In yesterday’s Times, Amartya Sen wrote about the disconnect between European voters and the experts who disdain them. I wish that he had said more — a great deal more. The two points that he did make were important, certainly.

Europe cannot revive itself without addressing two areas of political legitimacy. First, Europe cannot hand itself over to the unilateral views — or good intentions — of experts without public reasoning and informed consent of its citizens. Given the transparent disdain for the public, it is no surprise that in election after election the public has shown its dissatisfaction by voting out incumbents.

Second, both democracy and the chance of creating good policy are undermined when ineffective and blatantly unjust policies are dictated by leaders. The obvious failure of the austerity mandates imposed so far has undermined not only public participation — a value in itself — but also the possibility of arriving at a sensible, and sensibly timed, solution.

What goes unstated here is the source of the pressures that motivate experts and inspire leaders to dictate unjust policies. Why have governments across Europe called for “austerity”? Because it is the only way to keep credit lines open. The alternative to spending less is having nothing to spend. That is because governments typically borrow against anticipated revenues. There is no use clucking about the imprudence of this. Large-scale government borrowing was until rather recently determined by and limited to meeting the expense of military exigencies. That is probably sound. Certainly an armed force that is dependent upon the commonwealth is preferable to the kind of self-supporting operation that has sprouted in China. Military expenses always tend toward the urgent and unforeseen; borrowing to pay for them is unavoidable. Paying off loans reasonably incurred to fight wars (defensive ones, anyway) is unlikely to be very unpopular with stable democratic electorates.

But what about other types of expenditure? What about schools and health care and (what we call) social security? What about infrastructure — everything from sewer pipes to air-traffic controllers? Has anyone been working on a systematic overview of how these are paid for? The items that I’ve mentioned are funded in very different ways, at least in the United States. They are also funded at different levels. In Europe, administration is more centralized and unified. But the foundations of public expenditure suggest a lack of overall design and a prevalence of ad hoc makeshift, with a hefty contribution from uncritically adopted traditions. And because of their public nature, economists interested in free markets ignore them. The American health-care apparatus is paid for by as shambolic a mix of charity and premium prices as can be imagined. It does not even attempt to make economic sense.   

Democracy works only when voters are informed. By “informed” I do not mean “free from ‘prejudice” or “not bigoted.” I mean: informed. A look round today’s Western democracies quickly shows how unlikely it is for even the brightest and best-educated voters to be informed about anything except at the most local levels. That’s a start. People tend to know what’s going on in their neighborhoods; they don’t have to be prodded to read footnoted reports about the immediate environment. (They’re likely to demand reports that are clear and easy to read.) As the scale of affairs passes beyond the local, however, it takes on an abstraction with respect to which it is difficult to engage on an everyday basis. Highly general matters affecting the nation as a whole (such as immigration law) are left to experts. The link between vote and policy is becomes tenuous, easily disavowed by experts and voters alike.

In his book about going back to school in middle age, David Denby reminds us that the Great Books have to sell themselves anew to every generation. Nobody reads Jane Austen because everyone’s grandmother read Jane Austen; and nobody reads Sir Walter Scott period. The same obligation falls upon public services of every kind. Western democracies have all been founded upon express repudiation of the idea that whatever has been done in the past must therefore continue to be done in the future. And yet the besetting sin of meritocracy is a hearty disinclination to explain complicated matters to the uninitiated. In a very real sense, meritocrats cannot be leaders.

Finally, what Mr Sen neglects to mention is that democracy is still very much in its infancy. Whatever its beginnings, its adumbrations in ancient republics, the truth is that full-franchise democracy is hardly anywhere even a century old, given that, a century ago, women were denied the vote as a matter of course. We don’t really know what we’re talking about when we talk about democracy.    

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Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 11:13 am.