Politicians Need to Turn Their Phones Off, Economist Says

Jerome Booth argues leaders need time to 'sit back and muse'

Economist, author Jerome Booth speaks to NTD's "British Thought Leaders" programme. (NTD)

“I’m in favour of politicians generally just turning their phones off. They need time to think,” says Jerome Booth.

Speaking to NTD’s “British Thought leaders” programme, the economist and author of “Have We All Gone Mad? Why groupthink is rising and how to stop it,” said politicians need to provide “proper leadership” rather than falling into the trap of groupthink.

Groupthink refers to the phenomenon that groups make bad decisions because of the lack of challenge to ideas.

Taking lockdowns as an example, what happened in Whitehall was “panicked groupthink, thinking on the hoof, and certainly what didn’t happen was proper, what I would call cost-benefit analysis,” Mr. Booth said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock held regular press conferences to update the nation on the latest policies, accompanied by scientific advisers who presented data and projections that explained the rationale behind the policy decisions.

The singular focus on COVID-19 data in the UK and elsewhere led to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) such as lockdowns, social distancing rules, and mandatory mask-wearing, and politicians who were reluctant to deploy NPIs would be criticised for not following the science.

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However, Mr. Booth said modelling “fundamentally isn’t science,” but “a function of taking assumptions and extrapolating,” and for politicians to “hide behind that is an act of cowardice.”

Some studies (pdf) found that NPIs did work in terms of curbing COVID-19 transmission, although bias could have been introduced owing to limitations such as the difficulties in separating each measure and the lack of control groups.

However, the measures and the accompanying information campaigns and censorship also led to other consequences including hospital backlogs, retarded child development, business closures, and loss of trust in institutions, all of which would negatively impact the length or quality of life.

Referring to psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s “the elephant and the rider” analogy, Mr. Booth said intelligent people are more susceptible to groupthink, and “a bit of hubris” commonly seen among the elites added to the psychological problem.

Politicians are “more prone” to groupthink because they are often “more intelligent” and “have less time than most people to sit back and muse,” he argued.

Instead of taking the time to think deeply about things, Mr. Booth said leaders of today try to “stay up the whole time and constantly trying to get ahead of things,” and “losing the battle as they do that in terms of leadership.”

“What we need is some proper leadership, as opposed to what you might call followership, which is working out what focus groups think and then try to get ahead of it slightly,” he said.

Mass Groupthink

While groupthink is an age-old phenomenon, the rise of the internet and big tech has enabled mass groupthink, Mr.Booth said.

As early as a decade ago, U.S. retailer Target was already able to figure out a teenager was pregnant before her father did by analysing purchase history.

Referring to the example, Mr. Booth said “we’re now in a position where there are continuous experiments by these big tech companies,” which try to “predict ” and “mould” behaviour.

“On the one hand, you’ve got big tech doing that. And then you’ve got government using fear and the nudge units, which, again, has a very negative impact,” he said, referring to a group of behaviour scientists who advised ministers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A document published in the early days of the pandemic, which presented options the government could use to increase adherence to social distancing measures, included advice such as increasing the “perceived level of personal threat” with “hard-hitting emotional messaging”; using media to increase the “sense of personal threat” and “sense of responsibility to others”; using social approval for desired behaviours; and considering the use of social disapproval for failure to comply.

Simon Ruda, co-founder of the government’s original nudge unit, previously accused the government of using the tool in ways that are “less appropriate” and “more propagandistic.”

Mr. Booth said “the fact that there is no ethical framework for nudge units in governments, by and large, is an absolute scandal.”

Fear is also “the big killer” of social capital, he said.

“So the use of government fear may in the short term look advisable in the sense that it helps them reach a certain objective, but it erodes the entire trust in government and people in each other in their neighbours, which is erosive of our entire liberal democracy.”

‘How Can A Million People Get It Wrong’

Mr. Booth said the lack of challenge is instrumental in spotting signs of mass groupthink.

“How can a million people get it wrong? And one of the mechanisms to ensure that mass groupthink exists is huge discipline,” he said.

“First of all, there becomes a sort of moral dimension, and it becomes very binary, either you are in the groupthink or compliant or you’re evil, there’s nothing in between.

“The other sure sign that something’s going on, is complete lack of challenge for the fundamental underpinnings. And any sort of debate has to be really closed down.”

To avoid falling into the trap of groupthink, there needs to be “effective challenge from people with fundamentally different views at the board of an organisation” and “a number of media organisations” challenging prevailing views, he said.

Mr. Booth stressed the importance of independent thinking.

“We’re in a world where now where almost half of young people now, in some surveys in the [United States], are now preferring forms of authority and authoritarian rule to democracy. And that’s frightening. Because again, this is saying, well, we just want someone who’s going to give us the answers.”

Mr. Booth argued that if “we don’t all do our bit,” groupthink could lead us down a path to a world described either in George Orwell’s “1984” or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

However, he’s also “very optimistic” because there are “already starting to be backlashes.”

“I have great confidence in most people’s ability to express dissent against this sort of coercion. There’s a strong psychological need to be independent of thought. And the question is how much damage gets done before we come to our senses,” he said.