GroupThink – what always brings power down

One of the features of systems of power is what Noam Chomsky has called “Manufacturing Consent” – or the insidious imprinting by national educational systems and media empires of simplistic stories of heroes, villains and other questionable narratives….. Unfortunately, however, for the powerful they end up believing their own propaganda – dissenters who suggest that the world is not as the official organs are portraying it are ridiculed and marginalised.

“Groupthink” came into our language as a result of a 1972 book - and Paul t’Hart’s subsequent  “Groupthink in Government” (1994) helped spawn a veritable industry…

Organisations and governments should therefore all be alive to the dangers of complacency and some indeed have gone to the lengths of appointing “devil’s advocates” to challenge the status quo…. “Rebel Ideas” is a recent good read on this. 

But, somehow, all the checks consistently fail – as we have just seen, tragically, in Afghanistan. To many of us, of course, we should never have been there in the first place but the question on everyone’s lips these days is how on earth so-called “intelligence” – let alone the “chattering classes” - could have got things so wrong. It is a question that seems to have been recurring rather too frequently these past few years – vide Brexit and Trump 

One of the answers is that people have been looking in the wrong places – if they really wanted answers about Afghanistan, they should have been asking basic questions about money flows and social systems.

-      Take, for example, this report just issued by the independent British Think-tank ODI – Lessons for Peace which demonstrates that the cash from the poppy trade outstrips disbursements from the Kabul government by a factor of 10 to 1.

-      Or this short article from Anatol Lieven that explains the role that social networks have played in the collapse of any resistance to the Taliban 

But Presidents and governments prefer to listen to the assured voices of the military who promise victory – and seem to have a built-in resistance to listening to the doubtsayers who bring bad news….. And, since the start of the Vietnam war, there have been any number of voices questioning the conventional wisdom. One of the most prominent has been Paul Rogers (suffering perhaps from his designation as Professor of Peace Studies – although increasingly recognised by security advisers). Even before 9/11 he was making the argument against the belief that military power could defeat guerrilla tactics – as you can see from his collected writing here 

Update; 

Of all the analysis I've seen since the weekend about the Afghan tragedy, this is the best I've read. It's from a marvellous small weekly E-journal Scottish Review

Tariq Ali has a good briefing - another excellent source of information is here

But perhaps the best is this recent briefing from a couple of anthropologists who worked in the country some decades ago and this one from an unknown pakistani  

The Importance of Critical Reading

Five weeks ago, I shared a list of books which I felt would help me as I tried to draft a conclusion to the book I’ve been working on for the past few years about the sense of crisis which has gripped us westerners since the start of the new millennium.

I confessed that I was one of these gullible readers who imagined that reading would somehow transmit important messages to my brain – and that I lacked the patience to formulate some questions with which to interrogate a book before I opened it… 

And lo – after 5 weeks – despite having recognised the importance of these books, I’ve failed utterly to follow through. The books lie unread – perhaps because I couldn’t be bothered to pose the sorts of questions which would help me identify those sections of books which seemed to offer answers

So, I’m having another go – but I never learn….I’ve added a few more books!! 

But, this time, I’ll start at the beginning – and try to work my way through the list – gradually…..hopefully posting as I go?  

The first column gives the book titles – in chronological order – starting with the earliest. The second column explains why I think they could be useful 

