Rule By Fools Is the Rule

Yup. The skill set required to get elected is not the same skill set to govern well, and it is rare to find both skill sets in the same person.

So then, what can we learn from Gerald Ford, a man who walked into the presidency unelected to the position?

Occasionally we have fools who are disagreeable pendants (ie Carter).

Just goes to show that the people rule. We elect people that we think are like us. They represent us in more ways than just the political. As the anarcho-capitalists argue, we'd be better off with a wise king. But as the founders realized, we can't guarantee that every king will be wise. So we are left with the imperfect system of a republic. If we want the rulers to be wiser in economics, we have to make the voters wiser first. That means finding a way to reach the high school dropuouts, those who never went to college, fans of professional wrestling and those who think Elvis still lives, because they all vote.

What's wrong with DeLong's attitude is that we're not ruled by fools at all. Kennedy probably was, and Carter too, but Nixon and Clinton were highly intelligent (and two polar opposite personalities). Reagan had a degree in economics, and according to Milton Friedman who participated in his monthly economics meetings was highly engaged in policy.

There's no excuse for DeLong, who worked in Clinton's Treasury, not to understand the necessity for politicians to act like politicians.

I agree with Roger and Patrick, and would add that it's good that the (elected) people who govern us are popularity Olympians, because that at least ensures that we get what we in the aggregate want. What's the better alternative? And I think we've done pretty well notwithstanding our "foolish" governors.

I'm not sure the system is necessarily flawed. Among the most important traits of a leader are his ability to interact with others and to communicate with the public. Many brillant people are missing these qualities. Just look at Larry Summers. The best scenario is when you have a charismatic leader who surrounds himself with brillant people and heeds their advice.
And intelligence is no guarantee of successful administration. As cited above, Nixon, Carter and Clinton were among our most intelligent presidents and the country was worse off in many ways for their administrations. Eisenhower has often been described as being of mediocre intelligence, but his lasting positive legacy (integration, interstate highways) is far greater.
Finally, look at Enron Corp. Ken Lay's Ph.D. in economics didn't make that company any better run. There's no evidence a President Lay would have been any better for the country.

"I agree with Roger and Patrick, and would add that it's good that the (elected) people who govern us are popularity Olympians, because that at least ensures that we get what we in the aggregate want."

Satisfying the aggregate is no better in many cases than satisfying the wants of a dictator. If the goal of the aggregate is to supress the rights of a minority then implementing the will of the majority is not just and should not be celebrated. The tyranny of the majority is vulgarly held in dread as the chief oppressor of individual rights in America - and yet it is often applauded as just. (to poorly paraphrase Mill)

The same goes for aggregate support of harmful policies to the aggregate of the population. If a proposed policy piece is inherently damaging, but the majority of VOTERS wants to make law, then the system has failed, regardless of the perceived success of implementing the whim of the majority.

If close to perfect is impossible, the test of a system is how well it corrects errors. Friedman points out the market test is much better at correcting errors than the best of planners.

Democracy has the same advantage over any other political system. Not only do philosopher kings make mistakes, you have no way of getting rid of them if they refuse to correct their mistakes.

In democracy, at least you can vote the bums out. That is not sufficient to achieve good government, just the least bad government over the longrun.

That is why Churchill called democracy, "the worst political system, execept for any other."

Jake -- As Dan suggests, the aggregate may not always (or often) want what's best, but what would you prefer instead? Given the free flow of information and relatively high level of education in this country (the U.S.), I would rather have my fellow voters make the ultimate decisions as to who governs than Benedict XVI, Steve Jobs, Richard Posner, the Harvard faculty, the Cato Institute, or whoever else you can think of.

What else can be expected of imperfect man? In a perfect world, everyone would understand that most economic policy that is promoted by politicians are those that pander to special interests at the expense of making everyone else worse off. But as mentioned by others, having the right to change the system from one group of special interests to another group of special interests has a corrective power which allows the United States government to remain in balance. However, when one special interest exercises power for an extended period of time, it begins to corrupt and create a large imbalance. Look no further than many countries in the EU and Canada for evidence of this.

