I’m God’s gift to management – I still have real areas to work on, but it strikes me that economic policy orthodoxies seldom change in response to feedback on actual conditions. Continued austerity comes to mind for example because modern political elites are governed by orthodoxies that present themselves as knowledge. We could also see the Lefts’ adherence on taxing the rich ‘until their pips squeek’ as an orthodoxy too – hopefully recent work done by the Tax Justice Network and those ideas put forward in the Joy of Tax widen the possibilities for tax beyond this simplistic approach or at last justify it better as our knowledge about tax havens grows.
But what one cannot doubt is that the share of wealth in the world is badly skewed at the moment and that this is having consequences. And people seem to know this. They are not ignorant of it. They have knowledge. I can say that. The retired people I talk to worry about their children and grand children not being as well off and treated as well as they have been. But they are not sure about how to deal with it.
Where the ignorance lies is what to do about it. I am shocked that there seems to be a prevalence of Panglossian thinking here. That this is the way things are and are meant to be. Where has this come from? It is an ignorance of ideas; of possibilities that we suffer from. Is it an ignorance of hope?
You tell me. I’ve written quite enough for a Sunday morning as I’m sure you will agree – my apologies. But I’m sure you’ll agree that this remains a fascinating subject. And an important one given what is at stake.
Agreed
Important
Thank you
PSR
Thank you for your detailed reply. Indeed, a fascinating subject.
I am happy to explain myself. I shared my ignorance with you. You shared your knowledge with me. And having read it, I take back my earlier statement, and agree with you that knowledge is preferable to ignorance any time. Apologies for taking up your Sunday morning!
But I don’t think your efforts have been in vain. As you say, it is an important subject, and I don’t think I am the only one who is ignorant on these matters. Let me try and explain the reasoning that led me to make that statement. Firstly, I confess my ignorance. I have not read John Dunn’s ‘The Cunning of Unreason.’ I had not thought through the various manifestations of ignorance and their consequences. I was, if you like, professing an ignorance of ignorance.
Secondly, I would always agree that, given the choice, knowledge is better than ignorance. Although the truth can sometimes be painful, it has a value in itself and is better than choosing to stay in the dark.
Thirdly, and this was my contention, we are not normally in a position to choose between ignorance and knowledge. My ignorance, and your knowledge, are variables which at any moment of time are what they are. And I would hold that we all possess some knowledge and some ignorance, though in different measures. Nor is this ever likely to change. We will never be able to reduce ignorance to zero by possessing complete knowledge, although if knowledge and ignorance cooperate together it can be reduced to a minimum.
Fourthly, this led to my claim that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge, because I could not see how something is evil that is written into the fabric of the world. (Guilty of Panglossian thinking?) And in the context of a democratic decision, there is no apparent reason to favour one over the other, because as Richard said, how do you determine who knows and who is ignorant? I would not claim that my ignorance is better than your knowledge, only that it is as good a starting point as any to participate in the democratic process, because knowledge itself contains its ultimate vindication if ignorance is prepared to learn.
Yet now I have changed my mind, because I missed an important element which is relevant to the issue. (That’s what happens when you half-read a philosopher like Bernard Lonergan!) It is something like the ignorance of hope and ideas that you mentioned. It is the new paradigm, which will overcome the prevalence of ignorance in the world with knowledge itself, including the knowledge we have not attained. That is something which the old paradigm cannot understand, because how can we overcome ignorance with knowledge we do not possess? The answer is a faith, hope and belief in the new paradigm, which will also counter evil in the world through love.
In the context of the old paradigm, it might be possible to claim that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge. Let’s call this the start of an anti-philosophy. Then the point I would make is that it contains the seeds of its own reversal, simply by following through its reasoning and making it compatible with the dictates of intelligence. If there is a co-operative collaboration, then ignorance can be replaced with knowledge. The difficulty with this process is if one does not want, or does not have the time or inclination to enter into intelligent reasoning on the matter. Obscurantism is the great evil here.
Still arguing from the old paradigm, it seems there are different types of ignorance, and it is only certain ones that could be claimed to be as good as knowledge. I suggest the one we need is an intelligent ignorance. This involves subjecting our putative knowledge or beliefs to criticism, and eradicating errors when we find them. Our beliefs form an interconnected, organic whole, so sometimes finding a single error can entail the revision of a whole host of beliefs. For example, at one time I believed I did not have any beliefs. Fixing that self-contradiction opened up a whole array of new problems.
