The most urgent problem facing humanity today is my missing TV remote. Yet Economists, Social Scientists and even some International Institutions like the World Bank are not helping me find my remote. Instead they claim to be doing useful stuff. However, this blinkered devotion to doing 'useful stuff' is worse than useless. It is actively harmful because MY FUCKING REMOTE IS LOST!
I have previously made fun of Katharina Pistor but I have to say I agree that 'Good governance is a bad idea' (the title of her latest article in Project Syndicate) because Modi's concern with good governance is not helping me FIND MY FUCKING REMOTE!
Pistor writes-
Once upon a time, not so long ago, commentators and experts portrayed “good governance”According to Wikipeida- 'Governance is the process of making and enforcing decisions within an organization or society. It is the process of interactions through the laws, social norms, power (social and political) or language as structured in communication of an organized society[1] over a social system (family, social group, formal or informal organization, a territory under a jurisdiction or across territories'.
Good Governance would mean good processes as opposed to corrupt, nepotistic, criminal or down right stupid processes. However, for such good processes to obtain the resource endowment must be sufficient and the people in charge must be smart and motivated. Furthermore, exogenous shocks can disrupt good processes. Thus 'robustness' is desirable.
as the sole ingredient needed for economic growth and development.
No. They were suggesting that a Government could improve its processes and performances more easily than it could change the nature of Capitalism or rid the world of the evils of Masturbation.
For many years, it was a staple of mainstream policy advice and institutional reforms.
Because it was worthwhile pointing out that shitty governance was why smart people were running the fuck away.
In a 1992 report, Governance and Development, the World Bank defined the term as consisting of four components: capacity and efficiency in public-sector management, accountability, legal frameworks for development, and information and transparency.
But you can have none of these things if you are being invaded or if armed gangs are roaming around robbing and raping everybody they meet.
The term has since fallen into desuetude, perhaps because the concept itself has lost some of its bite. While there is nothing wrong with any of its four components, or with the principle of procedural fairness in managing public and private affairs, the assumption that good governance would solve complex social and political problems was deeply flawed.
Yet, if good governance obtains there are no important social and political problems. Otherwise governance would have been disrupted.
Moreover, some critics contend that the good-governance agenda was always meant to mask underlying power structures by elevating technocratic decision-making over political struggles.
The fact is, killing class enemies or deporting minorities who ran businesses hadn't led to growth.
Whether intended or not, good-governance advocates did tend to focus on appearances rather than substance: “how” questions took precedence over “what” questions – as if good outcomes would spring miraculously from sound processes.
Pistor doesn't get that your country has to be pretty fucking poor and shitty for 'good-governance advocates' to turn up to lecture you. If people are constantly telling you that good breath is better than bad breath, maybe you should focus on the 'how' question of getting rid of halitosis rather than the 'what' question of what is or isn't breath.
Meanwhile, an entire industry emerged to define and redefine “good governance,” and to develop indicator after indicator for measuring it.
That was a waste of time. On the other hand, Modi rose and rose by banging on about how he was improving governance.
These indicators became a new “technology of governance,” with measurements serving as performance benchmarks to guide action and create the appearance of actual improvement.
Governance is a service politicians supply. It has nothing to do with guys who spend their time measuring it. The latter may be cretins. Ignore them. But you need to convince voters that you are improving governance or at least not letting it go down the crapper.
There is no shortage of critiques of how good governance is measured or implemented. But the real costs of this fad – including the crowding out of outcome-driven political action over the past several decades – have become apparent only recently.
This is like saying 'the fad for measuring how fast athletes can run or how high they can jump has led to most athletes giving up running or jumping in favour of training as time-keepers or the guys with the measuring tape at high jump competitions'.
For example, the good-governance agenda has arguably reduced policymakers’ capacity to solve complex problems,
Nope. Good governance means solving complex problems. If your agenda is to govern better it means you want to solve complex problems. This may not increase your capacity to do so- you may be too stupid- but it does not reduce it.
and distracted from the need to address socioeconomic losses in equitable and politically feasible ways.
There is no such need. Governance does not involve caring about stupid shite which virtue signallers gas on about.
Setting the “right” parameters for decision-making does not automatically produce the right outcomes.
Nobody is doing any such thing. Some stupid people may think that smart leaders won't do smart things unless some Professor puts the thing on an agenda or sets the 'right' parameters. Sadly, nobody gives a toss about Professors. I'm not inviting any around to find my Remote because they would probably shit into their cupped hands in the hope that my remote was actually up their arse. Fuck. That's probably what actually happened.
With its implicit singular focus on economic growth, the good-governance agenda downplayed the need to account for distributional consequences and negative environmental externalities.
not to mention the need to FIND MY FUCKING REMOTE! Incidentally, good governance is about finding things the voters want and giving it to them. Chances are 'negative externalities' are things they care about. Make sure your Tort law kicks ass. Regulatory Agencies may have been captured. Check.
