Garett Jones on Democracy (More or Less)

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Garrett Jones argues for "10% less democracy": not less accountability overall, but fewer decisions made by mass voter impulses and more by elites, experts, and institutional checks. The conversation ranges from electoral design, central banking, accountability, small open economies, cooperation, IQ and culture, and the balance between technocracy and democracy.

Main Topics: Why democracy should be limited, not eliminated (Priority: 5/5): Jones frames democracy as valuable mainly for preventing catastrophic outcomes, but risky when any one group—voters, bondholders, landholders—gets monopoly power. He favors stakeholder systems and institutional checks over pure popular rule. Institutional design: accountability, elections, and supermajorities (Priority: 5/5): He prefers mechanisms that create clear responsibility and slow down short-term political incentives, including six-year House terms, staggered elections, balanced-budget-style supermajority rules, and strong lines of authority in government. Elite rule, expertise, and indirect governance (Priority: 4/5): Jones defends expertise in areas like prosecutors, central bankers, and some administrative reforms, arguing that elections are often poor tools for specialized managerial decisions and that technocratic oversight can improve outcomes. Cooperation, intelligence, and the hive mind (Priority: 5/5): A major theme from his earlier work is that smarter groups cooperate better because of patience, pleasantness, and perceptiveness. He ties social intelligence to collective performance and argues culture raises returns to intelligence more than markets alone reveal. Economics, macro, and the limits of simple stories (Priority: 4/5): Jones criticizes macroeconomics that overstates nominal rigidities or simple fiscal multipliers, preferring models that incorporate real adjustment costs, demographics, and global capital markets. He praises Sargent for combining theory and data. Culture, religion, and national performance (Priority: 4/5): He discusses Mormon social capital, the appeal and decline of religious participation, and the role of national culture in shaping intelligence, governance, and civic trust, using places like Switzerland, Rwanda, and Utah as comparative cases. Personal worldview: America, cities, wine, and teaching (Priority: 2/5): The interview closes with Jones’s preferences and practical advice: he admires America’s mix of adventurousness and social capital, values cities like Manhattan, likes regional French and Italian products, and sees teaching as inspiring independent study.

Key Arguments: Democracy is best understood as a tool for preventing the worst governance failures, not as a perfect decision-making machine. No single group—voters, bondholders, or landowners—should have total control; systems need multiple stakeholders and checks. Accountability matters because clear responsibility improves organizational performance, whether in corporations, courts, or governments. Some technocratic institutions, especially independent central banks and small open economies, show that delegating power to experts can improve outcomes. Six-year House terms with staggered elections could reduce short-run political mania and encourage longer-horizon policymaking. Proportional representation may increase citizen engagement but can reduce accountability through coalition bargaining. Smarter groups tend to cooperate more because they are more patient, pleasant, and perceptive in repeated interactions. Social returns to intelligence are larger than private returns, but these show up as level effects and cultural differences rather than simple growth explosions. Big macro stories should be built from micro evidence, but recent economics has become too fragmented and data-driven to sustain grand synthesis. Political polarization is fueled by social media, ethnic diversity, and elite signaling, not merely by institutional design. America’s distinctive strength is a combination of adventurousness and strong social capital, exemplified by Mormon communities and successful local institutions.

Data Points: House term length proposal: 6 years - Jones says he would change the U.S. House of Representatives to six-year terms as his single best governance reform. Democracy reduction target: 10% less democracy - Title and thesis of Jones’s book: more elite judgment, less mass rule. Social return to IQ: about 6% long-run marginal product per IQ point - He contrasts private and social returns to intelligence from his earlier work on hive mind effects. Private return to IQ: about 1% marginal product per IQ point - Used to explain why social returns exceed private returns without producing obvious increasing returns in standard economic data. Corporate/firm selection reasoning: 3 managers / 3-way choice example - He uses Arrow/Condorcet-style voting problems inside firms to explain organizational decision-making difficulties. Cross-rater wine evaluation correlation: 0.3 to 0.4 - He cites blind taste-test interrater reliability to argue wine quality is real but noisy. Small open economy learning window: 1997 Asian financial crisis to 2008 crisis - Jones argues middle-income countries learned from crisis experience and improved regulation/capital buffers. Mormon mission year: 1989 - He notes he was a Mormon missionary in 1989 before leaving the church. Political reform horizon: 2 to 3 years - He suggests a skunkworks reform team could work if kept contained for a few years before broader rollout. Democracy and atrocities claim: no famines and negligible massacres - He argues moderate democracy is associated with avoiding worst governance disasters. Global growth implication: 2% or 1% long-run growth - He describes semi-endogenous growth as returning to a constant long-run growth rate. Regional intelligence change example: 10-ish point IQ gain - He cites East Germany after communism and Ireland’s IQ rise as evidence of culture’s effect on intelligence.

Pivotal Quotes: "The Big Benefits of a Small Dose of Democracy" — Garrett Jones: His summary of democracy’s main value: preventing catastrophic failures rather than maximizing perfect collective choice. "The three Ps of the repeated prisoner’s dilemma... more patient, more pleasant, and more perceptive" — Garrett Jones: His explanation for why intelligent groups often cooperate better and achieve stronger collective outcomes. "I would change the House of Representatives to six-year terms." — Garrett Jones: His concrete proposal for reducing short-term electoral pressure in U.S. governance.

Implications: The interview suggests modern systems work best when democracy is buffered by expertise, clear accountability, and long time horizons. For governments and firms, the lesson is to preserve legitimacy while limiting impulsive mass decision-making.