Before he stepped down as Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau called Donald Trump’s tax laws “very silly. ” This might be an exact description of numerous Trump management policies— but the more honestly correct word is “stupid. ”
In fact, Québec’s largest newspaper, Le Journal de Montréal, published a front-page photo of Trump in early February with the word “stupid ” in 350-point type. Some may call this an opinion, but the knowledge of foolishness tells us that it ’s more of a description.
New research has produced a terse label for the ill calculated activities of decision-makers: stupidity.
This is not easy name-calling, but a sensation that comprises damage and features a set of actions that are either illegal recognizably destructive, or look thus at odds with any sensible course of action that it seems a hidden agenda was become involved.
Foolishness that causes everyone to reduce
According to the sperm and interpersonal view of human stupidity by Carlo Cipolla, the later Roman economic historian, relationships fall into four types:
- Intelligent conversation that is beneficial to all – a positive-sum activity like Scottish scientist Adam Smith’s notion of success through specialization and trade;
- Helpless interaction that results in a loss in a zero-sum game;
- Bandit interaction that results in a gain in zero-sum game;
- Stupid interactions that cause all parties to suffer losses.
Free trade is based on an intelligent positive-sum interaction. Trump’s transactional zero-sum view is that for every winner there is a loser.
He apparently does n’t understand that tariffs are only successful if other countries don’t retaliate. But other countries do retaliate, and as the world is now witnessing, the resulting trade war can decimate the global economy.
Trump’s protectionist measures aimed at boosting the US economy can therefore be considered “stupid ” interactions that risk deepening and lengthening an economic depression.
Stupidity as recognizable actions
Modern-day researchers have also identified three recognizable sets of actions embodying stupidity:
Confident ignorance involves people taking risks without having the necessary skills to deal with them. It’s not just being ignorant of one’s ignorance — explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect— but being self-assured despite contrary evidence.
Trump may know what he does not know, so he delegated many tasks to Tesla founder Elon Musk and trade tariff architect Pete Navarro, both of whom seem to possess no such awareness.
Absent-minded failure means people knew the right thing to do but were not paying sufficient attention to avoid doing something stupid. Organizations create agendas, but if issues don’t reach a point where they seriously impact the organization’s objectives, they are ignored.
An example: the recent US strikes against Yemeni Houthis. US officials ignored critical security components by sharing information about their plans over unsecure connections and with a member of the media.
Lack of control means that autocratic decision-makers compromise their organizations by failing to accept objections from those charged with implementing the leader’s preconceived plans.
Such autocratic decision-makers may select biased information to support their proposals. People working under those leaders either buy into efforts to selectively use information, limit alternatives and execute these preconceived plans or they leave the organization (either voluntarily or not ).
In the US, witness the firing of Justice Department pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer. She failed to support restoring gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, who had been convicted of domestic violence in 2011. Gibson’s pardon was reportedly based on his personal relationship with the president.
Types of stupidity
Organizational researchers have used the term functional stupidity to describe those who refuse to use their intellectual capacities when making decisions and then avoid justification for their actions. This allows group members to quickly execute routine functions without much thought.
Dysfunctional stupidity is a lack of organizationally supported reflection, reasoning and justification. Organizations fail to use intellectual resources to process knowledge or question norms or claims of knowledge when confronted with new or non-routine decisions. By blocking communications, muffling criticism and squelching doubts, organizations ensure adherence to superiors ’ edicts.
One Trump administration example is the unquestioning permission given to allow the Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ), headed by Musk, to gain access to a wide array of government data.
It can take the combined efforts of organizational officials on multiple levels to maintain stupidity.
Individually, stupidity is reinforced by ignoring crucial information because of a need for a rapid response.
Consequently, quick decisions and shortcuts made by individuals result in negative outcomes. An example would be the Trump administration ’s apparent need to appear to find cost savings quickly to allow for tax cuts, overriding a more logical approach to find ways to achieve those savings without gutting legally mandated services.
Organizationally, stupidity is reinforced because organizations limit acceptable alternative behaviors when they cannot process all available information. Data are restricted, controls are tightened and organization officials fall back to using previously well-learned responses in their comfort zones. Inexperienced decision-makers fall back on uninformed assumptions, or no assumptions at all.
Witness Trump’s “reciprocal” trade tariffs that battered financial markets worldwide, finally causing him to hit the pause button. No tariffs were calculated using current tariff rates, while some were based on American trade deficits with other countries. Other tariffs seem to be based on no rationale at all.
Stupidity as a hidden agenda?
Some actions that appear stupid may simply hide a hidden agenda. When the Trump administration erroneously detains and deports anyone under the Alien Enemies Act, is it an accident – or is it a way to instill the fear that authorities can detain, mistreat and deport anyone without due process at any point?
Many of the actions being taken by the Trump administration appear stupid. Tariffs, for example, represent a loss — a transactionally negative sum game.
Trump’s decisions exhibit confident ignorance, absent-minded failure and lack of control. They also show dysfunctional stupidity as Trump officials seemingly refuse to use their full intellectual resources. Stupidity is also being reinforced through unfounded assumptions. Is this all hiding a secret agenda?
“You can’t fix stupid, ” so the saying goes. But having capable administrators in place while other branches of government exercise their constitutionally mandated oversight role might dampen some of the Trump administration ’s stupidity.
Jerry Paul Sheppard is an associate professor of business administration at Simon Fraser University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.