Gladiator (Redux)
The age of the experts may be at an inflection point.
Bureaucracy is a vehicle for experts to express their control and influence. It is not the only possible channel for this purpose, but it has become a dominant one in the modern world.
In ancient Rome, one of the earliest manifestations of this cult of expertise was religion. The priests were the high experts whose opinions carried tremendous influence.
‘In ancient Rome, individuals who assumed the roles of priests and priestesses came from a variety of backgrounds. Many priests belonged to aristocratic families referred to as the patricians, who held influential positions within Roman society. The priesthood often followed a hereditary pattern, passed down through specific families, thereby reinforcing the connection between the state and religious institutions. Conversely, priestesses were primarily selected from noble families, with the criteria for selection varying based on the particular deity they would serve.
‘The responsibilities and duties of priests and priestesses in ancient Rome were multifaceted. They engaged in a wide range of rituals, interpreted omens, and offered sacrifices to secure the favor of the gods. The Pontifex Maximus, the highest-ranking priest, held a prominent position overseeing the religious integrity of the Roman state. Other prominent priests, including the Flamines and Augurs, served specific deities and conducted specialized rituals.’
But, here’s the kicker:
‘The priests and priestesses of ancient Rome occupied revered positions in society, serving as mediators between the gods and humans. Their responsibilities were vital in the practice of religious ceremonies and ensuring a harmonious connection between the Roman state and the divine realm. As inheritors of their roles and possessing overlapping political influence, these religious figures held significant sway in shaping both the religious and political fabric of ancient Rome.’
The priests were patricians who came from money and performed a variety of functions that shaped the culture and the politics of Roman life.
Sound familiar?
Who are the priests in the modern world, the Brahmins who take it upon themselves to interpret events, prognosticate, and make policy?
Today’s priestly class is made up of experts. They are the elite management consultants who Boards hire for strategic advice. They are the economists in government agencies laboring over antiquated economic models. They are the investment bankers pushing M&A transactions. They are careerist military officers who cultivate relationships at the highest levels of politics. They are the medical establishment whose policies during the recent Pandemic merited (at least, in their minds) censorship and restriction of debate. They are the talking heads who appear on television news programs.
Instead of examining the entrails of sacrificed animals for guidance, these experts rely on frameworks and models, assuming that the world in which we live is not complex. They cannot accept the premise articulated by Nassim Taleb that “the ensemble behaves in ways not predicted by the components … Studying individual ants will never (one can never say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates.”
When conditions are stable (when the Brownian motion slows down, in a sense), our forecasts cannot be too far off the mark, one way or the other. However, when things heat up, when the game gets faster, we lack the ability to understand the interactions and adaptability in real-time. We may fool ourselves in retrospect with ex post facto explanations that sound reasonable. The “pop history” of the writeups interpreting events such as the Global Financial Crisis or the Great Depression may entertain us, but they are insidious in a real way because they train us to think that it would be possible to understand such phenomena in real-time … when it invariably isn’t the case. They condition us to believe in the experts and their ability to augur the divine will that drives the system.
We’ve updated our ability to make meaningful predictions and policy recommendations from animal guts to doing so with mathematically tractable models and glossy PowerPoint presentations that are abstracted from the messy reality of the truth.
We can thank Max Weber for this.
‘Max Weber, one of the founders of modern social science, defined bureaucracy as an administrative system with a hierarchy, clear authority, strict rules, impersonality, and an emphasis on efficiency.
‘He then shows how these features can create an efficient organization.
‘Weber argues that a bureaucratic organization is one in which tasks are divided into small, manageable units, and each unit is overseen by a specialist who has the necessary skills and knowledge to carry out the task.’
All theory is simplification, but none more so than Weberian bureaucratic theory, advocating the outsourcing of judgment and power to these experts.
Today’s bureaucracies bear little resemblance to his ideal. Yes, there is hierarchy, but it can become muddled when these agencies come into conflict. Imagine a government ministry where there is a proliferation of branches, each their own fiefdom. At some point, there are too many; the internecine squabbling makes action impossible. There is no clear authority when multiple experts claim dominion over the same issue. Often, these conflicts have evolved without any forethought. While there may be strict rules within a branch (and even that is a stretch assumption), the rules for more complex, cascading interactions are opaque and driven by power. Impersonality? Ha. These experts are incapable of divorcing themselves from their personal interests because they are human beings. Efficiency? Experts are often called upon to opine, not deliver. They are strategists too often, operators not frequently enough. Their positions are removed from actual deliverables to the point that to speak of an efficient expert is to try to describe a frog that can sing well.
Bureaucracy is readily identifiable when the marginal benefit to the bureaucrat exceeds the marginal benefit to the body as a whole, even as they are both dwarfed by the marginal cost of program delivery.
The benefit the expert acquires could be in one of the three currencies: money, status, and power. But these are interconnected pools of capital increasingly; status, power, and lucre are fungible. Just look at the politicians who enrich themselves by having their families trade on their names. Consider the New York Times’ reporting on China.
‘But evidence is mounting that the relatives of other current and former senior officials have also amassed vast wealth, often playing central roles in businesses closely entwined with the state, including those involved in finance, energy, domestic security, telecommunications and entertainment. Many of these so-called princelings also serve as middlemen to a host of global companies and wealthy tycoons eager to do business in China.’
Or JP Morgan’s $264 million settlement for hiring the children of senior Chinese officials:
‘US bank JP Morgan Chase is to pay $264m (£212m) to settle claims it hired the children of highly placed Chinese officials to gain business in China.
‘The Department of Justice called the scheme “bribery by any other name” and said it threatened national security.’
The way to bribe an official is through his children.
Yet, power is its own currency because, for some, there is a potent romance in having dominant control over others.
We have evolved to arrange ourselves hierarchically. We accept dominance. Some of use seek to dominate.
‘In the zoological field of ethology, a dominance hierarchy (formerly and colloquially called a pecking order) is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social groups interact, creating a ranking system. Different types of interactions can result in dominance depending on the species, including ritualized displays of aggression or direct physical violence.’
So, what’s the prediction? After all that’s what this Substack is all about?
The current volatility in social, economic, and geopolitical dimensions globally is making the inefficiency of our institutions increasingly difficult to deny. The instability of the environment highlights the weaknesses inherent in these “expert systems” and they will lead to a fundamental re-ordering of our governance structures in the coming decade. This is consistent with George Friedman’s theory of cyclic convergence in the 2020s.
It ain’t going to be pretty, but what emerges on the other side will be a far more dynamic, adaptable, and ultimately humane approach, at least in the West.