Andrew Bailey reviews books challenging our response to Covid and our alleged neglect of the future
To this day I can vividly recall my first meeting with Jeremy Heywood over lunch at the IMF staff canteen in Washington DC in the late 1980s. Jeremy struck me then, and on many subsequent occasions, as someone with a burning interest in public policy – something we could all do with now.
In today’s difficult world, public policy can sometimes feel like an endangered species, fragile and in need of care. There is now more criticism than ever – sometimes constructive, sometimes not so – levelled at those who provide the experience and expertise to pursue public policy (both those mandated to take decisions, like central bankers, and those who provide the essential advice and guidance for ministers). Indeed, some critics intentionally see no difference between those two groups – as far as they are concerned, both are engaged in some mixture of neglect and conspiracy.
In the Federalist No. 35, one of 85 essays written in support of the constitution of the United States, Alexander Hamilton asserted that members of what he referred to as “the learned professions […] truly form no distinct interest in society, and according to their situation and talents will be indiscriminately the objects of the confidence and choice of each other, and of other parts of the community.” I think we can take it that when he referred to the “learned professions” Hamilton was including public policymakers.
The world of public policy has changed massively since Hamilton’s time. Another perspective from history is relevant to at least one characterisation of that change, namely that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who asserted that the more quantified the perspective of the future, the more it elevated the role of elites who could understand the methods and meaning of results.
These sources from Hamilton and Rousseau are cited in two books that I read over the summer authored by political scientists – one by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, the other by Jonathan White. Macedo and Lee deliver a strong critique of public policymaking in response to Covid, focused on the US but with an argument that can be applied elsewhere, including the UK. White takes on a broader canvas, concerning what is happening to the future as a political idea.
Both books are challenging. In each case I agree with some of the arguments and disagree with others.
Two themes stand out for me in Macedo and Lee’s critique. First, how was it that there could be an acceptance, and then exaggeration, of the case for extensive use of so-called Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (masks, distancing, staying at home orders etc.) when, prior to Covid, assessments of their effectiveness had raised major doubts? Second, how could the cost benefit of these interventions have been framed in a way that had no regard for longer-term consequences (such as mental health or educational achievement)
The obvious answer, which surprisingly the authors do not address, is that this was an unexpected crisis. The luxury of going off and having a deep think was not available to policymakers. That said, Macedo and Lee still raise important issues about in-crisis policymaking. How is it possible to weigh the trade-offs among competing objectives in policy options? This requires appropriate space for deliberation. Decisions are ultimately a matter of judgement. Terms like “Follow the Science” are not the answer, just as “Follow the Economics” would not be in my world. Models may be useful for representing situations, drawing on a mixture of theory and experience. But they do not replace the role of judgement, eliminate uncertainty, or remove the need to trade-off objectives and balance costs and benefits.
Macedo and Lee’s conclusion, albeit not original, could reasonably be summarised as: Don’t oversell models, Don’t overstate certainty and Don’t denigrate dissenting opinions. Moreover, and I find this a repeated experience with monetary policy in particular, they point out that many of our judgements are necessarily conditional ones. In other words, “if the following were to happen, then I would expect us to lean towards this or that response.” It is a fact of life that such statements get reproduced in the outside world as unconditional ones – this or that will definitely happen.
There is no doubt that Covid tested the resilience of the institutions of public policymaking. Macedo and Lee are right to emphasise that these institutions must be truth seekers. They must recognise that deliberation always has to be at the heart of democracy – testing arguments and evidence, and being accountable. Uncertainty and trade-offs have to be explained, as does the context of decisions. In doing so, it is important to have in mind that expertise in a subject does not convey moral or intellectual superiority, and does not need to do so. Asserting superiority does not convey authority; rather, it takes a repeated demonstration that we act in the public interest – we serve the people. The odds of getting it right every time are not high, and nor can they be in a world of uncertainty.
Why does this all matter so much? Because public policy has to be built on public trust. When that breaks down, the world is much more difficult and dangerous. I don’t agree with all the assessments and conclusions of Macedo and Lee, and there is an element of hindsight in the judgements they make. However, I recommend the book to anyone who wants to have the challenges of public policymaking in a crisis laid out before them.
Jonathan White, meanwhile, steps back from the here and now of policymaking. His central argument is that policymaking is a continuous process which must have an eye to the future. Democracy works in the long run and policy is almost always unfinished business. But there is common ground in his argument that democracy has been taken over by an emergency mentality that demands short-term results. Democracy hits trouble when the short term predominates.
Covid would, I suppose, be a prime example of this emergency mentality.
White argues that in the past visions of the future and the progress this entailed served to integrate a citizenry in the common cause or ideology of shared futures. Thus, there was a shaping of expectations based on a vision, and achieving progress was based on a mixture of understanding the past and prophecy of the future, and how that future can be different. But the legacy of the later 20th century has been to constrain the vision of the future. White believes a more collective idealism of the future has given way to a more individualistic society which prioritises the problems and needs of the present over the ideals of the future. Politics becomes more a matter of management than vision.
In making this case, he argues that more visionary political idealism has been subordinated to economics pursued in the name of stability. My instinctive reaction was to reject this caricature. Central banks make a virtue of stability. But, as with the critique of Macedo and Lee, we should see this as a renewed challenge to explain our role and why it matters. The two objectives of central banks, monetary policy and financial stability, have the “S” word in common. The challenge from these authors is to restate why stability matters. The core of the argument is that monetary and financial stability are like the foundations of a house. Get them right, and you can build all the things you want to on top, at least within reason. Get them wrong, and your house will fall down at some point. Moreover, this argument is not limited to monetary and financial stability. There are even more basic foundations like free speech and universal suffrage. So, I can’t agree that an obsession with stability perverts politics.
White goes on to make another core point, that emergency situations invite an elitist style of rule which has a preference for secrecy and tends to marginalise democratic institutions. Principles are sidelined as policymaking becomes geared to threat management. The consequence is the decline of the ideology that anchors the future and provides a deeper vision of change. Ultimately, he argues, this lessens the standing of the institutions of democracy.
This argument caused me to think far more about contemporary issues. It’s true that we seem at the moment to be in a time when more unexpected events are taking place – Covid, Ukraine, etc. Much as I reacted to Macedo and Lee overlooking the exigent demands of dealing with Covid, so I reacted to White criticising a more managerial style of public policy. The public won’t thank us for failing to deal with today’s problems, nor should they. But if that comes at the cost of articulating the vision of the future, then there is a consequence.
A respected former colleague of mine likes to say – borrowing from John Cleese – that it’s the hope he can’t stand. To be fair, he says this about supporting a football team that tends to under-achieve. White’s argument is that from the early 19th century onwards, democratisation was built on the hope of progress to a better life in the future, and we have lost that vision of the future. It’s an argument I can’t agree with in totality, but neither can it be ignored.
Andrew Bailey is Governor of the Bank of England.
Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, “In Covid’s wake: How our Politics Failed Us”, Princeton University Press, 2025
Jonathan White, “In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea”, Profile Books, 2024
