All things global: February 2010

Brooks comes out with a nice little piece: The Power Elite, that is a one of those odes to a better time when the blue blooded, working class white people were in charge, and everyone was happy. Well, those who mattered were, at least. They didn't poll the rest. Anyway, onward!

So, in a nutshell, here is his argument:

One of the great achievements of modern times is that we have made society more fair. Sixty years ago, the upper echelons were dominated by what E. Digby Baltzell called The Protestant Establishment and C. Wright Mills called The Power Elite. If your father went to Harvard, you had a 90 percent chance of getting in yourself, and the path upward from there was grooved in your favor.

Since then, we have opened up opportunities for women, African-Americans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Hispanics and members of many other groups. Moreover, we’ve changed the criteria for success. It is less necessary to be clubbable. It is more important to be smart and hard-working.

Yet here’s the funny thing. As we’ve made our institutions more meritocratic, their public standing has plummeted. We’ve increased the diversity and talent level of people at the top of society, yet trust in elites has never been lower.

Yes, he is arguing that fairness and increased diversity has led to a decrease in trust.

Oh, and just to be clear... I should point out that he doesn't present any data to support his underlying thesis off increased meritocracy or the decrease in trust. I assume they must be somehow temporally related, that is... increased meritocracy --> decrease in trust. He also doesn't really tell us what institutions is he talking about exactly? It is totally unclear in the piece... financial firms, public servants, politicians? This is actually quite important because it really matters what you are talking about when you talk about trust in government.

But, let's continue -- let's put aside the little issues such as all of the academic research on trust in government in the US that points to a wide variety of other factors, I'll even dismiss the argument that meritocracy in the US is failing, that the GOP often uses distrust in the government as a central campaign plank, and even the potential benefits of distrust

Let's suspend judgement for a second and give him the benefit of suspended judgement. So, prey tell, is the causal connection? What might be this general cause of distrust?

First, the meritocracy is based on an overly narrow definition of talent. Our system rewards those who can amass technical knowledge. But this skill is only marginally related to the skill of being sensitive to context. It is not related at all to skills like empathy. Over the past years, we’ve seen very smart people make mistakes because they didn’t understand the context in which they were operating.

With some extra-sensory sociological perception, Brooks intuits that people now have less empathy or sensitivity to context now as opposed to in his earlier time of eden. No need for data when you have the sixth-sociological sense! Also -- who knew that political cronyism and segregation meant more empathy and contextual knowledge... so awesome!

He continues

Third, leadership-class solidarity is weaker. The Protestant Establishment was inbred. On the other hand, those social connections placed informal limits on strife. Personal scandals were hushed up. Now members of the leadership class are engaged in a perpetual state of war. Each side seeks daily advantage in ways that poison the long-term reputations of everybody involved.
...
Fifth, society is too transparent. Since Watergate, we have tried to make government as open as possible. But as William Galston of the Brookings Institution jokes, government should sometimes be shrouded for the same reason that middle-aged people should be clothed. This isn’t Galston’s point, but I’d observe that the more government has become transparent, the less people are inclined to trust it.

Sure, this shape is rational!Gee, it sure was nicer when everyone could just agree -- democracy is so messy! And, let's just sweep this all under a rug. All this kerfuffle about pay-offs and public restrooms are ruining my dinner parties! Sarcasm aside -- I'll concede the bit on the perpetual state of war of the politicians. However, to argue that the poisened political environment is linked to diversity and ignore things like money to congress or the gerrymandering of congressional districts is just downright loco.

Let's soldier on!

Fourth, time horizons have shrunk. If you were an old blue blood, you traced your lineage back centuries, and there was a decent chance that you’d hand your company down to members of your clan. That subtly encouraged long-term thinking.

I'm still curious of who are these "old blue bloods"... and why can't people trace their lineages back centuries now? Too much diversity makes it too confusing, I suppose. Well, I might as well risk it all then!

Now people respond to ever-faster performance criteria — daily stock prices or tracking polls. This perversely encourages reckless behavior. To leave a mark in a fast, competitive world, leaders seek to hit grandiose home runs. Clinton tried to transform health care. Bush tried to transform the Middle East. Obama has tried to transform health care, energy and much more.

Wait -- isn't Bush a classic Blue Blood? Oh, I suppose he was Ivy League educated...

There’s less emphasis on steady, gradual change and more emphasis on the big swing. This produces more spectacular failures and more uncertainty. Many Americans, not caught up on the romance of this sort of heroism, are terrified.

Glenn Beck is totally not scary.

Of course, no mention of the pattern of deregulation that began with his hero Regan. Or perhaps the real reason why people are terrified... losing their home, skyrocketing health care costs... The public option is popular -- so what is so terrifying?

Anyway, there is some more, but it is my bed-time, and now I can't get the 30 minutes back it took me to read the article and write this up. A piece that berates diversity based on a totally unclear concept, no empirical evidence, and not really much plausible theory. He also totally ignores incredibly important evidence that is linked to trust... for example, the fact that since the 70s we have progressively moved back to great gatsby levels of inequality, and the political economy that that entails - which seems especially important given that higher levels of inequality probably breeds distrust in government.

*sigh* well, at least he didn't base the argument on a story from a taxi driver.