Everyone Against The Planners

Part of my inchoate ‘philosophy’ is small c conservatism .Unimpressed by shiny new ideas,I am implacably attached to what provably works, however improbable the invention of say , The House of Lords , might appear. This sort of conservativism has recently acquired contemporary resonance despite its antiquity.
Kieron O Hara, in his superb, “The Conservative Tradition” ,traces a lineage from sceptical classical philosophers like Phyrrus and Sextus ,through to Michel; Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92). This Renaissance thinker had views on human presumption that lead him to castigate those who thought they knew best how to govern .He said : "It is easy enough in a nation to generate contempt for its ancient customs : no man has ever tried to do so without reaching his goal; but for replacing the conditions you have ruined with better ones , many who have tried to do that have come to grief” We might broaden the point by saying the wisdom, in a system, is not necessarily known to any individual .Those who claim to be qualified to redesign it (Social planners we would say) are therefore to be resisted .
In the 20th century Hayek also denied the efficacy of central planning ,but valued low level decisions if they were short term with expert local knowledge.“ The shipper who earns his living by using otherwise empty of half filled journeys ..or the arbitrageur who gains from local differences in commodity prices - are all performing eminently useful functions based on special knowledge in the fleeting moment not known to others ". Information , inaccessible to bureaucrats , is in millions of Mayfly judgements and for Hayek the sum of all this was price .Forget please the Neo Liberalism that ensues ,just hold in your mind the impossibility of a sufficiently responsive planner achieving an equivalent optimum.
Today I bought the “New Scientist “ and the arresting front cover exclaimed, “ Hands Off , Why things work better when you let go !”. Naturally my curiosity was piqued and sure enough Dirk Helbing ( a Swiss Physicist ) has discovered something oddly familiar. "In many situations it is better to give up some of our controls . Often the system discovers better outcomes unlike anything our minds would imagine …” uh huh… !
For example General Motors were not able to maximise the use of their paint booths . The random arrival of trucks and unpredictable maintenance resisted a programmed assignment. The solution was to give the machines simple rules and let them ”bid” for the jobs .The results looked peculiar but General Motors saved $1million in paint alone at one plant
This healthy respect for complex unpredictability has been directed at Traffic lights .At the moment lights are pre-programmed by engineers to alter their phases at given times . Helbing gave the lights simple operating rules and left them to organise themselves with sensors relaying information about traffic flow what other lights are doing .. Again the results can look very odd, but journey times , in Dresden , were reduced by 'devolving decisions to the lights'
Boris Johnson is surely the small c conservative non pareiil . He has launched a consultation on scrapping the congestion zone extension, and today we read ,congestion in the capital generally is back at its old levels Journey times are actually longer. There has been no easing of congestion in the Western zone since the charge was rolled out ( says TFL) , and Boris has encouragingly described Ken`s baby as a “blunt instrument ..”. In a package of measures he promises to re-phase traffic lights i.e. leave them green longer .Not bad Boris but what about consulting Dirk Helbing and adopting a truly conservative and yet brilliantly modern solution . Scrap the whole thing and let the lights and drivers decide.