–Policy making is about trade-offs between choices; the best policy makers find more choices
Chris Chenga
In global finance and economics, there are at the very most only a handful of professionals as revered as Sir Paul Tucker. Hence, it was a surprise when just a few months ago on Amanpour’s CNN show, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, concluded his interview with disclaiming remarks that central bankers of his kind are no longer agents who bring about the well-being of voting citizens. With this candid humility, he was seeking a potent summation to raising a concern that he believes demands greater and wider acknowledgement. There is a growing disparity between policymakers, such as central bankers, and their expectation to bring about democratically popular outcomes. A highly regarded policymaker with over thirty years of experience in determining British and continental Europe’s monetary outcomes, Sir Tucker is doing media rounds for his new book “Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State”.
The query of democratically popular outcomes and the role of administrative incumbents – often referred to as “technocrats” – to deliver these outcomes, is a cyclical topic in Zimbabwe that comes to the forefront in seasons that the Executive has to appoint its Cabinet and complementary administrative branches of government, the latter mostly being unelected by citizens. Many economic commentators, perhaps seeking intellectual cohort with our business and industrial elites, start to push an agenda of the need for technocratic appointments for their supposed technical expertise. Over the next few days, numerous commentaries will encourage President Mnangagwa to appoint these technical experts, and more cynically to do away with “populist” policies that are supposedly technically divorced from this expertise. Business and industrial elites will approve of these commentaries and in their own spaces of influence such as CEO forums or enclosed quarters of fraternity, lobby for a technocratic Cabinet and administrative branches of unelected power.
However, it was just over a week ago when there was mainstream avalanche demanding for the free and fair execution of elections. These very elections are meant to be protected and pronounced in a system of representation where ultimately popular will is exalted. So, after an arduous election cycle that many stakeholders, local and international, belabored to express and uphold popular will in choosing elected power such as the Executive, we have then ventured towards demanding that elected power appoints technocrats that do a good job of distancing popular will from the actual policy making?
Indeed, this is where Paul Tucker hopes to raise the irony between the reverence of technocrats and their increasing futility in delivering democratically popular outcomes. It is technocrats such as himself whom many of our commentators, business and industrial elites, hope to see as Mnangagwa’s appointees. Yet, it is Sir Tucker’s acknowledgment that with technocrats of his nature, economic realities are increasingly distanced from the well-being of people which may have been expressed by their popular will in democratic elections. This is a matter that demands deeper exploration.
Unfortunately, discourse can be rigid in Zimbabwe. For instance, when we encourage a technocratic Cabinet and administrative branches of government, it is from superficially disparaging popular will, begrudgingly compartmentalizing it in the term “populism”. Supposedly, the people may know what they want, but technical expertise should be respected and allowed to do what is best for the people. This is the greatest economic fallacy of the 21st century. And with its gained acceptance, popular will, coined as “populism”, has become increasingly marginalized as citizens are told to wait for the experts to do what is best. Technocrats are supposedly desirable because they separate politics from economic management.
Sir Tucker proposes the very opposite. He suggests that perhaps it is particularly through the over emphasis and focus of technical literature and standards, which are not contrived from political law and democratic social contracts, that technocrats start to diverge from public interest and accountability. As the former central banker shares from his experience, technocrats in his and many other technical fields now increasingly apply their professionalism in a context devoid of political representation, and instead their terms in public office serve smaller interest groups and stakeholders with a closer proximity to their professions.
This is how certain sectors perform well, but there is no society benefit from their good performance. For example, banking sectors can become profitable yet citizens have no traceable increase in their creditworthiness or liquidity. Medical companies can become more profitable yet citizens do not have affordable access to healthcare. Investors in fixed income and sovereign bonds can have high yields yet a country remains with no tangible infrastructure and efficient social service delivery. These are instances where technocrats are susceptible to professional obedience with no public representation impetus.
Central bankers abide by banking standards and rules that are conceived for financial interests; regulators of pension funds create regulation of standards and rules that may confine risk tolerance in manner that is politically constraining; trade and corporate legislators regulate commerce along rules and standards that do not attend to citizen concerns, and so forth… In many of these technical aspects, popular will is marginalized. Any suggestion of its intervention is disparaged as populism. Thus, technical professionalism is insulated from the kind democracy that exalts popular will. Maybe then, the warning here is that technocrats are not necessarily primed for popular well-being of citizens because it is outside of their technical and professional understanding.
Perhaps then, a better demand is for Zimbabweans to revert to understand that policy making is about trade-offs between choices. While technocrats may not be the best appointees, one can hope for incumbents that show an ability to create more politically desirable choices from instances where trade-offs seem shortchanging. Consider where Zimbabwe is headed in regards to its fiscal outlook. Many technocrats are primed to be agreeable to pursue harsh austere policies and rationalizations, folding their hands over prolonged period of fiscal pain for many citizens. This is the very advent which Sir Tucker despises of the central bank profession. Rather, Zimbabwe should be looking for incumbents who are smart enough to stretch alternatives for citizens by balancing the technical rules and standards of government creditors, with creative means to ease the deprivation of many constituents dependent on continued government spending. The nation would be best served, not by regulators who fold their hands when pension investment options are confined by rules and standards, but regulators creative enough to stretch alternative funding options that result in long term financing of citizen needs. Zimbabwe does not need trade and corporate regulators who resign at ensuring the nation is merely “open for business” as shown by profitable financial statements, but rather regulators that are smart enough to extract socially beneficial dividends from having business operate within an economy.
The underlying notion here is that technocratic professionals are by training and education confined within professional rules and standards. Accordingly, the best technocratic minds in modern policymaking have hardly yielded dividends beyond that professional acclaim. Sir Paul Tucker is one that is opening up to this truth. Zimbabweans themselves need to taper their technocrat expectations along this understanding. There is a fallacy in technocracy. Zimbabwe needs policymakers with empathy for the people. Policymakers who are able to find more choices in situations of trade-offs.