Title	First Impressions
Development Betrayed – the end of progress and a coevolutionary revisioning of the future; Richard Norgaard (1994)	A profound and clearly-written explanation of what has gone wrong….To keep the narrative going the main text avoids footnotes and references which are put at the end in a superb 65=page set of bibliographic notes
Why the Third Way Failed – economics, morality and the origins of ”the big society”; Bill Jordan (2010)	This, for a social democrat, is one of the most important questions – why did a consensual approach which rebuffs both left and right ideologies fail? Was it the absence of a serious approach? Or are we doomed to be tribal?
Common Ground – democracy and collectivity in an age of individualism Jeremy Gilbert (2013)	The title certainly points to what I consider the central dilemma of our times – although Gilbert’s language is too suffused with French “constructivist” thinking to make much sense to me….what, for example, are we supposed to make of this section – “It explores the implications of ideas of affect for a non-individualist conception of political agency, and goes on to develop these ideas with reference to philosophical reflections on the nature of decision to be found in the work of Derrida, Levinas and Laclau. The chapter then asks what some of the political and analytic implications might be of such a conception of agency, in particular what the implications might be for thinking about cultural and aesthetic experience, examining the arguments for and against Nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ and the ongoing value of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque”
Unaccountable – how the elite brokers corrupt; Janine Wedel (2014)	Wedel is an anthropologist – and applies those skills to the contemporary political system of the USA
Rebalancing  Society – radical renewal beyond left, right and center Henry Mintzberg (2015)	One of my favourite little books which I’ve brought in as a measure for the other books. He’s basically got it all – strong analysis of what’s wrong; recognition of the importance of worker coops and social enterprise; and of the need for a shift in power
Back to the future of Socialism Peter Hain (2015)	Most of the books in the table are by academics but this one is by that rarity – a thoughtful and caring politician. The title is a reference to the classic 1956 “Future of Socialism” and is a useful update
Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty in a post neo-liberal worldBill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (2017)	I like the look of this book – written by an Australian economist- which, unusually for the time, argued for a more activist role for the state. His co-author, interestingly, is an Italian journalist. It’s just that I get impatient with economic arguments these days
A Research Agenda for Neoliberalism Kean Birch (2017)	Seems to be one of these rare clearly- written books which asks the questions citizens want answers to. He seems to be a sociologist?
Wrong Turnings – how the left got lost; Geoff Hodgson (2018)	Hodgson is both a political economist and social democrat and has a strong analysis here
Why the Left Loses – the decline of the centre left in comparative perspective; R Manwaring and P Kennedy (2018)	The classic book on social democracy (Berman) was published 15 years ago. This is a more recent assessment from Australians which looks at the lessons from recent experience. See reading list here
Is Socialism Feasible? Geoffrey Hodgson (2019)	Hodgson writes clearly - and is prepared to face hard truths
From What Is to What If – unleashing the power of imagination to create the world we want Rob Hopkins (2019).	Hopkins is an environmental activist who founded the Resilient Towns movement.
The Demons of Liberal Democracy; Adrian Pabst (2019)	Pabst is a Third Way man who abhors left and right. I felt this would challenge some of my preconceptions
Winners take all – the elite charade of changing the world; A Girdiharadas (2019)	One of the problems progressives have is that the devil has stolen a lot of his tunes.
Goliath – the 100-year war between monopoly power and democracy; Matt Stoller (2019)	very important review suggests the author has swallowed the liberal competition ideas of economists too literally; and has underestimated the power of class struggle in the post-war US achievements
The Free Society in Crisis; David Starkey (2019)	Have included this curious book largely from admiration of the author’s courage in limiting his reading list to books that are more than 50 years old
The evolution of communitarian ideas – history, theory and practice Henry Tam (2019)	Communitarianism is an important strand of progressive thought Tam is a very thoughtful and excellent writer who blogs here
The Third Pillar – how the market and the state leave the community behind Raghuram Rajan (2019)	an overdue analysis of the huge role which community bodies have to play in the future which was all too easily dismissed by the loose talk of ”The Third Way” and the ”Big Society”.  Although we do have to ask why it is that ideas apparently attractive to mainstream opinion were never taken seriously....
The New Class War – saving democracy from the new managerial elite; Michael Lind (2020)	I want to like this book – but feel the argument that managerial power needs taking down is hardly likely in itself to lead to the rebalance of power we need
Twenty-First Century Socialism; Jeremy Gilbert (2020)	This is a short and very readable book.
Unrigged – how Americans are battling back to save democracy; David Daley (2020)	The book may have a focus on the US but the move to discredit democracy and disenfranchise voters is widespread (eg contemporary UK) as is evident from books with titles such as “Against Democracy” (2016)
Rentier Capitalism – who owns the economy? Brett Christophers (2020)	A British economist gives us a good sense of the curious direction the British economy has taken. Strongly influenced by the work of US economist Michael Hudson, famous for his “Killing the Host” and “J is for Junk Economics”
Futures of Socialism – the pandemic and the post-Corbyn Era; ed G Blakewell (2020)	A series of short, succinct statements from pro-Corbyn social scientists working in the UK. Gives a very good sense of what is currently fashionable
Authoritarianism and how to counter it; Bill Jordan (2020)	The sociology author of ”Why the Third Way failed” takes on the question of why voters have turner again to ”the hard men” and what we can do about it...
Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century ; Andreas Malm (2020)	Malm is a Swedish economic historian/ecologist who has become, in the past decade, one of the most radical of the global warming campaigners. In this latest book, he explores the very different paths governments have taken faced with the Corona and Climate challenges; and maps out a very different route…  There’s an interesting interview with him here
Share the Wealth – how to end rentier capitalism; Philippe Askenazy (2021)	Too many anglo-saxon economists dominate this field – so it’s good to get a French view (a translation of a 2016 book)
Mission Economy – a moonshot guide to changing capitalism; Mariana Mazzucato (2021)	This Italian economist now based in Britain is one of the few economists who has been prepared to argue strongly for public investment and an activist role for government – see also Bill Mitchell (above) and Andrew Cumbers
Consequences of Capitalism; Noam Chomsky and Mary Waterstone (2021)	Very disappointing book – based on recent lectures delivered by Chomsky. And it shows….with the narrative often jumping into distracting stories.
Post Growth – life after capitalism ; Tim Jackson (2021)	The elephant in the room…. Written in a refreshingly accessible style
The Return of the State – restructuring Britain for the Common Good Ed P Allen et al (2021)	A book calling for a rethink on globalisation and the place of financial capital – with contributions from people such as Robert Skidelsky, Ann Pettifor and Stewart Lansley – questioning the role of financial capital.

