Pragmatism

This insightful little article on pragmatism by Tim Harford is worth a butcher's; he describes well the flakiness which besets ministerial decision-making..

Politicians and their advisors have repeatedly explained to me the problem: gathering evidence is all very well in theory, but in practice a minister will arrive at their post to discover her predecessor has done little to commission the kind of solid evidence that might be useful when, say, improving literacy standards in schools, or reducing re-offending rates of former prisoners.

When she asks how long it will take to produce her own evidence base, she'll be told three or four years, perhaps longer. Figuring that by then she'll be on to her next job, or perhaps even the job after that, they'll set about figuring out what to do immediately. And action without decent evidence is bound to be dogmatic, not pragmatic. Two years later, a new minister will arrive in seat, and the cycle of ignorance continues.

Harford also wisely compares Silicon Valley and Wall Street, referring to the former's mantra of "fail faster" as being infinitely preferable to the latter's much less desirable "too big too fail".

As Harford says, it's a shame we don't have a vote for pragmatism..

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"Fail faster" probably owes its existence to Esther Dyson's remark: “Fail cheap. Fail fast. Fail often. Always make new mistakes.”