Perception of Reality vs. Objective Reality

A recent article in the New York Times cast a seemingly jealous eye upon the Dutch pension system. Why? By comparison with the US, the Dutch system appears scrupulous, fair, but most of all typically Dutch in the brutal honesty with which they objectively deconstruct and tackle contentious issues. In America, by contrast, even after bi-partisan commissions comprised of eminent panel members try to get to the bottom of something, we seem no more enlightened as to where truth lies (no pun intended) or how to tackle it for the greater good of the public's interest.    

Pensions speak volumes about contrasting national characters. Sober-minded Danes and Dutch have transparent and logical approaches that attempt to maximize reality in actuarial analysis, funding and benefit requirements, while minimizing the fantasy of projecting above-market returns, and limiting the ability of pigs to feed at the trough. Canadians, too, have well-run, transparent systems that reflect their earnest, solutions-minded national character. Germans's rely almost wholly on pay-as-go reflecting their confidence to make tough fiscal choices when required, while the UK institutionalizes the rape and theft of savers and beneficiaries for the advantage of the City and her Managers, a legacy microcosm of UK class-based inequity. America's system reflects her faith in hope and fantasy over preparation and analysis, and plagued by the same byzantine structure incrementally etched by lobbyists and interest groups, that makes America's healthcare system The Very Best In The World. The New York Times is of course to polite, and would appear too partisan were it to represent the image of the US system as such.  

I, must admit that I, too, am jealous of the Danes and The Dutch. So much acrimony over public policy would be disarmed if more peoples were capable of similar detached objectivity. So much angst would veritably disappear from our broadsheets and evening news. The energy could then be rightfully focused upon coping with what might often be a painful solution requiring shift and behavioral change, rather than exhausting oneself in an attempt to avoid confronting the problem itself.

  

A striking analogy springs to mind from the realm of industrial sociology, that is worthy of recounting, for it was a vivid attempt to objectively measure our national perceptions against a benchmark of some objective reality. Some three decades ago, researchers used driveshaft manufacturing within the auto-parts industry, as a baseline. If memory serves me correctly, the german conglomerate Bosch had plants manufacturing more or less the identical piece in four different countries - Holland, Spain, the UK and USA. Each of the plants, similarly equipped, had precise data on their quality as measured by their defect rates. The consultants set out to measure the workers attitudes towards the quality and effectiveness of their work, by asking them questions that measured their perception of the quality of their work. This might have value to firm when faced with wage demands, or consolidation decisions. The results, were striking, though not  unsurprising.     

The Dutch workers had a high opinion of the quality of their work. This was set against a low defect rate, giving the Dutch perception of reality a characteristically close approximation to objective reality (as measured by the defect rates). The British workers had a low opinion of the quality of their work. This was exemplified by high defect rates, making their perception of reality reasonably-close to the  objective reality of their work. Workers at the Spanish plant had a reasonably low opinion of their work  , which was at odds with the high quality of their efforts evidenced by a low defect rate. This was an interesting result - probably one there company would prefer to keep hidden from their Spanish workers.  Perhaps @Ibexsalad can verify whether self-deprecation is endemic to the Spanish national character.  At the American plant, survey results showed workers had a very high opinion of the quality of their work, completely at odds with the relatively high objective defect rates of the output of the plant. And it is precisely this gulf - between perceived reality and objective reality - which has proven problematical to overcome whether in politics, public policy, or, as in this topic, pensions. To be entirely fair, it is the stuff that helps put men on the moon, and cure cancer, but it also is the stuff that gives us Enron, 'AAA' sub-prime securitisations, Detroit, Puerto Rico, and ant-fuckingly irrelevant public-policy obsessions with creationism, same-sex marriage, and abortion while proverbial Rome burns and decays.