Complexity in Policy-Making
Individual Rationality and Collective Good in times of Covid-19
(When the two do not synchronize)
Nearly a month after the commencement of nationwide lockdown, the woman my parents have hired for domestic help came to collect her salary. This was the time when media was aflush with distressing videos and pictures of migrants in various parts of the country leaving for their homes, navigating the physical roads and their perplexing predicaments with bare minimum. My mother curiously inquired if she was finding it difficult to leave for her village. She replied saying that her family would have left if they wanted to but chose to stay back as they feared that the people at her village would be annoyed with their selfishness of not thinking about the fellow villagers while risking bringing the ‘disease from the city’.
To most, this would seem like a ‘responsible’ thing to do. Those who seemed to suggest that the actions of migrants who began walking back home reeked of unreasonableness would be especially proud. However, the fact is that both set of actions were similarly rational. It was just a case of individual rationality not leading to the desired collective action.
The migrants who had to leave their temporary residence were forced into doing so due to fear of eviction, uncertainty of income from livelihood and expenditure on health and other essentials during this extremely unsettled and incalculable state of affairs. With growing individualization in the society, people are becoming increasingly responsible for their own risk-related decisions. These decisions aggregate in indiscernible way at the macro level leading to a very complex outcome on collective good. With the pandemic far from being under control, this complexity will present itself way too frequently when rational actions at micro level do not aggregate to optimal collective action at the macro level.
To put it simply, individuals have unique contexts operating around them which influence their behaviours. During these acutely trying times that has ensnared people through no fault of their own, everyone is striving against adversity for survival. What we need is empathy from the privileged sections of our populace, especially those at the helm of decision making at this critical juncture.
Our planners and policy makers are expected to show awareness and competence to deal with the emergent properties of the very complex interactions in our society and economy to help people traverse through the enormity of the problem at hand. Special times call for special measures. In the spirit of the same, processes have to be designed that make self-reporting of symptoms and individual effort at prevention more rewarding. Incentives should be rolled out with consideration to the heterogeneity of the population so as to encourage people to adopt socially optimal practices when individual reasoning rejects them. Calibrated income support, proactive measures for continuance of livelihood, etc. fit into this approach. The administration must be nimble-footed to anticipate any likely divergence of individual rationality and collective good. Given the uncertainty enveloping the economy, scenario planning must be resorted to so as to be prepared for what lies ahead. Also, the same problem could emerge at a more aggregate level of states when their competing interests may not synchronize for an optimal national outcome; hence, the need for more coordination and coherence of policies.
The immensity of India’s population with disparate segments makes the job undoubtedly complicated and onerous. At the same time, to be in midst of a pandemic is especially challenging when individual actions can have multiplicative effect derailing efforts to counter it. Never in recent history has alignment of individual actions been more pertinent. However, this should, by no means, serve as an excuse for failure at responsive governance. I am hoping that the governments (both at the centre and states) will step up action keeping all politics aside and rise to the occasion in times to come.