[quote]The same goes for aggregate support of harmful policies to the aggregate of the population. If a proposed policy piece is inherently damaging, but the majority of VOTERS wants to make law, then the system has failed, regardless of the perceived success of implementing the whim of the majority.[/quote]

This is the inherent flaw with Gov. Schwarzenegger's constant need to defer to the voters to pass his initiatives. If he believes that the initiatives are right, then he should risk his governorship and pass them. If they are indeed wrong, then the voters will vote him out and theoretically the next governor will come in and correct them. But if he keeps giving the people the power to make policy, then the people will always want to be involved in the policy process.

"fans of professional wrestling"

Jesse Ventura wasn't that bad, was he? :)

Bryan's piece seems remarklably like Jim Rogers' arrogant screed. Another counterpoint -- Nixon was not a "popular" person. As an adult he had few if any close friends.

Winston Churchill, a highly regardedleader, suffered repeated academic failures. He also lost re-election after the war.

Efforts by snooty columnist or academics to make sweeping generalizations of business or political leaders are bound to fail; there is no one characteristic (other then determination and persistence) that they share.

Economist must remember that policy is not solely decide by what is "optimal" according to an economic calculation but is a compromise to statisfy conflicting desires of a variety of people.

You're gonna tell me that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove were the popular guys in high school... Or that Cheney is "likeable". I'll buy the premise about W, but not Cheney. No way. There is a seriousness about the guy that is very rare today. I actually met him at a fundraiser in 1994 and he spent several minutes talking to us youths at the event. He has a reserved, subtle sense of humor that complements and reinforces his stern, serious demeanor.

Bryan, I think if you're gonna go with this "popular guys" analogy, you ought to look at leaders of the college political groups. They are popular within their groups, though not necessarily all that popular in the wider college society. To get there, one has to be very involved and likeable within the group. But the party-first types, whether Democrats, Republicans, or big-L Libertarians, are usually big dorks, and it scares me that they will be the ones running for office in the future.

Jacqueline writes:

Jesse Ventura wasn't that bad, was he? :)

He supported the Hiawatha Line, a light rail system which went overbudget by about double, hasn't met its passenger targets since the first week, and has screwed up the traffic patterns in downtown Minneapolis.

And I'm a fan of railroads.
-russ

It's precisely the inability of the hyperintelligent to sublimate their ideas to others (either Dilbert bosses or the public) that makes them ineffective. Sure, occasionally you can do and end run around the great unwashed, but usually you need their support. The Katie Courics or Ron Reagans are effective because they are smart enough to generate decent ideas, but not so smart to noticably chaffe when they compromise with the masses.

I am amazed that any one would question the quality of decision making made by Americans ... Wow!!!

Is it not clear that Americans only make rational and value maximizing decisions.

I think before on can even dream of questioning America's ability to elect true leaders we must first find a single bad decision made by a US leader. Once we find, indeed if we evere find one, we can explore if there was not some intervening factor that really altered the outcome.

Chris -

Schwarzenegger faces a unique problem in California. He has ideas that the majority of voters support that would never make it through the Democratically-controlled legislature. (A legislature put there by union money and gerrymandering, both of which are addressed on the ballot.)

We are not ruled by fools, they just aren't academics.

The most important things a President does is pick effective people for the administration, delegate, and correctly gauge rivals and foreign leaders.

If you can do those things with math or economics please send me the spreadsheet. I will adjust a column or so and win the professional poker games.

Our true idiots either collect in the Senate or are manufactured there - a generous grant will let me look into this and report what other grants will be needed.

I think Caplan only gave us half an answer.

Brad's question was not "Why are we ruled by fools?" but "why, oh why, are we ruled by THESE fools?"

Which I beleive to be a question about the content of our irrational preferences and not just the existence of them.

The evidence, at least regarding the war, does not seem to be that the cost of irrationality decreased (after all real resources are being used in the war).

What we need is a model that makes preferences and beliefs -rational and irrational - endogenous.

A theory that would tell us the precise cause of a change from Clinton-types to Bush types?

The bigger question is "Why, oh why, does our social science predict so poorly?"