Chris Berg last week made a compelling case against the tyranny of experts. In large part, I sympathise with him. Far too many bureaucrats and academics like to imagine that they are a breed apart – that they could never be subject to the kinds of behavioural foibles or bouts of irrationality they think plague other individuals in their decision-making. Worse, they have weaker incentives to fix things if they make the wrong decision. Individuals should be able to make their own choices, for better or worse.

But Berg reached too far in arguing against institutions that sometimes lean against democratic preferences in policy. People really do know less when they are shopping for governments than when they are shopping for cars, as economist Bryan Caplan points out in The Myth of the Rational Voter. When you are shopping for a car, picking one based only on aesthetics could cost you in maintenance, so you pay attention. But since you have lottery-ticket odds of changing an election outcome, feel-good voting is to be expected.

American voters regularly tell pollsters they want to balance the budget on the back of cuts to programmes that collectively make up only a tiny proportion of the budget. Kiwis seem little better. What else are we to make of things when a majority of Kiwi survey respondents favour a return to import controls and substantial minorities favour wage and price controls?

Ultimately, parliament is always supreme and cannot really bind itself through delegation even if it wanted to do so. Even central bank independence could be ended by a parliamentary vote to replace the Reserve Bank Act with something else. But placing some decisions at arm’s length is valuable – like having Pharmac decide on drug funding. It makes it harder for parliaments to make the wrong decision.

The Initiative has argued for a Fiscal Council which might guard against unsustainable policies. Rather than develop policy, it would report on whether spending delivered value for money and would watch the long-term fiscal outlook. It would be harder to pass legislation with very high long-term costs if an independent watchdog had at least issued a stern warning against it.

Independent bodies can be useful to complement democratic decision-making powers. And if it makes me elitist to say so, I am comfortable with that.

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