[HN Gopher] Technocratic Plimsoll Line
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Technocratic Plimsoll Line
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 50 points
Date : 2021-05-17 14:12 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lesswrong.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lesswrong.com)
| ajb wrote:
| "Why can't the political appointees and the technocrats be
| formally separated in the same way as the executive, the
| legislative and the judiciary? "
|
| In the UK, this is formally the case. The Civil Service is below
| the line, Ministers and 'political advisers' are above it. Civil
| Servants are legally barred from standing for election and have a
| duty to be politically neutral. However for this reason the Civil
| Service can't " keep [the politicians] in check" because that
| would be antidemocratic. They are supposed to at most act as an
| intelligence-upgrade to the politicians.
| jessriedel wrote:
| It's also the case in the US too:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_th...
|
| It's pretty clearly established at each agency which positions
| are turned over when a new administration gains power and which
| are protected as non-political, and this interacts with the
| formal rules (e.g., you need cause to fire non-political
| positions but not political ones).
|
| Perhaps the author of the post is arguing that there should be
| stronger checks and that in practice the political influence
| extends below the nominal line, but he's wrong if he thinks
| this is somehow ignored by statute.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Thanks to this thread for pointing out that in multiple
| governments the distinction is in fact formal.
|
| I am tempted to grumble that, once again, the rationalists
| are ignorant of the ways the world actually works.
| jameshart wrote:
| This seems to just be amateur idle musing, masquerading as
| political philosophy.
|
| > the technocratic Plimsoll line phenomenon is a fact of life. As
| such it can become a subject of research.
|
| Well:
|
| 1) it's not a 'fact of life', as described. It's a very
| simplified, Western-centric view that assumes certain things
| about rule of law and the nature of political accountability and
| maps loosely onto some organizations, yet doesn't even manage to
| address the US or European systems it seems to be drawing its
| understanding from. In this model is the Supreme Court a
| technocratic or political institution?
|
| And 2) what makes the author think this isn't an area that has
| been extensively studied already? Political science has a rich
| literature with sophisticated work on the relationship between
| the administrative state, and democratic and anti democratic
| institutions.
|
| Seems a little bold to just wade in and claim to have noticed a
| universal rule of government... was this written by a programmer?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| > This seems to just be amateur idle musing, masquerading as
| political philosophy.
|
| This almost seems like the raison d'etre for LessWrong.
| sideshowb wrote:
| It's easy to criticise, but I'd be interested to know 1. Some
| key ways in which this model breaks down outside of the West,
| 2. A good summary of the literature you mention?
| eternalban wrote:
| _" For the purpose of this article, technocracy, bureaucracy and
| meritocracy are the same thing: It's a class of people who got
| their jobs based on their capabilities. The counterpart is the
| political class, the people who get their jobs based on their
| political views and/or their loyalty."_
|
| It seems to me that this basically begs the question of whether
| "merit" is an objective measure in a politicized society. Beyond
| that immediate critique, it is rather sloppy to equate facility
| with a domain of techne (technocracy) with facility in an
| organizational setting (bureaucracy), and a political system
| (meritocracy).
|
| Alphabet Inc. is a nascent form of global _technocracy_. CIA is
| an established above-the-law _bureaucracy_. Meritocracy is a
| _political system_ , with CPC possibly a legitimate du jour
| [overt] example. (We do have the equivalent of CPC and
| meritocracy in the West but it is entirely occult (in the strict
| sense of the word) and behind the curtain ala Wizard of Oz.)
|
| [p.s.]
|
| To address any possible misunderstanding regarding my comment and
| view point in context of the operative political regime in the
| (so called) Western world, note that it is informed by a
| historical scope that by necessity starts at the _Reformation_ in
| Europe. I am of the opinion that a political perspective that is
| framed by contemporary personalities and events is hopelessly
| myopic and distorted.
| rendang wrote:
| In what manner does Alphabet Inc. represent technocracy? What
| do they rule over? Do you mean that they have a great deal of
| indirect power over the lives of the people who use their
| products?
| jaymicha wrote:
| This kinda describes something I've always internally thought of
| as the "talkers-to-typers ratio" at companies I've worked at.
| Back in the early IT/dotcom days, the "appointee class" were
| primarily on their phones or in meetings, talking. The
| technocrats were at their computers, typing. I don't think that's
| as bright a red line these days, obviously, but I've still kept
| that name in my head and check in on the ratio every now and then
| when I'm taking a company's pulse or looking to join a new
| company.
| wrnr wrote:
| > the gripes that many Europeans have with the European Union
| seem to be mostly focused on the legibility rather than on the
| actual performance of the institution
|
| This is so wrong, I can find you a 100 million euro of miss
| allocated funds, mostly in grands to technology project under the
| umbrella of the Horizon project.
|
| These projects are not directly validated by members of the
| administration instead they pay consultants to do these work.
|
| Politicians, bureaucrats and management consulting, it is at
| least 3 layers of plausible deniability.
|
| Funny how many project I know that have an EU flag on the bottom
| of their website followed with, "this project was funded in part
| under grand proposal X", and right after that, "this project does
| not in any way share or from represent the opinion of the EU
| commission".
| hypersoar wrote:
| > In any case, the point I am trying to make is that in every
| state, in every business or organization there's a certain
| horizontal line separating political appointees on the top from
| the technocrats on the bottom.
|
| > ...
|
| > One way or another, the line seems to objectively exist. It's
| hard, for example, to think of an organization where the
| political appointees are at the bottom of the hierarchy and the
| technocrats on the top.