 

The Church of Economism

Mine was the modernist generation brought up on the Huxleys, HG Wells, GB Shaw and Bertrand Russell.

Keynes and the Atom Bomb were probably the two factors which helped us brush aside the doubts about modernity which had plagued the inter-war generation and place our faith firmly in science. And the new discipline of Economics was part of our new-found confidence. It was Gordon Brown’s fate to pronounce the “end of boom and bust” just before the global financial system imploded in 2007. But economists have established themselves for at least 50 years as the new priesthood on whose words we all hang……. 

That is slowly changing - 2008, of course, should have been the death knell for economics since it had succumbed some decades earlier to a highly-simplified and unrealistic model of the economy which was then starkly revealed in all its nakedness…..Steve Keen was one of the first economists to break ranks very publicly way back in 2001 and to set out an alternative - Debunking Economics – the naked emperor dethroned.

This coincided with economics students in Paris objecting to the homogeneity of syllabi and reaching out to others – creating in the next 15 years a movement which has become global. This is a good presentation on the issues (from 2012) and an excellent little Penguin book The Econocracy – the perils of leaving economics to the exerts by Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins (2017) is based on their experience of stirring things up on the Manchester University economics programme. The book’s sub-title says it all! 

But the groundwork for the challenge to the what some have called the imperialist grab of economics had been laid much earlier – with EJ Mishan’s “The Costs of Economic Growth” (1967); Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful – economics as if people mattered” (1973) and Hazel Henderson’s “Creating Alternative Futures” (1978)

And it was some 2 decades ago that the notion of economics as a religion was first aired; and has become an increasingly serious proposition – as you will see from this table I have constructed. 

