… is a line from Ian McEwan’s latest novel “Nutshell.” As a
description of the depressing state of public debate on many of the key contemporary
economic and political issues, I find it very apt. Apparently I am not the only
one. ‘Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With the Language of Politics?’ is a book
by Mark Thompson, the former director-general of the BBC, in which he analyses
the current state of political discourse and the way in which we conduct our
debates on issues of great public importance (click here
for The Guardian’s review or here for the FT’s take on it).
One of the points which Thompson makes is that the public is
no longer prepared to take the word of experts on a wide range of issues,
preferring instead to rely on views distilled from the vast realms of
cyberspace. He argues very cogently that far from creating a forum for open
discourse, the internet has instead allowed individuals to seek out like-minded
people with the result that they preach to the converted and engage in closed
rather than open discussions. Moreover, the constant search for clicks has
resulted in ever more shallow debate and, as Andrew Rawnsley put it, “political discourse in which there is no
longer any presumption of good faith between opponents.” (The irony of
making these points on a personal blog has not escaped me).
It is this environment which has allowed the likes of Donald
Trump to flourish – a man whose latest outburst against Mexican immigrants ("We will build a great wall along the
southern border. And Mexico will pay for the wall, 100 percent. They don't know
it yet, but they're going pay for the wall”) has allowed him to narrow the
polling gap with Hillary Clinton. He is even ahead in the latest CNN poll. It
is this environment which allowed Michael Gove during the Brexit campaign to
get away with saying “people in this
country have had enough of experts” and to dismiss warnings of the economic
consequences of Brexit by comparing the doomsayers with German scientists in
the 1930s who were paid by the government to denounce Albert Einstein (at least
he did not use the word “Nazi”).
All this is just a fancy way of saying that we hear what we
want to hear, and in that sense it is not exactly a new phenomenon. But bad
things tend to happen when politicians fail to engage in sensible discussions. Looking
at it from a policy angle, an environment in which politicians left management of
the economic cycle to central banks whilst trying to persuade electorates of
their fiscal rectitude contributed to the damaging round of fiscal tightening
which was implemented across Europe starting around 2010. In the euro zone in
particular, it was considered heresy to even talk about any form of fiscal
easing. Central banks may also be considered part of the problem, since they
agreed to loosen the monetary stance as governments tightened fiscal policy and
thereby encouraged governments to go further than they may have otherwise
(though that might seem a harsh judgement).
But although the language of economic policy has up to now appeared
restrained and rational, a divergence between words and deeds has been growing
for some time. George Osborne’s efforts at expansionary fiscal contraction were
a gesture in futility designed to persuade us that economic pain today would
mean better living standards tomorrow. But now even the language of policy is
becoming more strained as central bankers continue to try and persuade us there
is more that they can do to help ease our current economic predicament, when in
reality policy has run out of road. So on Thursday, when ECB President Mario
Draghi stands before the assembled representatives of the press, an honest and open
assessment of the current policy environment would see him throwing up his
hands and saying, “We’ve done all we can on the monetary side, and in any case we’re
sick of taking the brickbats for our attempts to try and keep the euro zone
together. From now on, it’s up to the governments of monetary union members to
try something.” It may not be popular but it would at least convince me that
the age of reason is not dead.