These shortcomings have now been laid bare by the climate crisis. We need real action to stem pollution if this planet is going to remain hospitable for most of humanity, not just the few who have sufficient resources to escape its effects.
Well governed countries are taking real actions. But writing stupid shit for Project Syndicate is not a real action. It is a vain virtue signalling gesture.
Yet indicators and labelling exercises have dominated climate policymaking. Notwithstanding the rise of “ESG” (a loosely defined concept that encompasses “environmental, social, and governance” criteria), maximisation of shareholder value remains the overarching goal of corporate “good governance.”
Good management. Corporate governance is meaningless shite. It is a separate matter that a reputation for being 'Green' can lead to higher share prices if you get the PR right. Even otherwise, pretending ESG matters is a potential barrier to entry and can increase rents.
As in the past, a rent-seeking industry of advisers, consultants, and public-relations professionals has emerged to help companies and countries comply with ever-changing labels and standards; and, as in the past, there have been few tangible results.
There is also an academic industry pumping out shite like this.
Three decades after the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the world is still warming at a dangerous rate, and the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly destructive and costly.
Because the UN is useless. Defund it or at least ignore it.
Worse, heavily polluting industries have managed to get a seat at the table in international negotiations,
which are useless. Last year 600 attendees at the COP27 where from the oil industry. But it was held in Egypt. This year it will be held in Dubai.
while climate activists are locked out.
As Greta Thurnberg says, the thing is a scam.
Indeed, some are even sanctioned – including by criminal law – for breaking the rules of the game, a core paradigm of good governance that, here as elsewhere, generally serves to defend the status quo.
Very true. Oil companies should be allowed to break the law. Good governance is actually bad.
The 2015 Paris climate agreement sought to change course by establishing clear targets and committing governments to limiting average temperature increases to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Currently China is doing half of global low carbon spending. The fact is international agreements may release some credits and provide some subsidies but China will still be the big beneficiary.
Countries are required to produce action plans specifying how they will achieve these goals, and climate activists have been galvanized to hold policymakers’ feet to the fire.
Policymakers are insulated from the antics of the activists. What about the general public? Previously, we may have thought they would rebel and turn to the climate deniers. Now, we can't be sure.
But it is far easier to produce a “Nationally Determined Contribution” than to achieve real outcomes domestically or transnationally. Governments and industries have made plenty of commitments to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, but they have yet to deliver. Instead, public- and private-sector elites continue the old dance of pursuing formal compliance in lieu of meaningful changes. Labels, soft codes of conduct, reports, and PR campaigns remain the preferred implementation strategies, even though one after another has been debunked as ineffective and, in some cases, outright fraudulent.
Fair point. I think people understand that the bottleneck is storage. Is there a breakthrough around the corner? For electric cars, yes. What about for wind, solar etc? Again, the thing may be closer than we thought.
Rather than serving as a wakeup call for a change in strategy, ESG has become another gravy train for the compliance-advice business.
Though complaining about that gravy train is itself at least a gruel-train.
It offers yet another opportunity to extract rents from clients, while blaming regulators for failures. Companies dare not forego these services, because, as the global accounting giant PwC puts it, “the risks of fraud in the ESG context are increasing based on the rising pressure of regulators and the public.”
There is a rising risk of fraud, period. On the other hand, in response to the rise of China, we may expect to see increased cartelization. This makes managing targets easier though there could be a problem of cheating.
The good-governance agenda has lost its label, but it lives on, and it has become an existential threat.
No. It has lost credibility that is all. But there wasn't any 'crowding out effect'. Climate activists can directly affect electoral outcomes. Why bother with turning up for 'greenwashing' Conferences?
Combating climate change is about solving problems and winning power struggles, not checking boxes.
No. It is about developing and implementing new scalable technology. Those who do it fastest gain great power and wealth. There may be celebrity entrepreneurs like Elon Musk who leverage their success in high tech fields to push their own agendas. Indeed, in the last decade, we have come to understand that one billionaire with an agenda can move the dial on any issue, however, far from the mainstream. |
Governance is no substitute for government
Governance is the activity performed by Governments just as wanking is the activity performed by wankers.
(or management, in the private sector). We have allowed it to sidetrack us for far too long
No. Nobody really cared about guys who claimed to assess governance though no doubt a few could get some money or fame or a fun way to pass the time out of it. Still, it is certainly true, that the TV industry has been side-tracked for too long by trivial matters like making TVs and getting the little people who live inside the screen to put on nice dramas for my entertainment. What matters is I'VE LOST MY FUCKING... oh. Found it. It's always the first place you look- right?
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