I still remember the moment when I realised that the scholastic disputes during the Reformation were exactly the same as can be found amongst contemporary economists. I was reading Diarmaid MacCulloch’s large volume about the Reformation in my kitchen in Bishkek in 2005 or so when it suddenly became so obvious. But, until I did this table, Susan George and Brian Davey were the only people I knew making this argument. But yesterday I came across of Rapley’s “Twilight of the Money Gods” and googling unearthed the rest…… 

Those wanting a good short intro to the subject might want to read Richard Norgaard’s article Church of Economism and its Discontents

Key Books on the subject of Economics (and management) as the new religion

Title	Author’s background	Comment
Faith and Credit – the World Bank’s Secular Empire Susan George and Fabrizzio Sabelli (1994)	Political scientist and activist – and anthropological economist	The first book I remember making this argument
Economics and religion – are they distinct? HG Brennan and A Watermann (1994)	Brennan is a political Philosopher	A new discovery for me
The Faith of the Managers – when management becomes a religion; Stephen Pattison (1997)	UK Management and theology	The only title which seems to make the connection
Economics as Religion – from Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond ; Robert H Nelson 2001	US Economist with strong interest in history of the discipline and environment	Nelson was a very distinguished academic
Political Economy and Theology since the Enlightenment; A Watermann 2004	Economist	Very thorough exploration
From economics imperialism to Freakonomics Ben Finer (2009)	UK Economist
Is God an Economist? By S. Wagner-Tsukamoto 2009	Interdisciplinary scholar
Economics as Good and Evil -= the quest for economic meaning Thomas Sedlacek (2011)	Economist	And, as a very young man, was adviser to Vaclev Havel
Credo - economic beliefs in a world in crisis; Brian Davey (2014)	Started in economics and moved to community development
Twilight of the Money Gods – economics as religion and how it all went wrong John Rapley 2017 – book can be read here	Development economist who mixes practice with theory	And changes his career path – at one stage becoming a journalist
Bettering Humanomics – a new , and old, approach to economic science; Deirdre McCloskey (2021)	US Economic historian	And a superb writer – although this book makes no concessions
Religion and the rise of capitalism; Benjamin Friedman (2021)	US economist	Detailed book which moves from Adam Smith to focus on US

  Those wanting a good short intro to the subject might want to read Richard Norgarrd’s article Church of Economism and its Discontents

What contemporary detective television tells us about the UK

I haven’t posted for almost 2 weeks – my readership has therefore plummeted from some 300 a day to about 50…..confirming my feeling that blogs are like drugs – people need a fix on them….indeed become dependent…..I’m not sure if I want to encourage such habits – so perhaps I should follow Chris Grey’s example and make my posts WEEKLY

Or, when my creativity languishes, put up a link to one of the (many!) good posts which readers may have missed – for example this post on mapping values and world views 

And I’m conscious that I’ve not made much use this year of my Snippets feature – which I use to store interesting links which I haven’t been able to develop into a single post. In that spirit, let me share an interest I have in one cultural aspect of contemporary Britain – the television detective genre.

My mother was a great fan of Inspector Morse which ran from the late 1980s to 2000 – precisely the period I was out of Britain. I would stay with her for a couple of weeks each year from one of the dozen or so countries in which I was based until her death in 2005; and became quite addicted to it myself.

Starting in 2013, Endeavour portrayed a younger Morse starting his career in 1965….There was, of course, a strong element of both elitism and class in the series – based in Oxford, with the University buildings and its academics playing a prominent part in the narrative.

It’s taken me some time to realise that there is in fact a much better UK detective series – namely Vera, based in Newcastle and the superb surrounding Northumbrian landscapes and coastlines. Its strength is the realistic portrayal it offers of the different employment challenges of contemporary Britain – whether its immigrant workers, fishing communities, construction sites, ex-mining communities or caravan parks and holiday lets….

I’m surprised noone’s done a post-doctoral thesis on the series. I wrote a lot last year about what Brexit told us about the UK. Proper study of the Vera series – currently running to 11 – would probably tell us more than most academic studies!

Change the World?

I haven’t forgotten my intention to address Henry Mintzberg’s point that the Reformation offers an example to give us hope in these difficult times - when fatalism and laisser-faire seem to have such a grip on our minds. It’s just that – before I try to do his argument justice – I felt I needed to explore my own confusions a bit more….. 

I’ve posted a couple of times about the difficulty I have in getting my head around systems thinking.

