"The plural of anecdote is misinformation" - Dr. Jonathan Stea
Did a policy work? Voters are in the mood for radical policies. Radical policies can go radically net right (eg New Deal) and horribly wrong (eg Prohibition). However, unless a policy has a clear measure, it is very hard to say whether it was a success or not.
In practice proponents of an idea rarely admit their idea did not work: 1) You are likely to be anchored to your view and discredit new data 2) There is not a clear KPI that people can point to 3) Noone can point to a world where that decision was not taken, so you can blame intervening factors. In the absence of a clear KPI, people resort to anecdotes which are so often unreliable other than helping you look in the right place for data.
We can do better than anecdotes
Ask whether a CEO did a good job or not and people need not resort to anecdotes.
Did the earnings rise?
How did the profit margin perform?
What proportion of revenues are from new initiatives?
Did the company lead in its key segments?
How did the stock price perform?
Whilst all these numbers will be influenced by external factors, they certainly point to things indicative of better or worse company health.
Important Caveats to Numbers
Numbers need to be sourced from largely independent bodies available
Rather than focusing on spending (inputs) we should be focus on the value we are getting (outcomes), respecting there is a lag.
Isn't it obvious that instead of hearing theories about policies we should just give a policy a KPI and see if it achieves its results without messing anything else up?
How about a "living standard dashboard"?
The primary role of a government is to look after their citizens. One of the best barometers of whether citizens are being served well is to look at their standard of living. I believe most people want the same things from a government, outlined in the table below.
Whilst this will miss many nuances, at least we can assess policies and manifestos by the impacts it will have. Cutting taxes is great, as long as people are happy to have worse government finances or potentially cut outcomes on some of the key topics.
When the Trump administration look to shrink the size of the Environmental Protection agency, that is fine, as long as green water doesn't come from people's taps, or the quality of the air gets so bad people need to stay indoors.
We can cut through the BS of politicians by have them point to us which of these KPIs they will improve.
So what?
We judge policies and manifestos, with theories, bias and anecdotes. People who back policies find it tough to admit it was wrong and that stifles the feedback loop for a change of policy.
Anecdotes should be replaced with KPIs, similar to the corporate world. What intended consequences have occurred and what have been the unintended consequences.
A consistent approach, that considers all critical components of our living standards should be readily available to all people so they can see how well the people they elected have served them.
Let's look through the bs, drama and character nonsense, and focus on living standards, that will stop politicians distracting us.
Next week I will be discussing "A person in the bottom half". Until then, please feel free to read the back catalogue in the democracy series.
Democracy series
Comments