The usually-reasonable-even-if-you-disagree-with-him Tyler Cowen writes:
Presumably diplomats either enjoy serving their country or they enjoy the ego rents of being a diplomat or both. It is a false feeling of power, borrowed power from one’s country of origin rather than from one’s personal achievements.
Huh? I’d hardly think this needs to be explained, but here goes:
1. Diplomats may feel the duty to serve their country, which is not the same as “enjoying” it. Sometimes people take on jobs that are challenging and not well-paid because they feel that it is their duty to do their best at it.
2. Some diplomats are very accomplished individuals, and that is why they are chosen to represent their country. Consider an analogy: Yes, Tyler Cowen borrows some power from George Mason University. But it goes the other way too: GMU borrows power from TC.
Beyond all this, and returning to more selfish goals, being a diplomat can be fun–you get to live in a foreign country without having to pay any rent.
Anyway, I’m surprised to see Cowen be so cynical about this, to assume that someone who does a difficult job must be doing so because he or she “enjoys” it.
P.S. I’m excluding the tautological definition of enjoyment in which everyone “enjoys” everything they do by definition, or else they wouldn’t do it. I’m pretty sure Cowen is using “enjoy” to refer to actual enjoyment.
Both of you are old enough to appreciate and understand George F. Kennan's "Around the Cragged Hill".
Instead of signalling wit, read and respond to Kennan, who was one of your greatest diplomats.
Michael: I haven't read this Kennan book but maybe I should. In the meantime, it's the nature of blogging (at least how Cowen and I do it) to give our impressions even in areas where we are not well informed. I think the idea is that the penumbra of our general knowledge will allow us to make interesting observations even on topics we are not experts on.
There's a presumption that diplomats will be from the upper class, the people who more or less own the country, so that their self-interests and the national interests are aligned, making it more likely that they are speaking for their countries.
It's similar to how the British restricted being an Army general to the top 20,000 people in the country, whereas being an admiral was open to the middle class. It's harder for an admiral to stage a coup, but generals were hired only from the ranks of those who were already on top.
@Sailer: I didn't know that. Did this result in admirals on the whole being of higher quality than generals?
Sailer:
That is interesting. Could you point to a source for additional reading? I wonder if this is relevant for more contemporary situations such as high-coup countries today.
@Sailer: I beg to differ. Yes, admirals are badly placed for a coup – but they can easily conspire with foreign powers to facilitate invasions. And Britain was subject to quite a lot of invasions in the course of her history, from the Romans and the Danes to various Jacobite attempts and Germans smuggling arms to the Irish in WWI. I recommend the books of N.A.M. Rodger for background.
Your argument would argue for the admiralty to be closed to the middle class just as much as generals' slots.
I would much rather argue that competence was so much more important in admirals than in generals, given the geography of the British Isles, that Britain could very well afford subpar generals – but not subpar admirals.
@zbicyclist: Soldiers were poorly paid, but their governments often turned a blind eye to the plundering of a defeated enemy. Sailors were also poorly paid, but there was a legal system for paying them a share of the value of captured enemy ships and goods. So an ambitious man could get rich in either service. But honest work does tend to attract a better class of employees than thievery.
Andrew, why are people compelled to do things they feel are their duty, if not for ego rents (i.e. feeling good, being able to live with one's self)?
@Steve Sailer: That's a very interesting suggestion, but one thing that comes to mind is that surely many leaders of coups come from the upper class and aim to increase their own personal power rather than radically alter society itself. Also I'd imagine having a relatively humble leader in the in the position of a general within the elite would reduce the revolutionary hazard posed by disgruntled soldiers/lower ranking officers.
If a sense of "duty" is not utility, then what is it?
I am not so sure it is tautological to say it is utility. In fact, I think the debate between you and TC is more on the magnitude of this utility rather than whether it is there.
TC is saying it is probably quite small, and other factors are driving diplomats, while you're saying it is large.
Robbie:
I see the concepts of "ego rents" and "utility," as used in the comments above, to be tautological. Whatever people do, they must be doing or some reason, it must be giving them utility. Within the world of actions that people do, which (tautologically) bring them utility, I'm distinguishing between "enjoyment" and "duty." I eat an ice cream for the enjoyment; I pick up trash on the street out of duty. Etc.
Cowen was saying that working conditions for diplomats were not so great, hence there must be some reason for them to take the job. This argument is reasonable to me. I'm just surprised that Cowen doesn't consider the "duty" motivation: that an accomplished person might feel the obligation to serve his or her country if asked.
Scott:
Exactly. I don't think Cowen is making an empty or tautological statement, I think he's making a statement with content that I disagree with. I wouldn't be surprised if many or even most diplomats are motivated in ways that Cowen suggests; I was just unhappy that he didn't consider the motivation of duty at all.
I think @Sailer is talking more about the ~1700s – WWI era.
In Persuasion by Jane Austin there are quite a few references about the navy (IIRC one or two of her brothers became admirals). Here is a quote from Sir Walter Elliot complaining about the navy.
"A man is in greater danger in the navy of being insulted by the rise of one whose father his father might have disdained to speak to."
In 1800s, you pretty much had to be a gentleman (in this case someone whose income didn't come from paid employment/subsistance living) to be an officer in the Army because people had to buy their commissions. There was much more of a cultural ideal of people staying within the social strata to which they were born as seen in the hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful"
The rich man in his castle
The poor man at the gate
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate
As opposed to in America where there was more of a "anyone could rise to the top if they worked hard enough" cultural ideal.
