My preceding blogpost, the Hour of the Technocrats, was inspired by the recent accession of Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos, both professional economists, to the prime ministerships of Italy and Greece, respectively.   Today we turn to the U.S., where the political process seldom views academic credentials benevolently.

In the United States, Senator Richard Shelby scorned President Obama’s 2010 nomination of Peter Diamond, an eminent MIT Professor of Economics, and prevented his confirmation as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board.  The Alabama Senator farfetchedly claimed that the nominee was not qualified, and persisted despite the coincidence that Diamond won the Nobel Prize in Economics soon after his nomination (deservedly).   But, then, Shelby was holding up an astounding 70 of President Obama’s nominations, just to try to get two pork projects in his home state funded.   Diamond finally withdrew in June 2011, because Shelby and other anti-technocratic Senators had blocked the confirmation process for 14 months and were clearly going to continue to do so.   Diamond, like Axel Weber in my preceding blogpost, was comfortable foregoing the limelight. 

Of course there are other kinds of technocrats than economists.  Senate Republicans also blocked Elizabeth Warren - a Harvard professor, but of Law, not Economics — from becoming the first head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Even at the “quant” end of the finance field spectrum, the anti-technocrats in Congress have hamstrung the Treasury’s new Office of Financial Research, and it has not been possible to find a finance professor to be the first Director of the new agency.   As always, the Senate continues to hold up on political grounds confirmation of highly qualified technocrats for ambassadorships, judgeships, and so on.  The latest was the end last week of the campaign to get the Senate to confirm Don Berwick, another Harvard professor (School of Public Health), who had been doing an excellent job of running Medicare and Medicaid.   Another current example is the stalled nomination of Michael McFaul, an outstandingly qualified political science professor from Stanford, to be ambassador to Russia.   The American public has been losing out on the services of a lot of top-quality officials.

It goes without saying that academic or technical expertise is neither a necessary nor sufficient criterion for a successful government official.   Far from it.  On the one hand, many of my colleagues on the faculties of elite universities would not make great policy makers — lacking some of the desirable leadership, managerial, or other interpersonal skills.  On the other hand, many excellent political leaders have not been intellectuals.  George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower are two examples among U.S. presidents.

I would, however, argue that it is necessary to pass a certain threshold of awareness of facts and curiosity about the world.  To take just a few examples of geographical knowledge, a candidate who does not know where the Battle of Concord was fought, where Paul Revere rode, the difference between Brazil and Bolivia, that Africa is not a single nation, which country Iran is, or which country Libya is, is not likely to make a good president.   Call me an egghead if you will; but I consider a decision to invade the wrong country to be more than a minor technical slip.

Evidently the four-word slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” is too complicated to fit on some people’s bumper stickers.  They have chopped off the last two words.  They don’t want taxation period.

The “Tea Partiers” revere the Constitution. But some might lack the knowledge of early American history that they claim.  In honor of George Washington’s birthday, February 22, I would like to recall a bit of that history.

The Boston Tea Party is not in fact the most appropriate historical precedent for the grass roots protests that have received so much attention over the last year.  The famous slogan motivating the patriots in Boston Harbor in 1773 was “No Taxation Without Representation.”  But democratic representation was achieved with the American Revolution. The Whisky Rebellion of 1794 is a much closer parallel for today’s protestors.   Or the earlier Shays’ Rebellion of 1787, the episode of anarchy to which many Americans reacted by seeking a federal constitution.    The pitchfork-carriers in these rebellions were protesting against taxation with representation.   They did not want to pay the taxes necessary to fund the government services they enjoyed — which at that time meant servicing the debt from the Revolutionary War. (Sound familiar?)  President George Washington, not the rebels, was defending the Constitution against its first severe test, when he personally put down the Whiskey Rebellion with force.   

Incidently, the rebels had no appreciation of good public finance theory either, needless to say.  Theory urges taxing a beverage the excessive consumption of which imposes high costs on others.  Whiskey, rather than tea. President Washington, and his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, probably understood that principle.  Today, it means taxing fossil fuels more (and payrolls less).