I’m never very sure whether to damn the systems thinkers in with the complexity theorists but continue, for the moment, to give the former the benefit of the doubt. It was the title of Systems Thinking for Social Change; David Peter Stroh (2015) which caught my eye - anyone interested in social change, I reasoned, must have an inclination to activism and therefore to resist the siren calls from the agents of laisser-faire. Stroh’s prose is too typically gushy American to attract me to his thought.

Systemic Thinking – building maps for a world of systems (2013) seems a better bet, written as it is by an Englishman (John Boardman) and American - Briand Sauser - with a more friendly presentation, short chapters and diagrams. And its concluding chapter has a nice, clear, summary of the book’s basic argument - 

This is a book about problem-solving, but with a difference. We recognized three vital characteristics, which for far too long have been overlooked or neglected in problem-solving books.

First, we identified that while solutions undoubtedly “deal with” the problems to which they relate, they also create a new wave of problems in their wake. In our complex world, this problem-generating characteristic of solutions cannot be ignored, and problem-solving itself must take care not to become problem spreading in nature. It has been widely recognized for some time that problems themselves can spread or cascade, as in the case of electricity supply networks (e.g., the New York City blackout) or the growth of cancer in the human body (e.g., prostate cancer in adult males). But the realization of problems elsewhere caused by the creation of a solution in some particular area of interest, removed from these affected other regions, is both alarming and unsettling. The way forward that we proposed in this book gives due recognition to this phenomenon.

Second, the emergence of a class of person known as problem solver, identified by skills in problem-solving, has reduced the burden on the class known as problem owner, to the extent that the latter has effectively transferred the problem and subsequently lost ownership, and in so doing has created a false picture for the former who cannot therefore avoid endowing the solution with the problem-spreading gene. This distinction of classes, one that effectively divorces the two, must be overcome, and problem solving in our complex world must restore the vitality of problem ownership among those who sense the problem in the first instance.

The third characteristic is something we can more easily recognize if we stand back from the first two. When a solution to a given problem also leads to a wave of new problems, then problem solving essentially becomes problem spreading. When problem solving attracts a new breed of people who become known as problem solvers, then responsibility for the problem is in effect transferred—from those it first affects or who sense it, with attendant diminution in problem ownership. We might say problem solving becomes problem dispossession. So standing back leads us to conclude that the originating problem is strongly connected to a host of “accompanying apparatus,” including owners, solvers, and problem-solving approaches. It is this connectedness that marks out this third characteristic that we believe has hitherto been sorely neglected and about which this book has much to say. Moreover, this book has much to offer by way of a responsive way forward. Our way forward is what we call systemic thinking. It is a way of thinking that emphasizes connectedness and enables people to see the bigger picture; one in which owners, solvers, solutions, problem solving methods, and problem descriptions are portrayed as a whole system.”

In a sense, however, I don’t need convincing. I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t believe in “human agency” – ie the possibility that -  as Margaret Mead famously put it – 

“never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has”.

 And so far no book has spoken to me on this theme louder than Robert Quinn’s “Change the World” which I summarised here

Fighting Fatalism

Hayek was bad enough – with his belief that markets would solve any problem. But the complexity theorists seem to have driven the last nail into the coffin of Free Will. John Urry was a much-lamented UK sociologist with a superb article here describing and analysing complexity theory about which he also wrote a book (“Global Complexity” 2005) 

My generation believed three things which kept its sanity –

-       Governments had effective machinery and tools at its disposal to deal with most problems

-       Political parties reflected public feelings and had some influence over governments formed from its leading members

-       Enough fuss and pressure from society – whether media, public opinion, voluntary organisations or trade unions – would get results

We no longer believe any of these things – indeed anyone who offers such judgements is seen as old-fashioned if not eccentric…..

A combination of globalisation, privatisation and neoliberalism has sucked the lifeblood not only from governments but from political parties – leaving social movements to perform as a colourful, pantomime distraction.