An ignorance of solutions? I suggest we cannot pluck knowledge out of thin air and place it within minds not ready to receive it. Knowledge needs to develop organically out of what we know already. Even if we are not ready to solve the problem of the new paradigm, we could continue working within the assumptions of the old, since they contain the seeds of their own reversal. Ignorance may not be as good as knowledge, but we cannot let it hamper people from participating intelligently in the democratic process, and allow the free development of their own knowledge and beliefs.
Ther is a trickle of knowledge, or perhaps call it brain washing, that is fed into our children. The history books we study all have a bias laid out by the author, something sparks the interest of the reader and it is difficult for young minds to have a balanced view.
Circumstances play a large part whereby those who are in a household just making ends meet either fight to get up there with the top earners or stay and fight on the shop floor. Over simplistic, but I am a simple soul.
Wonderful debating from your commenters Mr Murphy. Globally, as an oldie, I find everything scary now, an age thing I guess.
It strikes me that we are all ignorant of some things and knowledgeable of others, agreed some people are at opposite ends of the scale but we are almost all seeking more knowledge about the things that interest us.
The problem for me is that under the prevailing private financial capital system, knowledge has commercial value which has inevitable resulted in it being hoarded, protected, sold and financialised.
And therefore knowledge has become a system of financial exploitation rather than one of the purest of human endeavours to further our understanding of this world and our relationship to it.
And so most of us are disadvantaged by our lack of knowledge, and lack of access to knowledge, and even lack of desire or ability to seek to exploit (or even share) what little knowledge we have. For that, the majority of us become poorer and the minority become ever richer.
And so I think I agree with the statement that ‘My ignorance is indeed just as good as your knowledge. But with your knowledge, you can do something about my ignorance, if it is true we are all in this together’.
It is just that under capitalism most of those with knowledge have no incentive to do anything about my ignorance – except for pure financial gain at my expense.
(There are of course exciting exceptions – e.g. this free blog, free internet content, free creative commons licences, etc)
To believe in the value of one’s own ignorance inexorably leads one beyond ignorance, beyond capitalism, and beyond oneself.
But it can be a slow, difficult process, which is why we need visionaries like Richard Murphy and others to prepare the way.
Might I just say I do not feel like a visionary?
I’m just seeking to reduce my conbfusion
You are a visionary Richard in the value of tax as a tool to change our society for the better, and I have great respect for the work you do in this and other areas.
We all need to reduce our confusion. I hope more people will try.
Thank you
The corruption of economics began a long time ago: http://www.politicaleconomy.org/gaffney.htm. By conflating land and capital, the importance of land in the economy has been obscured. The dysfunctional land market lies at the heart of many of our seemingly intractable economic ills: financial instability, unaffordable and poor quality housing, gross wealth inequality, unbalanced economic activity, inadequate tax revenues. Even the great Keynes didn’t understand the role which land plays in the economy. I’ve never heard Adair Turner mention this.
The very simple solution propounded by Henry George (Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy) has never been applied.
The issue is the failure to recognise that land actually gets no return
Rent is always subversion
DavidB and Keith
Thank you for reading my rather long contribution. Yes my Sunday morning sort of disappeared. But I was hooked. That is why I keep coming back here! To sustain what intellectual faculties I have.
From what you wrote DavidB I got many things but the most important is the value of ignorance in society – that perhaps it exists for a reason, and that this reason is that it encourages or prompts us to respond to it (rather like Richard’s blog is a possible response to a lot of ignorance about the financial world?). Ignorance actually makes us engage with each other.
So now instead of seeing ignorance as a problem I see it (WE should see it?) as an opportunity to learn (where our own ignorance exists) or as an opportunity to ‘pass something on’ to others in the sense of that wonderful statement in The History Boys. I hate to use the word ‘teach’ etc., because there is a lot of assumption on that word outside the classroom or the lecture theatre.
Of course no knowledge can be complete – as you rightly point out DavidB – nor – if we also take dialectics into account – can it be neutral in any of the effects it may have (neo-libs please take note).
So, ignorance has its uses. It’s existence is natural. It is fuel waiting to be lit; a gap waiting to be filled; dark waiting for light or even light waiting for dark sometimes too.
From Keith I get the strong sense that there will always be barriers imposed on people to learn for themselves – to in other words ‘lessen’ their ignorance – by those in power positions. One barrier is being told what is important in order to divert our attention away from what is actually important.
