A bit more than three years ago, I started to get interested and to work seriously on the topic of epistocracy, a regime where political power is distributed based on epistemic criteria. Since then, I’ve published a couple of pieces, have another one that is forthcoming, and failed to get funding for a project on the topic twice (an ERC and one with the French national research agency), while I still have several other research products in the pipeline. The big question I’m trying to address in this series of works is the possibility of liberal epistocracy. More specifically, can we establish that an epistocratic political regime is compatible with liberal political morality, especially the recognition and respect of fundamental civil and political rights. This possibility issue has several dimensions: the conceptual possibility (can we, at the analytical level, argue for the justification of an epistocratic regime based on liberal principles and values?), the institutional possibility (what kind of political and economic institutions could be constitutive of a liberal epistocracy?), and the empirical possibility (given people’s actual beliefs and values and more broadly given the prevailing socioeconomic, cultural, and political circumstances, would an epistocratic regime be feasible?).
I’ve presented my research on this topic on several occasions, in big conferences, small seminars, and in meetings and less formal discussions. Obviously, epistocracy is not a very popular topic. The very idea goes against well-entrenched beliefs and values, especially in academia. In a very large majority of cases, I’ve met civic interlocutors who at least made the effort not to brand my research (and me) as authoritarian crap and, for some of them, tried to engage in the conversation. What strikes me however is that the discussion typically stays at a very general level and reflects a high level of puzzlement. Basically, people tend to come across very standard remarks and objections about the unfairness of epistocracy or the “obvious” fact that, since there is no agreement over the relevant epistemic criteria to distribute political power, the choice of these criteria must be ultimately authoritarian. These remarks tend to be raised whatever the more specific question that is tackled in the talk.
I’m not suggesting that these remarks are irrelevant; they target actually quite legitimate issues that any discussion of epistocracy must have to deal with at some point. But they also tend to indicate that many persons are taking for granted that our current democratic regime has some properties that a would-be epistocratic regime would not have. Take the unfairness objection. You can view it in different ways. For instance, in all Western democracies, we accept the fact that enfranchisement is not universal. Part of the population living on the territory and affected by public policies are not allowed to vote (children and teenagers, foreigners, criminals). There may be good reasons for that of course. The point however is that there is nothing exceptional in disenfranchising people. The principle in itself is widely accepted. Still on the unfairness objection, people tend to forget that the turnout rates in democracies tend to be low and, more importantly, not equal across the different subpopulations. As a matter of fact, citizens are already unequal in their participation in collective decision-making. The fact that it is the result of a choice rather than of a right is arguably relevant, but only up to a certain point. In practice, our democratic societies are unfair because they are not organized such as to make political participation equal.
As for the second objection, it loses strength after a few minutes of thinking. After all, we exactly have this problem today in our democracies. One of the biggest difficulties we are facing is that we’ve trouble agreeing on who and what counts as “expertise” and what makes it legitimate to make coercive political decisions. The only form of democracy that may eventually do without what I would call a “social convention of expertise” is populist democracy, i.e., a regime where legitimacy is fully tied to majority popular expression. This includes all variants of direct democracy. The problem is not only that this type of democracy is hardly practicable in our large and complex societies. There are also obvious reasons to think that it would not work and could have dangerous effects. So, if you think that the issue of agreeing on what counts as expertise is a relevant objection to epistocracy, then you should probably accept that this applies to representative democracy, too.
I do not regard these points as particularly profound. What I’ve noticed over the past few years is that most people, especially academics (economists, social scientists, philosophers), have unreflective judgments about the way democracy works and its justification. This is interesting as it is in inverse proportion to the number of persons who hold critical views about the economic counterpart of democracy in our societies, the capitalist economic regime. What I’ve also found is that the fact that you’re working on epistocracy makes people quick to conclude that you do not especially like democracy or that you’re even against it. As an academic, I consider however that my job is to be willing to explore bold ideas and possibilities, without being sure that they are correct and knowing where they will lead me. This is one of the many nice points John Stuart Mill made in On Liberty: “No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it leads.”
For sure, this also comes with an important responsibility. When you pursue this strategy, you also have to acknowledge the importance of epistemic humility. Reasoning (logical, scientific) can only take lead you so far. Whatever the conclusions you reach, you have to remain cautious about their truth value. Now, with respect to epistocracy, I’ve no strong beliefs about the fact that such a regime would work in practice or could be justified in the context of liberal social morality. What I believe however is that by reflecting on the possibility of liberal epistocracy, we can achieve a better understanding of the nature and limits of our prevailing social and political practices within democratic regimes. This is, I think, the main value of working on unpopular subjects: by exploring remote possible worlds, you acquire new perspectives and new insights into our current world.
Can you please give an concrete example of an epistocracy, real or fictional ?