It's About Institutions, Not Rulers

Evonomics. Need I say more?

With its motto of "the next evolution in economics", Evonomics is proof that evolution need not always lead to improvements. Each day there seems to be another snarky article on the website attacking one of the fundamental principles of our civilization: Liberty. There does not seem to be a floor to how base the discourse over there can be. This time it's: "Stop crying about the size of government. Start caring about who controls it."

The titles says it all. Since Evonomics is David Sloan Wilson's baby, I'm much less willing to believe that the title was slapped on by an editor with no contact with the author, as is so Keeping with the Evonomics' track record, the title is trolling par excellence. It is a glib attempt to sell superiority to Evonomics' readers than to actually try to understand the liberal critique of state-power on its own terms.

Ultimately, Wilson's entire attempt at 'updating' Hayek is, root and stem, an attempt to justify the policies he likes, principally his notion that his arbitrary design principles are the secret sauce for national prosperity. Despite his accomplishments in evolutionary biology, he is a demagogue who poses as a man of science.

Here, I can speak from personal experience. I was at the seminar at George Mason that Wilson referred to in the beginning of the article. During the Q&A of that seminar, when Wilson was addressed with the point that basic measures of property rights, à la the Frasier Index, are robustly correlated with a nation's prosperity, Wilson seemed dumbfounded. Yes, he had harped on about the need to get good 'design principles' for states, choosing for his example the curious example of the Nordic petrostate Norway, rather than, say, Sweden next-door (because as you certainly know Sweden is a rather liberal nation). However, that property rights could be that basic design principle was a queer idea to him. The thought seemed to have never crossed his mind!

To think, a man who clearly does not appreciate the clear and vivid link between liberty and prosperity thinks so highly of himself to lecture economists on his website. So much for "the next evolution of economics".

Daron Acelmogu, who was interviewed in the article, helped to give material for the circus:

It is also the case, and this is something we emphasize a lot throughout Why Nations Fail, that most states throughout history and even today serve the interests of the political elite and are part of their economic problems, not their solution. But this is not because the state is unnecessary or evil, but because of who controls it and what capacities it has invested in and developed.

The question that political thinkers should consider is not who should rule but what laws should rule. As understood by David Hume and John Adams, a nation is only as good as its worst ruler. In "That politics may be reduced to a science", Hume wrote: "A constitution is only so far good, as it provides a remedy again mal-administration..." He goes on to assert that: "Is our constitution so excellent? Then a change of ministry can be no such dreadful event; since it is essential to such a constitution, in every ministry, both to preserve itself from violation, and to prevent all enormities in the administration." John Adams stated, and later help enshrine in the Massachusetts Constitution, that principle that a good government was a "government of law, not of man."

Wilson's shtick is aimed against that sacred principle. The rule of law, after all, would not allow for a government to enact his beloved design principles. And so Wilson seeks to re-orientate the question of constitutional politics around who should rule. But that's a re-orientation that leads straight to tyranny. And that's not just my accusation. It is a microcosm for the salient thesis of Karl Popper's The Open Society and It's Enemies:

But if we approach political theory from a different angle, then we find that far from solving any political problems, we have merely skipped over them, by assuming that the question 'Who should rule?' is fundamental. For even those who share this assumption of Plato's admit that political rulers are not always sufficiently 'good' or 'wise' (we need not worry about the precise meanings of these terms), and that it is not all easy to get a government on whose goodness and wisdom one can implicitly rely. If that is granted, then we must ask whether political thought should not face from the beginning the possibility of bad government; whether we should not prepare for the worst leaders, and hope for the best. But this leads to a new approach to the problems of politics, for it forces us to replace the question: Who should rule? by the new question: How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage? (Popper 1966: 120-121)

That's an approach to political questions that is embraced to the fullest at George Mason University and makes it one of the best economics department on earth.

All too related to this topic is Tyler Cowen's "The criticism of Trump which few will utter":

It is sad to see so many people, including those on the Left or in the Democratic Party, criticize the idea of a Trump presidency without ever uttering the phrase: “No man or woman should have so much political power over others.” I agree with many of the moral criticisms of Trump as a leader, but don’t let them distract you from this broader truth.

...

The good news, if that is what one should call it, is that the best criticisms of Trump involve the concept of individual liberty and freedom from arbitrary legal authority and pure presidential discretion. The bad news is that so few intellectuals have the relevant ideological vocabulary in that regard.