Book review: Effective Governance – Dan Greenwood

How to plan for collective goals when the market knows best? Dan Greenwood's book, Effective Governance, shows the way.

It is a mystery that some problems are better solved by decentralised systems where everyone does their own thing and the best result that emerges from the unplanned interactions selected for in some way, than by a coordinated plan produced centrally. And yet it is a fact. If you want to design something as complex and well-adapted as a human being, a decentralised system of improvisation, competition and natural selection will work better than a central committee. The same applies if you want to build a jumbo jet. 

This is not merely of academic interest – it was the defining political and economic question for much of the 20th century and remains a live issue today. What social and political arrangement is best for enabling human flourishing and ensuring our various needs and desires are met? One where this is the settled will of a state or another political organisation that then seeks consciously to achieve these goals? Or a decentralised system of private ownership and entrepreneurship, where businesses are free to do and produce what they like within the law, guided by prices set in a free market, and the winners selected by consumer choice?

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Effective Governance and the Political Economy of Coordination: Complexity, Coordination and the Discovery Process
Author: Dan Greenwood
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Stuart Watkins
Comment editor, MoneyWeek

Stuart graduated from the University of Leeds with an honours degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, and from Bath Spa University College with a postgraduate diploma in creative writing. 

He started his career in journalism working on newspapers and magazines for the medical profession before joining MoneyWeek shortly after its first issue appeared in November 2000. He has worked for the magazine ever since, and is now the comment editor. 

He has long had an interest in political economy and philosophy and writes occasional think pieces on this theme for the magazine, as well as a weekly round up of the best blogs in finance. 

His work has appeared in The Lancet and The Idler and in numerous other small-press and online publications.