TECHNOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY, CREDENTIALISM & SOCIETY. IS IT WORTH IT?

The social sciences raise, of course, all kinds of issues related to ethics, democracy (who decides what, if anything, is 'better' then the current situation? And how to try to change society?), unintended consequences and so on.

But how about just the sheer exhausting tediousness of it all? Do we really want to move in the direction it would take to successfully fully understand and intervene in social outcomes? Would it really make us happier as a society?

Just two examples I ran across recently made me think of this issue again. The first is on the math that would be needed to model financial markets (as the math currently used has obviously proven not up to the task). The econophysicist (who has some excellent criticisms of economics) suggests

that the economists revise their curriculum and require that the following topics be taught: calculus through the advanced level, ordinary differential equations (including advanced), partial differential equations (including Green functions), classical mechanics through modern nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics, stochastic processes (including solving Smoluchowski-Fokker-Planck equations), computer programming (C, Pascal, etc.) and, for complexity, cell biology. Time for such classes can be obtained in part by eliminating micro- and macro-economics classes from the curriculum. The students will then face a much harder curriculum, and those who survive will come out ahead. So might society as a whole. (McCauley 2006, PDF)

The second is from a “professional” aid worker arguing against amateur aid workers and organizations.

There are certain very specific things that you need to know in order to do good aid work. There is a large body of aid theory that you need to know, and there is an even larger body of raw information. You need to know (fluently) standards like Sphere, HAP, or those related to your area of technical expertise/interest. You need to know grant management (not just management,grant management). You need to know the latest thinking in community assessment, organizational learning, and maybe child protection….You need to understand R2P (don’t know what that is? Better Google it…) and why it matters. You need to know industry best-practices related to humanitarian protection. You need to know the difference between OCHA and UNOPS and UNHCR. You need to know how humanitarian coordination works and where to find information about it…you may need to know basic logistics, financial management, communications or security.

So – to recap – to understand the economy you need to know:

• calculus through the advanced level
• ordinary differential equations (including advanced)
• partial differential equations (including Green functions)
• classical mechanics through modern nonlinear dynamics
• statistical physics
• stochastic processes (including solving Smoluchowski-Fokker-Planck equations) computer programming (C, Pascal, etc.). 
• and, for complexity, cell biology. 

And to do aid work:


"You need to know (fluently) standards like

• Sphere,
• HAP,
• or those related to your area of technical expertise/interest.
• grant management (not just management, grant management).
• the latest thinking in community assessment,
• organizational learning,
• and maybe child protection….
• To understand R2P (don’t know what that is? Better Google it…) and why it matters.
• to know industry best-practices related to humanitarian protection.
• to know the difference between OCHA and UNOPS and UNHCR.
• to know how humanitarian coordination works and where to find information about it…
• basic logistics, financial management, communications or security.

Somehow I think technocracy (in the first example) and bureaucracy and credentialism (the second example) are not the way forward. 

OF POLICY, MICE, MEN, & CUTTING BOARDS. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

New York City prohibits cats in shops as a health hazard because of their fur, waste etc.
So - What do you end up with? Rats, mice, - rat fur and mice droppings - in your food instead.  And shopkeepers forced to break the law and pay fines. 
I prefer cats personally. 

Bureaucrats decide to ban in restaurants the age old practice of using wood for cutting boards. The result? Untold numbers exposed to higher levels of more dangerous pathogens (I worked in restaurants for years, and personally had to change cutting boards and wooden shelves due to these laws). Turns out no one thought to compare plastic cutting boards under real usage conditions against wood – in the real world plastic cutting boards become (surprise!) covered in cuts. In plastic, these harbor dangerous bacteria, while in porous natural wood they do not. Wood is safer in the real world.

In the 21^st century, in relatively small scale and well-defined areas of society (food practices in shops and restaurants), a modern country (the US in this case) cannot get cats and mice and cutting board policies correct. How well do you think larger bureaucracies governing much less well-defined situations in much more complex environments, often in countries and cultures far away, do?

Let us step up the complexity a little - say, to the still highly circumscribed (compared to studies of global development and entire societies) area of alternative fuels and their utility. Policy makers and many academics were in consensus that palm oil and biofuels were a good idea. But...
Once a dream fuel, palm oil may be an eco-nightmare
and
Biofuels make climate change worse
How, then, can anyone imagine that in the still more complex areas of social policy or international aid that the EU, World Bank, IMF, NGOs, the US Government (Katrina, anyone?) can do any better?

~~~~~
(Related)

The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America.

Philip K. Howard. 1995. Amazon.