Jeff Sachs' ego to the rescue: or maybe not . . .

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Nicholas Gruen
Posted in Society, Economics and public policy, regulation, Political theory
Jeffrey Sachs [Photo by World Economic Forum/ Flickr]"as much as I don’t understand it, Jeffrey Sachs really, really, really doesn’t understand it." Nina Monk, author of The Idealist

"I don’t want to argue with you Jeff, because I don’t want to be called ignorant or unprofessional. I have worked in Africa for 30 years. My colleagues combined have worked in the field for one hundred plus years . We don’t like your tone. We don’t like you preaching to us. We are not your students. We do not work for you." USAID head Pamela White to Jeff Sachs.


I just listened to yet another excellent EconTalk, this time with the author of The Idealist, which is about Jeffery Sachs' efforts to end poverty and how they ran into well known problems. Problems that not only could have been predicted in advance, but problems that were predicted in advance.

I started tweeting words to the effect that "I'd always thought Jeff Sachs was a snake oil salesman". Then conscience clicked in.  I thought I'd better check Troppo to see if I was right - as H.L. Mencken says "conscience is that little voice inside you that tells you someone might be watching". In any event, I'm not unhappy with my response to Sachs before the data was in.

In many ways this story is of a piece with my dyspeptic take on Red Tape and Political Correctness.

One might write this off as just a pity, a small silly excess to which we have gone, but it is an example of a larger phenomenon that is becoming more and more evident and unfortunate – the domination of daily life with edicts from on high. In this case, an issue arises. Those at the top of the hierarchical system then get into ‘something must be done’ mode. It is time to issue instructions. So instructions are issued. The problem is that the issue may be one of considerable subtlety. In the case of regulation, we really need the people at the coalface to be thinking about the efficiency of what they’re doing within a larger whole. It’s very difficult for the top, or the centre to get this to happen – as it has to happen at the periphery, but no matter. We’ll issue instructions.

Enough said - or enough said for now - I'm quite busy.

7 Comments

  1. paul walter
    January 28, 2014

    Enjoyed it.. a nice drop of red. I can see also there might be lines of attack as regards it, but for now, hope you have a satisfying day sorting other things. A little Mencken is always exquisite, like Drambuie.

  2. Nicholas Gruen
    January 28, 2014

    As Philip Tetlock has observed - and shown - modesty leads to improved predictions.

    One of the things that we discovered in the earlier work was that forecasters who suspected that politics was more cloudlike were actually more accurate in predicting longer-term futures than forecasters who believed that it was more clocklike.

    Forecasters who were more modest about what could be accomplished predictably were actually generating more accurate predictions than forecasters who were more confident about what could be achieved. We called these theoretically confident forecasters "hedgehogs." We called these more modest, self-critical forecasters "foxes," drawing on Isaiah Berlin's famous essay, "The Hedgehog and the Fox."

  3. paul walter
    January 28, 2014

    Hmmmmm.. a message in there some where, I guess.

  4. David Walker
    February 6, 2014

    Nick, I'm glad someone else enjoyed this too. The EconTalks seem to actually be getting better over time, in large part because Russ Roberts is pursuing the unusual course of questioning his own core beliefs and the fundamentals of his profession.

    I'm kind of surprised you didn't summon up this quote from the Theory of Moral Sentiments to describe Sacs, because it seems to fit perfectly:

    “The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.

    He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.”

  5. paul walter
    February 6, 2014

    If Sachs is a crackpot, what should we think of the likes of Joe Hockey, Gottliebsen, Mccrann, et al.

  6. murph the surf.
    February 7, 2014

    Realists perhaps?

  7. Nicholas Gruen
    February 13, 2014

    Yes, prophetic anxieties, which Smith expressed in his last, much expanded sixth edition of TMS published in 1790. They're a reaction to the French Revolution. But it's interesting because the revolution was looking pretty good at that stage - looking like it might take a shortcut to constitutional monarchy that the Poms had been through hell and back to achieve - well a civil war and a restoration and another much more bloodless revolution between 1640 and 1688.

    Smith's friend Burke of course was immediately freaked out by the French Revolution and got on his bike and started writing about it in Reflections on the Revolution. Perhaps Smith was influenced by him. But it's interesting because Smith was a big favourite of the Revolutionaries and it was only when the reaction came in England that Smith was made safe for capital - that is his message was reinterpreted as essentially about free trade, whereas he had a much more wide-ranging program - and critique of contemporary society - than that. Emma Rothschild has a book on it the relevant chapters of which are well worth reading. I may have the relevant chapters in pdf if you email me.