Wednesday Bonus: The Tools of Government, by Christopher C. Hood
Q: Well, what does government do, exactly? A: Cybernetic control of society
Christopher C. Hood wrote:
Chapter 1
Exploring Government’s Toolshed
Well, what does government do, exactly?
Responding to this 'plain man's question' isn't simple, because there are so many possible ways in which it could be answered. Consider only three, out of a myriad of possibilities. One possible reply would be to try to describe what happens ‘inside' government. How decisions are made, how orders are passed down the line, how information moves about. If we chose to answer the question in this way, we would be telling a story about government's decision processes. It is the kind of story that has become familiar through political diaries and memoirs. The story would be punctuated by telephone calls and documents, interminable meetings, lights burning into the night, petty squabbles and jealousies, panics, heart attacks and nervous breakdowns, actors of varying importance, competence and ambition. We would soon become immersed in all those interesting but elusive questions about power, influence, who-said-what-to-whom and when. Not 'plain man's' territory, exactly. …
But that is only one way of looking at what government does. A second type of answer might focus on the subjects in which governments today are interested, rather than on the arcane plottings in the chancellories. That would take us on to an entirely different tack. We would find ourselves trying to list everything that government nowadays concerns itself with, for one reason or another. Very quickly that list would become bewilderingly long and heterogeneous. From government’s birth control pills for cats in Denmark to its seals on domestic gas meters in Britain: government's spoor (its cloven hoof, some would say) appears everywhere. We would soon have to simplify, reducing the mass of specific interests down to a few major and general purposes that governments have, or say they have.
Either of these approaches would make sense as a way of describing 'what government does'. A third possibility -different again- is to describe the tools that government uses, rather than what it uses those tools for or how it reaches its decisions. We can imagine government as a set of administrative tools - such as tools for carpentry or gardening, or anything else you like. Government administration is about social control, not carpentry or gardening. But there is a tool-kit for that, just like anything else. What government does to us - its subjects or citizens - is to try to shape our lives by applying a set of administrative tools, in many different combinations and contexts, to suit a variety of purposes.
These three approaches to 'what government does' are rather like the story of the blind men describing an elephant: each gets part of the whole picture. This book however is about 'what government does’ only in the third sense. It is about the tools or instruments that government uses at the point where it comes into contact with 'us', the world outside. It focuses on the mechanics rather than on the ends of government, and on what government does to society rather than on what happens inside government. …
Government as a tool-kit
If we were looking at a physical collection of tools, we could ‘take in' that collection more easily if we could separate its contents into a few broad types at the outset, distinguishing (say) hammering tools from digging tools, measuring tools and cutting tools. When it comes to government's collection of tools -which are not physically assembled in a single place - it is all the more important to be able to identify broad classes if we are to avoid being swamped by detail and unable to distinguish theme from variations. By making two sets of simple distinctions, we can begin to make sense of the apparent complexity of the instruments which government uses on us.
Detectors and effectors
First, we can distinguish between government's tools for 'dectection' and its tools for 'effecting'. These are shown in Figure 1.1. Detectors are all the instruments that government uses for taking in information. Effectors are all the tools that government can use to try to make an impact on the world outside.
The terms 'detector' and 'effector' will be strange to some readers. They come from cybernetics, the science of general control systems. They are the two essential capabilities that any system of control must possess at the point where it comes into contact with the world outside. This applies literally to any control system in art or nature (a mousetrap, a moon rocket, the body's temperature control).
For government, which is - or aims to be- preeminently a way of controlling society, these capabilities are basic to its existence.
Plainly, then, government needs to employ a host of detecting instruments to observe or to obtain information from the outside world. It is essential for any control system to have some means of ascertaining the state of the system or of the world outside as it relates to that control system - temperature, pressure, or whatever it may be. But it is not enough simply to know what is going on. No control system is worthy of the name unless it is capable of taking some action on the basis of that knowledge. This is the second point at which any control system comes into contact with the world outside. It must have some means of trying to adjust the state of the system to which it relates. Here we come to the 'business end' of government - a range of tools which vary from the gentlest of blandishments to extremely blunt instruments.
The 'NATO' scheme -government's basic resources
On what is government to base its detectors and effectors? This brings us to the second set of distinctions, the so-called 'NATO' scheme. This has nothing to do with the well known Western defence alliance. It is just a convenient acronym which sums up four basic resources that governments tend to possess by virtue of being governments, and upon which they can draw for detecting and effecting tools. These four basic resources are 'nodality', 'treasure', 'authority' and ‘organisation', as shown in Figure 1.2.
'Nodality' denotes the property of being in the middle of an information or social network (not necessarily 'dead centre'). Strictly, a ‘node' is a junction of information channels. Governments are typically ‘nodal' at least to some degree in one or all of three senses. They may constitute a central presence in the form of a 'figurehead' They may constitute a central presence in a more narrowly informational sense - seeing many different cases and thus building up a store of information not available to others. Often, they sit in some central place in their domain - the Rome to which all roads lead.
