Behavioural Economics – Treasury Guidelines

PHYLEGYAS

Executive Summary:

As the newly appointed Director of Behavioural Economics at the Treasury, I am circulating these guidelines to all colleagues of whatever rank, diversity, equality or any other designation that I might have missed. Given that Behavioural Economics is grounded in the emotional, cultural and social factors causing economic decisions, these rules are to be front and centre of future Treasury Policy.

1. This does not necessarily mean they are rules to ensure equality – there will always be One Rule For Us and another for the rest – and if we have to include other civil servants in our plans in order to achieve the best result for us (such as index-linking public sector pensions to inflation all those years ago), then so be it. But such dilution is frowned upon.
2. Discrimination, which is the inevitable result of making a Decision, is to be abhorred – except under paragraph 1 above.
3. Although some of these rules may appear to have been applied for years (we have always focused on the Purity of Process rather than the Rigour of Result),  the codification of them is indeed new.
4. And that codification is very clear: the underlying basis of these Guidelines is that there is no basis – there are no parameters except self-identified ones. These Guidelines are neither cis-Guidelines, nor trans-Guidelines. Everything is fluid; everything is a Process: – everything, you yourself, any policy discussion, any and every fleeting thought that flickers across your forehead (even as to what’s for lunch) is self-identified – so you can make of anything whatever you want. Again, nothing new in this, certainly not in our Department at any rate. But fluidity has never been codified before (and there is a team of sixty five people across the organisation which has been tasked with defining fluidity and its indefinability – with no deadline because that requires a Decision).
5. We avoid Discrimination by having Exceptions rather than Decisions, for Exceptions are Articles of Faith.  One such Exception, already noted, is One Rule For Us.
6. The second is our belief in Balancing the Books. This is less of a Decision than you might think because both the balancing and the books (as any sensible businessperson will tell you) are entirely fluid. The figures we use are estimates built upon estimates built upon assumptions. We have no clue about Reality (itself a self-identifiable concept if ever there was one).
7. Our two most recent Wins for the newly codified Purity of Process have been the last two budgets – the trashing of one by blaming the Government and the capturing of the next lot of political prunes by locking Jeremy Hunt in a room with his spreadsheets for a full three weeks, so that, gasping for a loo break , he vindicates the nutty figures we have already fed as Truth to the credulous media. 
8. So we come full circle (an acceptable principle because there is no Decision there, for a circle goes on forever): We exercise the One Rule For Us by a combination of cis-smoke and trans-mirrors. It was ever thus, and always will be. Trust the Process.

Phlegyas learnt the value of ignoring rationality by studying economics.

Phlegyas has spent over 35 years in large and small commerce working across seven different industries and nine different countries. Like his mythical namesake, who ferried Dante and Virgil across the River Styx, he has guided many present-day Board directors of very large organisations through the treacherous cross-currents of Business and Board games. His ancestors emigrated south.