He is quite right and the only way for the citizen to deal with this is to try to find out for themselves. It is the only self defence any of us have.
And I am beginning to hope that more of us share this path as the cognitive dissonance we are increasing feeling (the difference between what we are told about life and our actual experience of it) leads more people to take this path and ask questions and find out for themselves.
PSR & Keith
“He [Keith] is quite right and the only way for the citizen to deal with this [barriers to learning from those in power positions] is to try to find out for themselves. It is the only self defence any of us have.”
Finding things out for ourselves is one way to learn. But if each generation had to rediscover everything for themselves, there would never be any progress. It would be a step back to the most primitive civilisations.
But there is another way – a collaboration like the collaboration of scientific enterprise. But instead of scientific knowledge, we are talking about the knowledge of a new paradigm. It is no more possible to explain what the new paradigm is than it is for a scientist to explain what is the scientific enterprise. We can talk about bits of it, the history and the methods we use to study and learn about it, but we can’t present it as a complete whole.
The discussion around ignorance was really about methods of learning. Although ignorance is natural, its only value is that it has the potential to become knowledge. Knowledge has true value in itself.
We have to hope that more people will see the value of asking questions, and working together to bring about the kind of changes we want to see in the world.
Very interesting discussion.
I’m led to consider whether this education lark is so clear cut.
Often S Korea is held up as a model to pursue.
South Korean pupils extraordinarily good at Maths.
Also South Korea now one of the biggest Methodist Churches.
Both are givens.
So Education in the sense of inculcating is successful in S Korea, but in its original sense of ‘leading out’ it is much less so…. But even when “ignorance is basic to all” deducing from a dewdrop or thinking for oneself is the thing that really is the essentially desired result of education.
It is natural to study those that have gone before – this is history. But I think the concentration should not be on regurgitating the past but on the scientific approach. Both to science itself and to things that are not sciences – such as economics and, indeed life in general – which I’d say is the key to thinking’s advancement.
But with this ‘faith’ government, politically, there is little hope.
MayP
I think we agree on the need for a scientific approach.
With regards to faith, there are three stages. There will be times in the history of our civilisation when the probability of a new faith paradigm arising is nil. So first we need an introductory faith to explain the what it’s about, and why we need it. This is Richard’s step 1 – believing another world is possible is the first step towards creating it.
The second stage is a collaboration towards the realisation of that world. Faith is required to reinforce the hope that it will ever occur. Hope is required to give the motivation towards taking the various steps and actions that need to be undergone. Time will tell how this will precisely work out in practice.
The third stage is the final realisation of the new paradigm, when faith will no longer be required because it will have been replaced by knowledge. It will have fulfilled its function.
A natural scepticism is healthy if it leads us to ask the questions about how such another world could possibly be.
I’ve found scepticism to be a useful tool because I always found that in the realm of ideas it asks for a higher level of proof in order to validate what is being proposed.
In my job as a housing developer (social housing) we have a simple but effective rubric that I would commend to those of an enquiring nature: ABC:
ASSUME nothing
BELIEVE nothing (in particular when you first hear something)
CHECK everything (triangulate from different sources, following on from above)
We always bring our assumptions to the table
Dislodging them is often the hardest thing to do
Rigorously applied, the formula also contains a self-contradiction. Can one really believe that one can believe nothing (step 2)? It’s an idealised world if we can somehow detach ourselves from it and regard it from the outside.
Perhaps this notion has also contributed to the moral detachment and lack of compassion and empathy from those in government (thinking about our austerity politics and pitiful response to the refugee crisis.)
Check everything is sound reasoning. Check and question everything, I would say.
Correction: check and question everything you can (including assumptions/ beliefs). Obviously there will always be some things we cannot check, and some questions we cannot answer.
Marx: De omnibus dubitandum.
Yes indeed – dislodging stuff – usually wishful thinking or wanting to believe that everything is OK without putting the effort in to actually find out – are usual problems I find.
In terms of not believing things – well – ABC is from the perspective of the manager of a process – it is always wise to check and ‘go and see for yourself’ so to speak.
Seeing for oneself whether (say) planning permission has been granted or checking out some dodgy theories or statistics you’ve heard on television has the result of freeing ones’ self from second hand, bad information and truly understanding that something has been done or exists – or not.
From that point onwards you have a number of courses of action that put you in more control of a project or who and what you vote for in an election.
All I’m talking about is how to liberate oneself from false or ‘naive’ consciousness about the world around us in order to attain a sort of critical consciousness instead.