Rhodes Center Podcast: ‘How Efficiency Replaced Equality in US Policy” with Elizabeth Popp Berman

On this episode Mark talks with Elizabeth Popp Berman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, and author of Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in US Public Policy.
In it, she explains how in the middle of the 20th century a new kind of economic thinking took hold among policymakers at all levels of government. It replaced bold visions of justice and equality with a more technocratic style, one whose goals could be summed up in one word: efficiency.
Over the last half century this quest for efficiency has guided policies in everything from public education to defense to environmental management. It’s dominance is also reflected in the wild proliferation of MPA programs that exist in American universities today that have cost-benefit analysis at their heart.
Elizabeth and Mark discuss where this thinking came from, and why it appealed (and continues to appeal) to so many policymakers. They also talk about what’s lost in this focus on efficiency, and why it isn’t the panacea its advocates claim.
Watch Elizabeth's talk at the Rhodes Center.
• Thinking Like an Econo...
Learn more about the Watson Institute's other podcasts.
watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts

[@4terrascorned]

0 cost equals 100% efficiency. Yours truly, The externalized cost

[@jamesjackson5955]

Incredible discussion. Will listen to it again

[@jakecarlo9950]

Prof. Blyth is a terrific interviewer, a rare skill, very well done. Would love to have video added, just adds a nice layer for those of us not multitasking!

[@spitezor]

Absolutely great stuff. Normally I get frustrated by sociology because it's so much navel-gazing, but THIS is great work. Thank you Elizabeth and thank you Mark!

[@roc7880]

if you read 19th century sociologists you are amazed how they wrote for the masses in a simple way. now it is pontification in a scholastic language. plus, the efficiency ruined the reaction to the pandemic

[@Herbwise]

Efficiency is one of the core values of Libertarian economics and thus core to our Neoliberal Age of Austerity. Efficiency is a cover to austerity. Austerity kills. Mark wrote a book called Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea.

[@jonrolfson1686]

So, in the early ‘60s MITI (Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry) Thought met 19th Century Whiggery and conspired with runaway Commerce Clause Interpretation to produce a random series of unanticipated explosions.

[@thomasjamison2050]

A strong hand at the helm always steers the ship onto the rocks. Any good idea will always be corrupted and ruined. It's just human nature, which was fine when we more or less lived like chimpanzees, but it doesn't work so well now that we don't live in concert with our natures.

[@sitraachra1]

This was great !

[@calexico66]

In the last decade I have grown to the conclusion that American bureaucracies public, private or other, have a very special logic that often runs counter the purpose of the host organizations. Often this plays itself by engineering all sorts of rules and goals that are often very complex to put in practice and difficult to verify. In some cases like in Healthcare where a full public health system would be cheaper all over the board and less complex is set as an out of the question option. And what is put in practice is a series of hodge podge policies and regulations that keep a private system that is only maximizing investor profits, while increasing prices for everyone else. It seems more like a system of deflection of responsibility of allowing bad systemic policies. And one can expand this reasoning for education and universities. In my opinion this facade of economic efficiency that postulates a priori of empirical research that a policy choice is better often is a form to justify a particular outcome for interested parties. And one can see this in the US defense procurement and R&D more clearly, with frequent cost overruns, contracting out core activities, while each new item of kit gets more expensive over time.

[@marybusch6182]

great comment. It does seem to me the bureaucracy (think Obama Cares 2000 pages) writes to benefit the 1% and in fact the regulations prevent innovation and creativity. Buffett likes his moats and the profits associated with them.

[@samuelglover7685]

@@marybusch6182 It's hair-splitting, but I wonder if it's not so much that laws, regs, rules, etc are explicitly intended "to benefit the 1%" as that the 1% are the only people allowed in the room, in a practical sense, when the laws, regs, rules etc are set. Mostly because they're the people who can best afford to deploy battalions of lawyers and shills and scutboys to shepard through arcane laws, regs, rules etc. In a narrow, technical sense it really is a kind of "representative democracy", but it's the Premium Plan, great for those who can afford it, way better than the cut-rate Basic Plan available to the other 99%. Again, it's hair-splitting. The practical outcome is pretty much as you described.

[@jimbob-robob]

Miltary Kit gets more expensive, less adaptable for civilian purposes and bought up 2nd Hand by the Police ramping up their rapid militarization...

[@kirstenmadsen2628]

Very interesting, never knew that what would become neoliberalismen started that early. Could you please do a podcast om Colin Crounch book," The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalismen" . Thank you

[@thomasjamison2050]

I appreciate your phrase 'what would become 'neo-liberalism'. I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea of a neo-liberal party that can't fight for implementing a national healthcare program.