Anyway, the sentiment I've heard is that there was never a revolution in England because the middle and lower classes went out exploring and colonising the world. If they'd stayed at home…
There was never a revolution in England? What would you call Cromwell's defeat of Charles I in 1645? What would you call the ouster of James II in 1688? And the generally accepted reason why the Radical and Chartist movements of the early 1800s didn't become revolutions was because the English Parliamentary system responded to pressure by reforming itself. Slow and grudging, but still, reform.
"Export" of the young and ambitious but "socially inferior" to colonies or independent countries like the U.S. might well have had some effect also in the 1800s, and perhaps in the 1700s as well.
Obligatory Heinlein quote: "Of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to, every time. If it pains them, to make a choice- if the 'choice' looks like a 'sacrifice' — you can be sure that it is no nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness… the necessity of having to decide between two things you want when you can't have both. The ordinary bloke suffers every time he chooses between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up to go to work and losing his job. But he always chooses that which hurts least or pleasures most. The scoundrel and the saint make the same choices…."
@Andrew;
I have learned some things about data analysis from your blog, even though this is not my area. And indeed one day I may be able to make a trenchant comment in this area that assists. That is why I read your blog, and many other blogs – to learn enough to make be able to ask informed questions.
Prior to the explosion of blogs, I could believe that my skill level would allow me to make interesting comments in areas I wasn't an expert in.
That belief is wrong.
When you and Tyler, and many others, are on top of your game it is because you are changing, adding or modifying beliefs non experts had about your field.
Many of these important posts will seem old hat to you, precisely because you have wrestled with them for so long – to come up with a short cogent statement.
I think that you do yourselves and audience a disservice when your blog is reduced to mere water cooler wit. Leave that to email.
Michael:
I'm surprised to see you describe this entry as "water cooler wit." I don't think I was being witty at all, and I certainly wasn't trying to! I was, and am, dead serious. And the topic is related to my research. People's political actions are often not reducible to naive models of behavior as simple pleasure-seeking. See this article, for example.
Bernard:
Heinlein seems to be making the tautological point that people do what they want to do. Nonetheless, different people have different motivations for what they do. That is why Cowen and I are discussing.
That rhetorical device is offensive and should never pass without comment. So thanks for taking issue with it.
Social scientist stumbled upon a pattern of analysis that can be comfortably described as perverse. In the pattern you tease out a possible motivation for the individual actors and then, and then highlight how that motivation is at odds with the outcome. The classic example is greed as the motivation leading to economic vitality. It's perverse in a few ways, the obvious being that you get to invert the ethics as you work it out – greed-bad, economic growth-good. The pattern has some attitudinal perversity as well, since the scientist gets to insult a the crowd from the balcony of his ivory tower.
Theses theories are very popular with antiestablishment types. They play well into that game. They accuse the actors that support the establishment of hypocrisy. They are an elegant implementation of Mao's advice: start any negotiation by accusing your counter party of being a running dog.
There are a lot of choices for questionable motivation to use in this game: greed, sloth, risk aversion, sex. And if your attacking any large organization you'll have no trouble finding outrageous exemplars to proof your point. Status seeking is sort of a fall back. You can deploy the accusation of status seeking to any activity you don't understand; as as long as your correspondent doesn't understand the activity as well he'll accept it as a hypothesis worth entertaining. No doubt your familiar with this since you have no doubt hear people label blogging and participation in the university as status seeking.
The accusation that members of a group are status seeking is almost always a sign that the individual making the accusation lacks much clue about the organization he is observing.
All organizations confer status. If you have built organization you know that is an unfortunate externality. That it tends to attract participants into the organization for the wrong reasons. That the organization has to establish substantial infrastructure to temper the toxic side effects that can cause.
Those that care for and love the organization naturally get pretty pissed that something they struggle to manage is converted into the whole purpose of their baby.
"I think @Sailer is talking more about the ~1700s – WWI era". WWI is much too late; the Chief of the Imperial General Staff was Wullie Robertson, who had been a village boy who'd joined the army as a private. My own guess is that there never was such a rule, but I'm open to correction.
"Did this result in admirals on the whole being of higher quality than generals?"
Yes. In Britain, the navy was significantly more competent than the army relative to the Continental powers for much of British history. During the Napoleonic wars, the British were lucky to find one excellent upper crust general in the Duke of Wellington. He had remarkably little competent help from his subordinates.
In contrast, in the "careers open to talent" French system after the Revolution, highly competent commanders emerged from unexpected backgrounds. Of course, the most competent of these adventurers, Bonaparte, hijacked the whole country.
"My own guess is that there never was such a rule, but I'm open to correction."
It was an outcome of Army commissions and promotions being subject to purchase for money rather than a direct rule. Wellington was always frustrated by the trouble his rich, brave, but rather silly subordinates would get themselves into. He had particular problems with his cavalry officers, fox-hunting gentlemen, who would get carried away with their charges, such as at Waterloo, and penetrate too far behind enemy lines, where they'd be surrounded and cut to ribbons.
In contrast, even a failure at inter-personal management like Captain Bligh of the Bounty was a superlative navigator, navigating over 3000 miles in an open boat by memory after he and his loyalists were shoved into the Bounty's life boat by the mutineers.