Jacobo Elosua

Towards 'inclusive' institutions and El Indultómetro

February has been pretty interesting. A couple of weeks ago my friends at Hay Derecho published a post (in Spanish) that I had written on pending work towards achieving a set of more 'inclusive' institutions --as per the Acemoglu and Robinson criteria-- in Spain. 

I was really impressed by some of the comments made by readers. The depth and insight of most of them were a good testimonial of the great work carried out by the blog's editors in turning Hay Derecho into a true actor promoting critical thinking in our country.

Then, a few days later, Civio launched El Indultómetro, our newest open government data project. El Indultómetro brings together in one single site all available data on discretionary presidential pardons awarded over the last fifteen years.

The public and media reactions were pretty good, with some exceptions that go to show how far we still are from achieving a reasonable general culture of transparency in the country. But we will not despair. That is for sure. We have some fantastic initiatives in the pipeline and we will bring them to light. No matter what.

 

 

On politics

This week Spain held an important regional election. The Catalan nationalist parties' push towards secession through a call for a referendum was the critical issue voters were consulted on. That and, let's not forget, the ramping economic crisis and the potential different ways to address it. 

The parties seen as responsible for the feeble economic state of affairs that has brought us here were punished by the electorate. On the other hand, the 'pro Catalan independence' and 'pro a united Spain' supporters maintained roughly their previous positions. What the increased voter turnout highlighted though, was the polarization of that vote. It was the smaller parties, with clearer messages, such as ERC (secessionists) and C's (unionists), that grew significantly.  

The combined effects yielded somewhat surprising results. No opinion poll had really seen it coming. Now we will have to wait before decisions are made and more light is shed as to what will happen next. The weakened position of CiU, the majority party with government responsibilities, adds a new level of uncertainty.

I have always believed in an approach to politics based on reason and not on sentiment. For this reason and none other I am a declared unionist. I will never support a political cause that calls for new frontiers based on real or supposed 'differential identities'. I find it simply dangerously anti-modern, anti-liberal and backward looking.

I really found reasons for hope in the very significant growth experienced by Albert Rivera's Ciudadanos (C's). The party has spent the last six years preaching for a reformed Spain, dead set against corruption, pushing for a stronger democracy based on enhanced transparency. That message, replicated and augmented throughout the whole of Spain by UPyD, is the message of a much-needed true political reform.

Time is ripe (has been for some time) for the two parties to combine forces and really gain enough political weight to be able to act change in the current Spanish political scene. There is just too much at stake. We, the citizens, cannot afford that politicking replaces true politics, particularly in the hands of those who we clearly perceive to be on our side.  

Finally, here goes a further reaching contribution to the sort of things I believe unionists should be thinking about right now (in Spanish): “Deformación profesional”.

 

 

 

The company of strangers

'The Company of Strangers' is a remarkable book written by economist Paul Seabright. 

The book's approach is rather unorthodox in mixing and integrating economic analysis with perspectives from different academic disciplines, such as biology, anthropology or psychology.

A few ideas that stand out: 

1) 'Tunnel vision' (the capacity to play one's part in the complex enterprise of creating the prosperity of a modern society without caring much for the overall outcome) is a skill that was unknown to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. It is a social rather than a biological talent, though it channels powerful biological capacities, and it has developed during the ten thousand years that separate us from the first farmers of the Neolithic era.

2) Two kinds of dispositions have proved important to our evolution: a capacity for rational calculation of the costs and benefits of cooperation, and a tendency for what has been called strong reciprocity (the willingness to repay kindness with kindness and betrayal with revenge, even when this is not what rational calculations would recommend). 

3) Over the course of human evolution on the 6 or 7 million years since our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos, children have been, on average, very slightly less intelligent than their parents. On the other hand, over the same period, each generation's parents have been, also on average, very slightly more intelligent than the children's grandparents.

4) Parent genes are combined randomly. This fact points towards equal inter-generation intelligence levels. However, genetic mutations are known to be overwhelmingly damaging. Hence, the combined effect of combination and mutation, over billions of children, is to bring average intelligence down. The other explanatory element to take into account is the subtle difference between the terms ‘children’ and ‘parents’. The second term only comprises the selection of individuals who survived and succeeded in reproduction. 

5) Thus, the above-mentioned intelligence-related statements can be explained thanks to the two most fundamental ideas in statistics. Firstly, the law of large numbers states that the average behavior of a large group of similar individuals will be more predictable than the behavior of a small group or any one individual. Secondly, the statistical idea of conditional probability relates to the need to account for what other information we have in making any given prediction.

6) The progressive evolution of a human capacity to exchange goods and favors between unrelated individuals has brought about three significant and defining social benefits: risk-sharing, specialization and the accumulation of knowledge. 

7) Contrary to what one might conclude from the tone of much recent press, globalization and its challenges are not new but a continuation of social developments of at least the last ten thousand years. To manage the hazards imposed on us by the actions of strangers has required us to deploy a different skill granted to us by evolution for quite different purposes: the capacity for abstract symbolic thought.

8) Modern political institutions temper appeals to deep emotions, to family and to clan loyalty, with just enough abstract reasoning to help Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the shy, murderous ape, emerge from the savanna woodlands in order to live and work in a world largely populated by strangers. This experiment is still young, and needs all the help it can get. 

In summary, The Company of Strangers is a though out book with deep and very relevant insights. Without a doubt, a recommendable read. Particularly in these fragile times that seem edging gradually closer to total social unrest.