[@tonywilson4713]

Yeah this is really interesting. In Australian all through the 90s were kept hearing the term "economic rationalization" mainly because one of our treasurers (who later became Prime Minister) Paul Keating called himself an economic rationalist. He actually drove us DELIBERATELY into a recession as part of finishing off the unions and called it "the recession we needed to have." Nobody ever really explained what "economic rationalization" was or what it was going to achieve they just kept claiming that policy after policy was "rational" Finally almost 20+ years later its been explained what they were on about. And if you didn't know Paul Keating was in the Australian Labour Party who were originally formed out of our Union movement and he helped finish our unions off in much the same way I have heard how the Democrats repeatedly betrayed the unions in America.

[@kirstenmadsen2628]

@@tonywilson4713 our version in Denmark was called economic nescessity!

[@tonywilson4713]

@@kirstenmadsen2628 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Yeah I hear ya. Paul Keating to this day keeps telling us that smashing an entire generation was a great thing to do.

[@MrMarinus18]

I think part of the reason why it affects the left more than the right is because the right has in very large part rejected reason itself.

[@fennegvdgvd]

Canadian writer John Ralston Saul defines globalism, ie the last 40 odd years, as the first time in history where economics was consideration nr 1. Everything viewed through the lens of economics. It's also just the latest manifestation of 'the dictatorship of reason in the west', as written in Voltaire's Bastards in the nineties. Funnily, spends many a page on lambasting Robert McNamara. Systems person, man of (narrow) reason, ending up with problematic results because of the imbalanced approach.

[@jimbob-robob]

60s Star Trek wrestled with these issues virtually every ep and regularly in continuing shows...

[@MrMarinus18]

Indeed. One area I see this in that catches many people off guard is actually in the amount of childlikeness in many adults, best example easily being the bronies. I think there is a tendency to look down on these fandoms but I think we should ask some serious questions for why they are attracted to this stuff on such a deep level. I think a reason is that childhood and children's media is the only place where economic reasoning has not yet completely pushed everything else to the side. Where emotions can still have power and where values still matter. We should seriously ask ourselves what makes so many adults go to Disney and MLP the way that they do. I think the answer is just that the adult world has become so soulless that many feel there is nothing there anymore.

[@pauladams1829]

So when they get rid of all the workers who'll be left to buy their goods and services?

[@jimbob-robob]

This was good...

[@buzoff4642]

The entirely undemocratic flaw is undisclosed metrics of evaluating "efficiency". "We are all better off.", when "we" is cherry picked demographics, and "better off" is measured in coinage, and not security. When the vast public has watched the floor drop from beneath them. Does $65K a year matter, when cyclical bust happens, and income drops to $0 within 6 months, and their lives turn to crap for the next 5 years? "But they have a big screen tv, cell phone, ..." when then tossed into the street, homeless. As though somehow anyone was told, you damned well better save every penny of that $65K, for the multiple years you'll live at $0. Absolutely brutal, for Gen youth, starting post Millennian, and mighty rough on the rest. Hence the growth of the No Kids demographic - something that appears to be entirely ignored by sociology.

[@roc7880]

as a non lawyer I noticed how many vague assumptions are used by judges in their opinions to decide matters of fact

[@jimbob-robob]

Why don't we have a Mark and Carrie this month??

[@samuelglover7685]

Given a choice I'd much rather have discussions like this than the M & C sessions. This interview was excellent and illuminating; it reminds me of why I began following Blyth. But with the M & C shows, as often as not I come away exasperated, wondering, "Why did I start listening to this guy?" Maybe it's the format, which is essentially two people talking at happy hour, versus the more focused and prepared discussion here.

[@jimbob-robob]

Yes happy hour...where would we be if not for the European Café culture frequented by all the intellectuals of the past 200 years...yes damn that 19C informal "happy hour" that's held us back ...I like both shows...poor me...

[@sbfcapnj]

So what you're saying is that most economists would agree that morally correct actions are intrinsically inefficient... ....isn't that the point?

[@MrSmith-gb1kn]

What is moral is hard to quantify, so the economists are maximizing efficiency with respect to what they can quantify. If they could measure morality perfectly, then their maximally efficient solutions would be perfect. If we adjust their solution towards what is intuitively moral, it will be less efficient by their original standard. (this is assuming they are trying to find the most moral solution, which they aren't either purposely and/or because nobody knows what that is)

[@samuelglover7685]

@@MrSmith-gb1kn I think that's the correct view. In an age when calculation, computation is almost a reflex response to all kinds of situations -- because computation is cheap and ubiquitous, and because numbers are "unbiased" -- an insidious effect of near-universal quantification is that if you *can't* express a thing numerically, it effectively ceases to exist.

[@jimbob-robob]

Since money is considered a measure of meritocracy and God's moral blessing and favour there is no need for quantifying moral inputs by the monetarist twerps...money is the default measure of morality as they see it..

[@sbfcapnj]

@@jimbob-robob Pretty sad, isn't it?

[@SomeOne1121]

Economists are the worst. The world would've been in a better place without economics. I say this as someone who has a master's degree in economics. This discussion just reminded me of my academic self-loathing, if that's a thing.