'Treasure' denotes the possession of a stock of moneys or ‘fungible chattels'. That means not only (or necessarily) money in the common, everyday sense of banknotes or coins, but anything which has the money-like property of ‘fungibility' that is, the capacity to be freely exchanged. Governments in most cases possess at least some stock of 'treasure' in this sense.
'Authority' denotes the possession of legal or official power. That is the power officially to demand, forbid, guarantee, adjudicate. 'Authority' in this sense is traditionally seen as one of the defining properties of government, though its source, base and level may vary widely.
'Organisation' denotes the possession of a stock of people with whatever skills they may have (soldiers, workers, bureaucrats), land, buildings, materials and equipment, somehow arranged. In many circumstances 'organisation' will be linked with the other three basic resources, but it is not a simple derivative of them, in that it is logically possible to possess organisation in this sense without (say) treasure or authority- as when a plundering army lives by pillaging the countryside. Governments in most cases possess at least a minimum of ‘organisation'.
Each of these four basic resources gives government a different capability, can be 'spent' in a different way, and is subject to a different limit. Thus:
Nodality gives government the ability to traffic in information on the basis of 'figureheadedness' or of having the 'whole picture’. Nodality equips government with a strategic position from which to dispense information, and likewise enables government to draw in information for no other reason than that it is a centre or clearing-house. The limiting factor is credibility, and the 'coin' -how government spends this resource - is messages sent and received.
Treasure gives government the ability to exchange, using the 'coin' of 'moneys' and subject to a limit of 'fungibility'. Government may use its treasure as a means of trying to influence outsiders or as a way of buying 'mercenaries' of various kinds. In fact, as we will see later, 'cheque-book government' is an instrument in constant use.
Authority gives government the ability to 'determine' in a legal or official sense, using tokens of official authority as the coin, and subject to a limit of legal standing.
Organisation gives government the physical ability to act directly, using its own forces rather than mercenaries. The coin is ‘treatments' or physical processing, and the limiting factor is capacity.
As can be seen from Figure 1.2, each of these four properties can be used as the basis for tools both of detecting and effecting. Thus government can obtain information simply on account of its nodality (or by making itself nodal), by buying it, by officially demanding it, or by extracting it by means of some physical device. Similarly it can try to influence the world outside by sending out messages on the basis of its nodality, by treasure, by authority and by organisation.
These four resources are different in several ways, as I will indicate in later chapters. For example, some may be 'self-renewing', while others cannot be. And some may introduce more constraint into the environment of government's subjects than others. Very roughly, that level of constraint could be said to rise as government moves from nodality-based tools to those based on treasure, and then to authority-based and in turn to organisation-based tools. In very simple terms it could be said that 'nodality' works on your knowledge and attitudes, 'treasure' on your bank balance, 'authority' on your rights, status and duties, and 'organisation' on your physical environment or even on your person.
By combining the two control mechanisms and the four types of resources - as in Figure 1.2 -we get eight basic kinds of tool that government can use at the point were it comes into contact with the world outside. Each of these eight types will be discussed and explored further in subsequent chapters.
Chapter 7
Government as a Tool-Kit
Thinking of government as a tool-kit helps us to do at least three things. First, it can help us to make sense of the apparent complexity of government activity as some combination of a relatively limited basic range of instruments, we have what cyberneticians call a 'variety reducer', or, in plain language, a mode of simplification. …
Making sense of complexity
Government administration is so complex that we have to find ways of making it simple. Look at it one way, and the variety of operations and activities seems fantastic, defying comprehension by any single mind. But in another sense all government activities can be understood as different mixes and combinations of a relatively small number of generic administrative tools, many of them ancient in origin.
The idea of government administration as the generation of endless permutations of a limited set of standard routines, or variations on a few basic themes, has parallels with the economist's use of three or four basic 'factors of production' to describe any production function that exists or might exist. When a new 'problem' or policy comes along, government does not, typically, invent an entirely new implement for putting its purpose into effect. How could it? Government (whatever it might like us to think) is not peopled by super-intelligent beings. Geniuses who are capable of generating qualitative novelty are as few and far between in government as anywhere else. Mostly, government must work with the implements that it already has, adapting them to a new context as best it can. (This can happen for reasons other than sheer lack of invention, of course, often government can economise on bureaucracy by using already existing instruments, relying on what currently exists 'on the ground'.)
It could not be otherwise. Complexity in nature - and in artifice - is invariably built on the architectonics of producing high variety from a relatively small number of basic units. There is no other model. …
The Source:
Christopher C. Hood, The Tools of Government, Macmillan Press 1983 [repeatedly reprinted ever since — there is now The Tools of Government in the Digital Age]
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.