During the G8 meetings, Pope Benedict released a new encyclical saying “there is urgent need of a true world political authority.” This authority is needed:
To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration.
The Pope has fallen for the venerable “Man in Charge” fallacy. There is a “Man in Charge” of the global economy (or, according to the Pope, there should be). So all that we need is to get the right comprehensive set of recommendations to the Man in Charge to fix the global economy.
This a fallacy simply because: there is no Man in Charge of the global economy, There never has been, and there never will be. There is no Man in Charge of any national economy either. This is not about the debate about the role of government vs. markets, this is simply a statement of fact. There are government leaders, to be sure, but they are only one among many different power centers in the political system, society, and in the economy, all with sharply conflicting interests and tools to effect change, and so any individual leader has very limited power to change things. This is true of both authoritarian and democratic systems. You may want one of those leaders to act on a particular problem, which is fine, but you should not think that leader is the Man in Charge.
The Man in Charge fallacy contaminates much of the discussion in development economics. There is an endless search for the right comprehensive strategy to end global poverty, or to achieve national economic development. Such a search only makes sense if there is a Man in Charge, which there isn’t, who would have the power to implement The Strategy. Once you realize that all power is partial, you seek ways to achieve incremental beneficial changes and you end the unproductive search for the Complete Grand Plan to solve the problem all at once.
We pay excessive attention to G8 summits because we think the G8 is the eightfold Man in Charge. That this is a leap of faith is particularly obvious this year. The G8’s solution to the problems of the poor is apparently to bore them out of poverty through sheer wordiness. They reaffirm previous reaffirmations, amplify previous amplifications, and clarify previous clarifications.
Why do we all fall for the Man in Charge fallacy? We like to anthropomorphize a complex system of multiple power centers, bottom-up social norms, and spontaneous markets, innovators, and entrepreneurs, because it is scary to think of such a complex system with no Man in Charge. Pope Benedict XVI understandably thinks it’s possible to have a Man in Charge of the global economy since official church dogma says he himself is the Man in Charge of the church (although perhaps this is just as much a leap of faith). For the rest of us, maybe it goes back to our evolutionary caveman brain wiring, when there really was more of a Man in Charge of a simple hunting band during caveman times.
Once we free ourselves from the Man in Charge fallacy, all of us are set free to use whatever talents or levers of power are at our disposal to contribute our own tiny part of a solution to one problem – and there are so many of us, that many problems will be solved. We know this because, with the greatest improvement in standards of living and social indicators in the past half century in human history, we have already achieved an amazing amount with no Man in Charge.
22 Comments
hey william!
love your stuff brother! very insightful and has forced me to reevaluate how I look at poverty and the ways that I might go about to help the issue.
I got a question- I think you would agree that there are certain situations that call for emergency relief i.e. natural disasters, war-torn areas, extreme famine. But there seems to be a fine line between providing emergency relief to a nation or community and getting them addicted to handouts. How do you find that fine line so that as humans we’re not ignoring those who go hungry, but not constantly feeding them to the point that it now becomes “our job”.
Hopefully i posed the question clearly enough and you know what i’m trying to hit at haha…
keep up the great work man!
Great post!
The pope definitely misplaced his biblic or church mindset, which I also doubt its truth.
Is not Jesus the Man in charge of the global economy? And since the Pope is Jesus’s rep. here on earth, maybe he was throwing his hat in for the job?
In seriousness though, I understand the “man in charge” fallacy as it applies to the previous entry on global health spending, but it seems out of place to interpret a spiritual doctrine in secular terms.
The encyclical also encourages charitable action on an individual level, with rather lengthy discussion on what that means. The bigger point however is that deference to an authority (religious or otherwise) doesn’t necessarily have to mean inaction in micro terms. Similarly, freeing ourselves from the “Man in Charge” fallacy does not necessarily mean that people will contribute their own tiny part to a solution. If the latter were universally true, then maybe California wouldn’t be currently writing I.O.U.’s.
What else would you expect from the Pope? Religion is itself based on the “man in charge” fallacy. For most people it is more comforting to think that a wise, powerful benevolent being is in charge of keeping the world and our lives safe. This is true for the economy and our countries–look at the rapidly developing cult of personality developing around Obama. Living with doubt, risk and uncertainty is a tough sell– even if it is closer to reality. The truth is most people don’t feel they have any power to change reality or to fix problems. They would rather turn over their responsibilities to someone who says he can fix things or who presents an easy solution. We’re going to have to figure out a better way to market personal responsibility and living with doubt.
There’s no-one in charge?
Then who am I sending the checks to?
MEN & WOMEN IN CHARGE NOT FREE MARKET!
Yes, there is someone in charge but he/she is plural and called institutional rule setting, e.g. the UN, GATT, WTO, World Bank, IMF, Basel Accords, World Court, Treaties on Disarmament, Land Mines Treaty, Treaties on Law of the Sea, Treaties for Space Exploration, etc.
Yes and its a very good thing someone’s in charge otherwise there would be more chaos and anarchy than there is.
SS
Speaking of men in charge…has there ever been a more stylish pope than Benedict?
That hat!