[@BigHenFor]

Mark Blyth said on a recent podcast is that whilst his discipline is Political Science he's always been interested in the way Economics is a tool of the powerful. And when you consider that Seneca said "Weakness springs from Cruelty, the weakness of the discipline lies from its desire to be seen as a natural science rather than a social science. In the pursuit of that aim it acquired a lot of jargon, a lot of maths, and very little insight into how people experience the economy and how they react to it. Adam Smith wouldn't recognise the discipline today as it can be seen as so obtuse and disconnected from the people it's meant to serve, that it is an indulgence afforded by civilisation rather than a true benefit to mankind. Accordingly, it is the cross-disciplinary work done by people like Blyth that are most accessible and most useful. So, don't hate yourself too much. You've learnt enough to understand the limits of your discipline, and if you wanted to, you could put that to some use. Mark Blyth has been really good at opening up Political Economy as a discipline, and being able to offer tenable solutions to current problems. We better understand those problems now and can find solutions if we put our minds to it.

[@julianshepherd2038]

"So shut your mouth, and pretend you enjoy it, think of all, the money you've got "

[@jimbob-robob]

"The Dismal Science"??

[@jimbob-robob]

@@BigHenFor you forgot to close your quote of Seneca...

[@wbafc1231]

Exactly. The vast majority of economists exists to change public policy to benefit the richest people in the world. The dismal science as it is known. They even had to invent a Nobel Prize that doesn't even exist.

[@roc7880]

efficiency is relative to time. what is efficient now could look waste later and the other way around. spending money on ICU beds never used was waste before the pandemic now it is essential

[@sandworm9528]

Very true. In general the just-in-time supply chain looks efficient but is very brittle to any volatility such as supply shocks, which is less efficient over the long term

[@01Tanthallas]

Disappointed that Prof Blyth did not narrow in on the specific meaning of efficiency in neoclassical economics. It does not mean more output with the same or less work or input, it means something very specific, see Pareto optimality.

[@paulvalentine4157]

equality is not a definable, its fairness based, and fairness is relative to the subject efficiency is ostensibly objective, but the choice of the numerator and denominator is subjective, but that is more transparent. you can look at the numbers and say, efficient for who? efficiency is a more honest hinge point

[@jimbob-robob]

Whoever could back a so called efficient economic system whereby Bezos (one man) gets $150 billion and his workers get to pee in bottles to cut down time to make quotas (and Bezos' obscene billions) is effing nuts... How is "efficiency" an honest hinge point again?

[@paulvalentine4157]

@@jimbob-robob of course you could. let's say society equally distributed the surplus value, human nature has shown that under such conditions they do not reinvest that into increasing productivity. a church, a government or a corporation is a far more reliable focal point for such reinvestment decisions. an average person consumes what they are given or hoard it. Bezos and his ilk reinvest that surplus wealth into driving productivity, a level of productivity that most individuals given their share would not be able to achieve in cooperation. These productivity gains allow all participants quality life and buying power increase. I'd rather be poor today than rich in 1850 or so the saying goes... And it's not just iphones... be it pyramids, cathedrals, or Amazon one can objectively say concentrated surplus value tends to deliver more reliable productivity gains than collective. The question to ask then, is it better? Do you want to be poorer and more equal or richer and less equal? Not obvious, but I think I know what more people would prefer. I think to honestly get past this nonsense, you have to make it that stark, and only then, once the average person would rather be poorer and more equal, you'll get a revolution. But that revolution will only last until a Vanguard emerges and acts as a focus for reinvestment, and that $150B manifests in some other way.

[@Herbwise]

Do federal taxpayers bail out banks that fail? Not sure about that. When taxes are redeemed by federal govt they disappear.

[@thefisherking78]

Economics isn't all bad, but damn is it used to dehumanize us in a lot of ways 😬

[@alloomis1635]

Madison was clear, that USA would not be a democracy . When small groups contend for power, the theme of oligarchy weaves about, but the general welfare has no grip on public affairs. Political discussion should start with the question "who decides?" Because talking about mechanics with no regard for power is fruitless.

[@julianshepherd2038]

Dundee United beat Partick Thistle today so this better be good. Are you listening Blythy

[@jimbob-robob]

Saor Alba...

[@roc7880]

I am sure Mark is more interested in Patriots or Celtics game not DU. I bet he never cared about DU even when he lived there

[@thomasjamison2050]

It is very unfair to bring Darwin into a conversation when the vast majority of people can't begin to grasp the fundamental ideas presented by Darwin. You would think the only book people ever read on Darwin was actually written by John C Calhoun.

[@mameokhun4319]

KZbin algorithm sense of humor after watching this, next video played was this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/paisaHeFmrSSr8k

[@roc7880]

who knew that oligarchy creates bloated bureaucracies? I guess everyone who read history of every empire from Egypt to Persia and Britain.