Incoherence prevents a system from working harmoniously, whether of a physical or social nature. E.M. Forster’s novella The Machine Stops details one common denouement, revealed in the title itself. As the gyre of W.B Yeat’s falcon in The Second Coming reminds us, worse outcomes are imaginable. In a policy context, incoherence amounts to what Barbara Tuchman classified as folly. This is the relentless pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests – blind to accumulating evidence of their negative effects and simultaneously ignoring actions that could promote the desired goal. And, as Tuchman soberly reminds us:
“Folly’s appearance is independent of era or locality; it is timeless and universal.”
But why do the dismal dynamics of incoherence survive in a modern economic policy setting? Why is there no accumulation of knowledge, and with it the dividends flowing from the lessons of experience?
One problem lies in our individual systems of thought – the way we think. David Bohm coined the phrase sustained incoherence to describe a paradox. On seeing an incoherent process, we might think it natural to stop, consider the reality of the situation, and plot a revised course. However, instead, we often close our eyes – endarkenment (Bohm) not enlightenment. He surmised that a built-in reflex that defaults to narrow obstinacy can evolve and grow in our way of thinking, rather than a feedback loop to widen our perspective. Hardwired to fail without even realising it.
Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that misgovernment boils down purely to narrow-minded individuals within the governance apparatus, whether in the private or public sectors. Many officials do not meet that description. Admittedly, some may be born narrow-minded, and others achieve narrow-mindedness through the repetitive routines of bureaucracy. However, it seems likely that many have myopia thrust upon them by the topology of the governance system itself.
One way to think about institutional governance failure draws on neuroscience, using the brain’s architecture as a metaphor. In The Matter with Things Iain McGilchrist explains that the lateralised structure of the human brain supports an important division of labour in how we attend to the world. Sensory information inputs are processed, near simultaneously and in parallel, through multiple neurological channels, calling on capacities distributed throughout the brain, with much (but not complete) duplication of functionality between the two hemispheres,
However, taken alone, the left hemisphere (LH) capacities tend to build up a relatively narrow, static, decontextualised mapping of the world, a ‘representation’ designed to help us apprehend and manipulate things. In a nutshell, its field of attention is narrow, carrying the implication that substantial amounts of relevant information are lost in the processing. In contrast, the right hemisphere (RH) seems to have distinct capacities that better keep hold of (i.e. do not neglect) relevant, sensory information, rendering them continuously available for attentional focus, whenever that is appropriately called for. In a sense, these capacities serve to RH ‘presence’ the wider world, on the look-out for the unexpected or novel, a gestalt to comprehend not just things but the changing processes and patterns connecting them.
To vouchsafe the overall productivity benefits flowing from the two halves ‘seeing’ the world differently, the tracts of the corpus callosum connecting the hemispheres ensure coordination and coherence in minimally interfering ways, driven by something approximating a need to know principle.
With this background, we can view both the human brain and any system of governance used in socio-political contexts as information discovery/processing and decision-making systems, or ‘information and action systems’ (IAS) for short. But there is a notable difference between the topology of the brain and a traditional government IAS (what we have termed elsewhere “Leviathan’s brain”) – the absence of a lateralised part of the latter devoted to the ‘bigger picture’ functionalities to be found in areas of the RH of the former. Hence, Leviathan is unable to benefit from productivity gains that a lateralised structure could generate. A fortiori, lacking a corpus callosum, Leviathan’s LH fragmented activities clutter its IAS, unguided by any contextual understanding. The phenomenon was memorably observed by Ronald Coase during WW2:
“…with the country in mortal danger and despite the leadership of Winston Churchill, government departments often seemed more concerned to defend their own interests than those of the country.”
Can we do better? A good (re)start would be to remember the basic insight of Adam Smith 250 years ago – productivity growth is strongly related to deepening in the division of labour. Linking this to the brain metaphor, a first step would be for government to add a lateralised RH capacity to deepen Leviathan’s division of labour. Indeed, Churchill himself did just that, developing an IAS for Britain in its darkest hour, devoting time to cutting out red tape that slowed the processing of intelligence gathering, processing, and decision making. He commented that he was:
“…astounded at the vast congregation that are invited to study these matters.”
In the Churchill IAS topology, information picked up at scanning stations was at once sent for specialist Bletchley Park analysis, with the results then passed to him directly in locked boxes to which he alone had the key. This not only allowed for efficient information processing but for immediate LH/RH synthesis and efficient decision making, clutter free: a new information processing pathway (the equivalent of neurogenesis) that was independent of the hierarchical pathways via existing government departments, typically characterised by sustained incoherence.
The forthcoming Regulatory Policy Institute Annual Conference (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 14/15 September – see https://rpieurope.org/) will focus on regulatory incoherence across sectors including energy, water, and transport. A broad observation is that the UK’s regulatory architecture seems to have descended from its1980s heights into one today that Churchill might have recognised for its slop, fragmentation, and incoherence. Were he with us, he might suggest that jettisoning excess baggage is now essential, together with allowing a role for good strategy to reinstate the functionality that our earlier regulatory system enjoyed.
That system was, after all, considered to be enlightened and world class at the time, an answer to severe problems that had emerged with the post WW2 economic model – lest we forget.