In our oil cursed countries there is always a petro-autocrat taking charge because he thinks that being in charge means distributing the oil revenues to his liking. Imagine a world where the citizens are allowed to be in charge.
Jeff Barnes = Hater of People of Faith?
I’ll speak only for Christianity. Even though some Christians (Health & Wealth) think God provides all and gives safety on Earth, this is also a fallacy. The world is fallen and ruled by sin and man, not God. The world after the ’second coming’ is a totally different story. But as of right now, Jesus never told us we have the right to anything (even those things the US constitution says are ‘endowed by our creator’) including our life. Death is the only thing we are sure of, since we have sinned, it is our debt to pay.
If u had ur Christian theology straight you wouldn’t believe that God is acting as a ‘man in charge’ keeping us safe on earth.
I might be a bit preachy here, but this is factual Christian theology.
For the most part, Catholicism would agree with the above points.
PS. The Pope doesn’t speak for God. Christ told us we all can speak directly with God through him.
Jeff, next time you hate on God and Christ, get your theology straight.
Dear zulusafari–
thanks for the theology lesson, but i wasn’t making assertions about theology, christianity or god just what i have observed people believe. if faith works for you and others that’s fine, but the issue is whether putting too much faith in Jesus or the pope or Barack Obama makes people less likely to address realities in society or the economy and look for ways (other than prayer) to improve their situation. I think for many people it does.
Bucking the trend
Harry S Truman
President Truman famously kept a sign on his desk that said “The buck stops here”, a gift from an avid poker player. Yet whilst we might appreciate the imagery and the sentiment, should we really rely on there being a ‘…
“there is no Man in Charge of the global economy, There never has been, and there never will be.”
Thank God.
This is connected with what I have called the “Great Man Fallacy,” drawing upon Adam Smith’s condemnation of the “man of system” in his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is not just the idea that there is some person who is (or ought to be) in charge of everything, but, further, that this brilliant person (or collection of brilliant personages) has the capacity to gather and keep before his conscious attention all the facts required to make all the millions of decisions that are daily required to make a market economy run. Once one begins to consider all the information that would be necessary to accomplish that feat–all the facts about every single individual, about each of their goals, purposes, opportunities, resources, etc., all of which change all the time–it becomes clear that no person however brilliant can do it.
But that does not prevent us from asking our leaders to do so, and from assuming that, all the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, they are competent for the task. Precisely that is the “fallacy.”
RULE OF LAW IS RULE OF MEN AND WOMEN
I see many of the commenters and perhaps our host have not understood institutional economics. Could this be what the Pope was getting at? Reinforcing international instutions? Are you refuting a straw man – the leader – because you can’t deal with the essential importance of institutions?
SS
Bill,
Enjoy your commentaries. With respect to the G8, the declaration on food aid seemed to be a real rehash of a lot of old material. The bane of us old guys is the “been there, seen that” syndrome. (I remember Bob M.’s Nairobi speech of 1973. Lot of water under the bridge in the last 36 years.)
Have you seen any solid critique of the G8 declaration on food aid?
Thank you.
Response to some comments:
sorry, there is no Man in Charge of institutional rules either.
They are a complex mix of many top down law-writers and bottom-up social norms that evolve over a long period of time.
NO MAN IN CHARGE OF INSTITUTIONAL RULES?
Institutional rules are meant to transcend any one individual, that is the idea behind the rule of law, no one man or group of men or women can way lay it. If you want to say that some of the rules are inconsistent you would have a better case but still not a good one as they appear remarkably so for rules established over many years in many venues. But perhaps this is what the Pope was getting at when he said,”a true world political authority” he never asked for one person in charge at least not as you quote him. This nostalgia for a person in charge appears to be entirely our hosts, perhaps reminiscent of his ancestors ambivalent feelings when throwing off the king. In any case it has nothing to do with the modern debate over democratic institutions and rules.
SS
SS: – nope, the institutional rule setting is not in charge. The UN is ignored whenever it doesn’t suit individual governments (see for example the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, or North Korea’s nukes), pirates in Somalia thumb their noses at the Law of the Sea, the World Bank and the IMF have failed to create economic prosperity despite their aims, drug smugglers and people smugglers operate despite massive efforts on the part of the world’s governments to stop them, etc.
And you introduce the idea of men & women being in charge, not the free market. This implies to me that you think that the free market has an existance independently of men and women. Have I misunderstood something? How do you think that works? For example, let’s take the illegal drug trade. If no man and no woman was willing to trade heroin (or another such drug), how do you think there could be a market in heroin? Markets, free or otherwise, can operate in defiance of governments, but I don’t see how they could operate in defiance of all men and women.
@Tracy W
Looks like you just smoked out the “invisible hand” which is supposed to make markets efficient regardless, hmm. I think you have a point.
As for institutional rule setting it is in charge there are simply a lot of rule breakers, including us, sort of like criminals, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any laws.
SS
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SS – I suspect we may have different definitions of being “in charge”. I think that if you can pass laws, but you can’t generally enforce them, you’re not in charge.
For example, I don’t think the Pope is in charge of many Catholics decisions about contraceptive use, judging by birth rates in Italy.