|
| This is an almost tautological realization. When people talk
| about "politics" in this context, they mean in the sense of
| (pulling from OED) "actions concerned with the acquisition or
| exercise of power, status, or authority." Who are the people at
| an institution who have the power, status, and authority? Well,
| it tends to be the ones interested in actions concerning it.
| There's nothing that says such people can't be subject-matter
| experts. But if you lock yourself in the proverbial basement and
| ignore the power structure, then you're less likely to take an
| active role in it.
| uncomputation wrote:
| This is an amazing start... that goes nowhere. The author says we
| can analyze the Plimsoll line and then doesn't except for one
| case in Google based on personal experience. It would be very
| interesting to see an analysis of boards of directors, executive
| boards, etc. But I also see people's points that it's not much of
| a "line" in reality. Take Craig Federighi, Apple's SW VP. It's
| obviously a mix between "appointee" (knowing the right people)
| and "technocrat" (demonstrated skill working in software
| engineering). Same with government. Saying the "political class"
| is appointed based on "political affiliation" is not quite right.
| How do you distinguish Nancy Pelosi from the average California
| democrat? Political expertise and experience, which is
| technocratic acc. to the article. Even someone like Trump, there
| is a certain "skill" there in public manipulation and sheep-
| herding. I'd gladly read a more in-depth second take.
| andrewla wrote:
| I don't think the point here is wrong, but I think the line that
| is being drawn between "technocrats" and "political appointees"
| is too sharp.
|
| The article makes the point that sometimes a political
| appointment may be made on an aptitude basis rather than a social
| basis, so we should lump them together. But this is just a
| problem of trying to impose a taxonomy on reality, which is not
| going to be productive.
|
| The vast majority of technocrats in government service are
| political appointees chosen for their domain expertise. As an
| example, the board of the Federal Reserve consists entirely of
| subject matter experts, and saying that they are not technocrats
| when the very substance of their job is attempting to apply
| technocratic solutions to economic problems.
|
| I think the overwhelming majority of people (although not me)
| feels that the Fed is better off run by technocrats -- why would
| you trust, for example, a bunch of Senators with that job, when
| they may have no formal training or experience in economics? The
| argument of people like Matt Stoller that we would be vastly
| better off by a Fed that was run directly by a congressional
| committee sounds terrifying to people who imagine that the Fed is
| too important to be relegated to rank amateurs. But the essential
| observation of most anti-technocrats is that the technocrats are
| bad at their job. Having Congress legislate and investigate where
| they can, and get out of the way where they can't, is generally a
| more robust policy than letting them defer to subject matter
| experts in areas where governmental action is relevant.
| wahern wrote:
| > The vast majority of technocrats in government service are
| political appointees chosen
|
| "Vast majority" seems like an exaggeration. But your point is
| exactly the first thing that came to mind, particularly when
| the author said that we should study the phenomenon of
| technocratic power. People do study it; that's how we get terms
| like regulatory capture.
| aww_dang wrote:
| Broadly speaking the problem with technocrats isn't always
| their expertise within their domain, but the ripple effects of
| their policies outside of their domain. The technocrat's
| policies might meet all of their metrics and be arguably
| correct within their area of expertise.
|
| Economic policies might seem sound in terms stock market
| metrics, but could be disastrous for consumers. Health policies
| might make sense from the perspective of public health metrics,
| but could be terrible for the economy.
| Misdicorl wrote:
| > Having Congress legislate and investigate where they can, and
| get out of the way where they can't, is generally a more robust
| policy than letting them defer to subject matter experts in
| areas where governmental action is relevant.
|
| Isn't this exactly what the technocrat solution is? The
| technocrats go about their business as best they can. Congress
| can (and does, sometimes) intervene with new or updated laws
| whenever they deem the technocrats are not appropriately
| serving their function.
|
| The issue (in the US anyways) is really that congress has
| completely abdicated their duty and deferred all work to either
| the presidency/judiciary and/or the technocrats/bureaucrats.
| Eliminating/curtailing the technocrats/buraeucrats doesn't make
| Congress work better, it just pushes them to cede more of their
| power to the other branches of government and thus even further
| into the autocratic hellscape.
| andrewla wrote:
| By "get out of the way where they can't" I mean that the
| government should simply forfeit its authority and say that
| this is a realm of commerce or activity where there is no
| need for government intervention. Not that they should "get
| out of the way" by creating technocratic bodies.
|
| I agree wholeheartedly that congress has completely abdicated
| their duty and actively refuses to wield power directly.
| Regarding deferring to the president, there are two
| approaches to that, one is to create rule-making bodies that
| are associated with the executive, and the other is to
| directly legislate to make clear what things are illegal.
|
| The former approach is flawed for many reasons, but most
| notably because a regulatory body will always focus its
| efforts on "pre-crime"; to try to guarantee that it is
| structurally impossible to commit a crime, rather than trying
| and convicting individuals or organizations with crimes. Once
| this process is captured, it serves only as a moat for
| existing players in the space, to prevent new organizations
| from arising that offer innovation in that space by forcing
| them to structure their businesses in the "industry-standard"
| way. And they will spend the remainder of their time trying
| to create structures within their realm to enforce
| legibility.
|
| The latter approach (laws -> enforcement) is fine. It allows
| discretion around the margins and forces accountability for
| causing harm, or, in some narrow cases, from dangerous
| recklessness in areas that have a great deal of potential
| harm in the tails.
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