4 Comments

This is an insightful synthesis - congratulations. Over the week, I was holding a workshop in Kathmandu looking into sources of policy failure in agricultural development in South Asia. I stated that it all boils down to ambiguity. While we conveniently blame politicians and corrupt behaviour for failures in public policy, rarely we examine the sources of such behaviours.

When I was charged with producing briefs to ministers of the day, a clear rule was to reduce the ambiguity - to ensure that it cannot be understood in different ways. When ministers were considering responses to resource management issues, such as biodiversity, water and climate, that was nearly impossible. Despite that we made significant progress.

It is safe to assume, as your work suggest, the nature of uncertainty remains uncertain and we will never fully comprehend nature. As a person born in to a buddhist family, I was introduced to that notion of uncertainty from early days and understanding the context in which we lived gave me scope to progress. The question in my mind is whether the central economic theory based on preferences is merely a smokescreen and the influence of new information on beliefs, and values that transcend beliefs into motives of action under the pressures of necessity for the impoverished and the convenience for the affluent could offer useful insights to public policy? Looking forward to further insights.

Expand full comment

Pee Dee has said the bulk of what I would have said. The persecution of people rightly doing their civic duty and reporting very serious crimes has worsened but I can understand why, today, there is such s fortress mentality with the oligarchy

Expand full comment

Daniel Ellsberg. live on Democracy Now in May 2021: "Without amending the Espionage Act or rescinding it, you cannot get a fair trial for a whistleblower in this case. And Ed [Snowden] would be crazy to come back and stand trial. It is false to say that he would be able to explain to a jury or to the public what he had done."

Expand full comment

Thank you! So interesting.

Expand full comment