Fortunately, however, there are still a few voices left – bravely articulating detailed messages which point to a better way. People like Yanis Varoufakis and George Monbiot and, for those prepared to do some really serious reading, authors such as Mariana Mazzucato  - with her latest “Mission Economy – a moonshot guide to changing capitalism” to which the great blog Crooked Timber is devoting a discussion series from which I’ve taken an extract - 

She starts from the view that at present both capitalism and governments are dysfunctional. In Chapter 2 she identifies the four sources of the problems of capitalism as (1) the short-termism of the financial sector (including the deeply problematic issue that, given the role of financial institutions, its profits are privatized but its losses are socialized, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis); (2) the financialization of business; (3) climate emergency and (4) slow or absent governments. 

In Chapter 3, Mazzucato points at New Public Management theory as the culprit for the widespread myth that failures of the public sector are more serious than failures of the private sector, which has been used to justify the massive increase in privatizations and outsourcing. And this, Mazzucato argues, has led to a reduction of the capabilities in the public sector, which in turn makes it harder to change weak or bad policies. The main problem with the government right now is not its size, but rather that its capacities, skills and expertise have been diminished, which has also demoralized public servants.

What we need instead, is ‘Moonshot thinking’, which entails that governments should have an ambition that is so inspiring and concrete, that it motivates all to contribute to reaching that goal; this is what Mazzucato calls ‘a public purpose’ – the most essential thing a government should have, and which will motivate its partnership with business. Innovation and commercial success will happen along the way. 

Chapter 4 describes the Apollo program in the 1960s as an example of what governments can accomplish if they have a clear mission that all are contributing to. At that time, the mission was “bring a man to the moon and safely back to earth” – in the historical context of the Cold War (not an unimportant detail, perhaps!). The Apollo program was driven by mission-oriented innovation, full with great risks and many failures from which lessons were learnt. At the early stages, poor communication within NASA seemed its weakest point; apparently this problem was addressed so successfully that the dynamic communications set-up within NASA was later copied by businesses. There were many other problems with the Apollo program, and Mazzucato argues that solutions were found by organizations and people willing to experiment, rather than picking supposedly good solutions in advance. Talented and hardworking people, risk taking and adapting, are key aspects of a successful mission. 

Chapter 5 explains how mission-oriented thinking looks like by applying it to several missions for our times: the Sustainable Development Goals, the American and European Green New Deals, accessible health, and narrowing the digital divide. In all of these missions, the aim is to catalyze collaboration between many different sectors, and to change our view of the government as regulating and correcting markets and being a lender of last resort to being the creator and shaper of markets, and an investor of first resort willing to take the high risks that are needed for long-term thinking, and who aims to crowd in private funding and collaborations. 

Chapter 6 sketches how the political economy of this capitalism-with-a-public-purpose would look like. Mazzucato writes that there are 7 pillars that a political economy that can guide a mission-oriented approach should have:

(1) a new approach to value;

(2) markets as being co-created and shaped by the government;

(3) organizations that have the capabilities to co-create for the public purpose, including taking risks, experimenting and learning;

(4) an approach to finance that does not start by asking what the budget is, but by “what needs to be done” and as a derivative question asks how to pay for it;

(5) fighting inequality not only be redistribution but first of all by predistribution;

(6) reimagine the relation between government and businesses as a partnership around a common goal; and

(7) new forms of participation, debate, discussion and consensus-building.

Three other relevant books are -

- Bill Mitchell’s Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty in a post neo-liberal world (2017) is from a leftist Australian economist. 

- Futures of Socialism – the COVID pandemic and post-Corbyn Era; ed Grace Blakely (2020) is a little book which contains short pieces from those sympathetic to the direction Corbyn was trying to take the Labour party.

- The Return of the State – restructuring Britain for the Common Good Ed P Allen et al (2021)

A book calling for a rethink on globalisation and the place of financial capital – with contributions from people such as Robert Skidelsky, Ann Pettifor and Stewart Lansley – questioning the role of financial capital.

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii129/articles/javier-moreno-zacares-euphoria-of-the-rentier