Biased experts

I think of experts as being aware of the history and schools of thought in their given fields. They are also open to synergy from interacting with experts from different fields.

The World Bank and the IMF can afford to buy the best available brains so why do these in-house experts not see the shortcomings in the neo-liberal, free trade policies they are recommending? For example, as part of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) they recommended:

• privatization of state-owned industrial and financial firms,
• deregulation of finance and industry,
• liberalization of international trade and investment, and
• reduction in income taxes and welfare payments.

   
These policies have been applied for the last thirty years and very little progress has been made in promoting democracy - but the same policies are still being promoted. (eg the Cameron/Osborne Tory agenda in the UK.) It appears from the outside as a case of zealotic blinkers. What else might it be?

The bosses, middle managers and field workers genuinely believe in the free market approach and their biased beliefs made them ignore the emerging evidence of shortcomings.
Problem = narrow tracking and groupthink!

The managers and field workers are aware of the emerging evidence of problems with the free market approach but they keep quiet about them so as to please the bosses and keep their jobs
Problem = toeing the line, and not collapsing the canoe.

This story line seems to recognise another continuum. This time from zealot to sage

Zealot – a small minded person who takes an enthusiastic stand at an extreme end of a continuum of possibilities.

Sage – an open minded person who can see beyond the continuum of possibilities and who calmly steers the stakeholders to a consensual policy aimed at achieving the greatest good of the greatest number.