The technocrats were never as smart as they thought they were, and now everybody knows it. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
What transpired last night in the United Kingdom represented one of the most extraordinary expressions of democracy in my lifetime. When faced with an event of such monumental significance, it’s difficult to pick any particular direction for a post like this. I have so many thoughts running through my mind and so many angles I could potentially address, it’s simply impossible to do them all justice. As such, I’ve decided to focus on one very meaningful implication of Brexit: death of the technocrats.
To start, I want to dive into one of the more interesting controversies from the weeks leading up to the vote. What I’m referring to is the statement made by Vote Leave’s Michael Grove regarding “experts.”
From the Telegraph:
On Friday night, during an interview on Sky News about the EU, Faisal Islam challenged the Justice Secretary to name a single independent economic authority that thought Brexit was a good idea. Mr Gove’s response was defiant.
“I’m glad these organizations aren’t on my side,” he said. “I think people in this country have had enough of experts.”
Mr Islam spluttered incredulously. People in this country, he repeated, “have had enough of experts?”
Mr Gove stood his ground. Yes, he said, people in this country had had enough of experts “saying that they know what is best”. Mr Gove had “faith in the British people”. The so-called experts, clearly, did not.
For his words, Mr. Gove was attacked relentlessly. His language was described as dangerous, and he was scolded for its supposed anti-intellectualism. The “very smart people” issuing these condemnations did so in their typical self-satisfied, smug manner. Nonetheless, Michael Gove was absolutely correct in his assessment, and in this post I will detail precisely why.
First of all, what is an “expert?” From what I can gather this term is bestowed upon someone with an advanced degree who has successfully maneuvered him or herself into a position of prominence within government, a think tank, central banking or academia.
As someone who worked on Wall Street for a decade, I was constantly surrounded by people with advanced degrees from the most prestigious institutions. I also know that your degree means absolutely nothing the moment you walk in that door for the first day of work. You enter a place filled with people who have battling it out for years if not decades in their profession of choice, and the only thing that matters now is performance. If you don’t perform you’re gone, and nobody’s gonna care about the long sting of letters next to your name.
The world of politics, government and central banking famously and problematically does not work this way. Look around you at all the discredited “thought leaders” who continue to be paraded around on television, and who still advise Presidents and Prime Ministers the world over. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis no changing of the guard was permitted. Sure we were given a fresh face with Barack Obama, but his advisers didn’t change. He immediately hired both Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, and that’s the moment I knew he was a gigantic fraud. To summarize, the exact same people who ruined the world bailed themselves out, avoided all accountability and continue to call the shots. These are the men and women we know as “the experts.”
To continue reading: Brexit = Death of the Technocrats
