266. Rebellion
Previously in this blog, I discussed the problem of
how to escape from the tangle of social systems. Here I present two cases,
illustrations of it.
In a recent speech[i], Yanis Varoufakis, the
former Greek minister of finance, narrated his conflict with the committee of
EU finance ministers concerning the Greek debt. They wanted to compel Greece to
repay the full debt, with severe measures of austerity. Varoufakis argued that
this would be self-defeating, since ongoing austerity would demolish the
economic basis for repaying the debt. The only viable approach, which would
repay at least some of the debt, would be to cancel part of it.
Informally, everyone agreed that he was right, but EU
leaders could not sell it to their electorates, and it would damage the
northern EU banks that had extended the debt. There was no way that Varoufakis
could get his way.[ii]
To the point for the present discussion, he was told
by an insider that he could only survive in the negotiations if he gave in to
the austerity game. Do not go against the stream as a matter of principle, but
tag along and see what you can achieve in the margins, was the advice. If he
stuck to his guns, he would be dropped, forced out. And that is what he chose.
Another case is from my own experience. As a scholar
of innovation and member of the main think tank for the Dutch government[iii], I headed a team of
researchers to produce an advisory report on innovation policy. Our advice went
against established policy of planning innovation for selected strong
industries. That, we argued, would have a conservative effect of profiting and
maintaining established interests and raising entry barriers for newcomers. At
best, it would yield improvement of established technologies and their
application rather than yielding genuine novelty.
This criticism was not well received. I had previously
been welcome at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, participating in seminars and
advisory committees, but now, I heard from contacts within the ministry, I was
a persona non grata, no longer
welcome.
The policy I criticised was ideal from the following
perspectives. First, it reduced the risk of spending public money on risky
innovation that did not deliver, which would get the minister in trouble with
parliament, for ‘wasting public funds’, while it could still be called
innovation in some form, thus satisfying the hype of innovation. Second, it
satisfied pressures from established (large) business not to engage in
‘creative destruction’ of established positions and investments. My advice was
spoiling a game that in a truce between government, a risk-averse parliament
and established business was too good to be spoiled.
I appealed to high-placed colleague professors: the
then president of the Academy of Sciences, and the then director of the Science
Foundation that distributed funds for research. They were both members of the
state committee for innovation policy. In private, they conceded that I was
right, that my arguments were valid. However, they were facing the choice: go
along with my opposition and risk being side-tracked (like me), or going along
with the momentum of the policy in force, to protect the interests of the
institutions they stood for, which depended on public funding.
I could not blame them. But it illustrates the deep
‘problem of Foucault’ that I discussed earlier in this blog.
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