Must-Read: Simon Wren-Lewis: Brexit and Democracy

Must-Read: Some nice backup from the wise Simon Wren-Lewis. The frame of eurocrats vs. democrats is much, much, much too simple to be more than misleading. We want democracy where democracy belongs, with technocracy where it is needed–always acknowledging that circumstances alter cases, mechanism design is complex, and that democracy’s key benefits are as a legitimacy machine and an anti rent-seeking machine, not as a wise leader or wise policy selection machine:

Simon Wren-Lewis: Brexit and Democracy: “Germany… believed a union-wide demonstration of austerity was required…

…I strongly disagree…have thought a lot about why it happened, but a lack of democracy is not high on my list of culprits…. Democracy was overridden in Greece so cruelly… not [as] the result of actions of unelected bureaucrats, but of elected finance ministers… because of pressure from their own electorates. This exercise in raw political power worked because the Greek people wanted to stay in the Euro. The ‘bad equilibrium’ Evans-Pritchard talks about happens in part because of democracy…. Union governments should not lend money directly to other union governments, precisely because governments are democratic and so find it hard to accept write-offs…