If I’m not crazy then your help is essential. I’m one person with extremely limited resources. I have little time or money and I’m not even remotely tech savvy. When it comes to social media and networking I’m utterly worthless. To propagate and actualize the idea of non-political government will require the concerted effort of many people with skills and resources that I don’t have. What can you bring to this challenge?
In case my argument is still unclear I've restated a condensed version below. It’s only twelve hundred words but covers (briefly) the essential points of my position.
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Democratic Politics truly is a Darwinian struggle, with deep roots in the ancient ecology of the human population balance. For millennia countless homo sapiens populations vied over the agricultural resources which comprised their habitat. As surely as wolves compete for hunting range, humans battled over farmland. Famine, disease and warfare all maintained the equilibrium of homo sapiens numbers, but war provided the organizing principle for our social behavior. The behavior which supported this primeval struggle is today know as Majority Rule. It has been freighted with an unsupportable burden of illusory moral virtue, but it is in fact utterly amoral. The leader who dominates the greatest number of subordinates rules the day; this literally is majority rule, no more no less. Morality does not enter into the equation. It is true that these subordinates may sometimes follow willingly, but then cattle may plod readily into the slaughterhouse. Does this make the butcher their friend? Does it make their execution “moral“?
The largest group or faction represents (on average) the strongest military force. This may be directed against external enemies or against rival factions within the population. By this means homo sapiens consolidate the group and defend (or extend) their territorial range against others, maintaining the viability of a given population as a collective vehicle for genetic transmission. Dominance and consolidation are achieved and maintained by a variety of means, but few which correspond to modern notions of morality; violence, intimidation, deception, bribery and intrigue are all normal. The requirements of military efficiency inevitably lead to hierarchy, social stratification and maximal exploitation of those in the lower layers of strata. This form of organization has been described as a Class System and the title seems appropriate; a variety of social parts or classes systematically coordinate their efforts for the common purpose of warfare.
Modern governments operate on the identical principles but if the overt violence of group consolidation can be kept to a minimum then we dignify the process with the title of “Democracy” and excuse all unpleasantness short of actual bloodshed as regrettable but unavoidable. We should not be fooled by this superficial peace, or the elaborate institutional flourishes, pseudo-religious propaganda, and academic analysis which turns Politics into a Science. Even the introduction of universal suffrage changes nothing. Fundamentally, it’s still the same process. Despite all of our so called “enlightenment” the class system is alive and well. Oppression and warfare continue unabated as they have since the beginning of history.
The need for such government is now behind us. It ended when humans learned how to engineer their environment and control their reproduction. With scientific agriculture and medicine (particularly birth control) human populations are now self regulating. Some industrial countries are even experiencing a decrease in population. In this radically altered context, war is obsolete and politics (the social organization which supports it) is a dangerous anachronism. It no longer serves any good purpose and could very well exterminate us.
The clear alternative is to separate government from politics. This process has been underway since before Christ, but now we must finish what has been started. Professional civil service administrators, not politicians, represent the only credible way forward for human government. We are all political animals and political behavior will never disappear entirely, but to make politics the organizing principle for our Government is insanity.
Obviously one doesn't need a scientific hypothesis to make the case for ending politics. Short of mass murderers and pedophiles there is no group more reviled than politicians. Still, the political process is so thoroughly embedded in our culture that most people can scarcely conceive of giving it up. Many thinking people have undoubtedly entertained ideas similar to the ones that I promote but clearly it’s difficult to get traction with such novel concepts. It goes against deeply held prejudice and is threatening to the power-brokers in our society. So what makes me think that I can promote this idea with success? Nothing, I only hope that it is possible. I imagine that most novel ideas have to circulate for decades or even centuries before the right moment of receptivity occurs. Timing is undoubtedly important but so is preparation as well. My essay may help to prepare the way by presenting the issue from a fresh perspective, a scientific perspective.
Despite all the paranoia, superstition and magical thinking out there, our culture does still respect science. If the argument against politics can be supported by ecology, a respectable branch of biology, it will undoubtedly help. Even the Creationists and the Climate deniers claim to believe in science, or at least most of them do. They simply argue against the leading hypothesis, believing that a cabal of atheists and tree hugging environmentalists have conspired to distort the research and mangle the conclusions. People believe what they want to believe and then they arrange the “facts” to support their conclusions. Certainly that’s what I've done and I would never pretend otherwise. The sweet spot in this dynamic is when someone’s idea of science also happens to correspond with their deeply held emotional convictions. Everyone hates politicians so maybe this is one hypothesis we can all support, on the left and the right. If science supports the idea of retiring all politicians this might just be a conclusion that everyone can get behind.
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Obviously such a step will probably involve amending Constitution and we all know how difficult that is. But has anyone ever even tried? Should we give up before even starting? Is there any real alternative? Perhaps my essay can provide the impetus to initiate some form of organized political action. That’s the hope anyhow.
It’s up to you. I know that sounds like a cliché but it’s actually true. I certainly can’t do it on my own and if you won’t help who will? .
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ReplyDeleteGiven my experience with civil service, I know that similar forces often drive success in such government structures as determine success in politics. Perhaps positive selection is slightly better. The Confucian civil servant model is appealing, but didn't the Emperor ultimately determine who ran the civil service?
ReplyDeleteAs far as a random citizen, jury-style governance, things are so complex now that it's hard to imagine that elite-serving "advisors" (aka lobbyists), given access to the citizen-governors to provide technical expertise, wouldn't manipulate them to their own purposes.
Interesting ideas though. And yes, I read the whole thing...
Thank you for your comments. It's nice to at least be taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteSorry I couldn't respond sooner
I don't doubt that similar forces work within government structures, or any other place that you find a group of people. We are political animals and that seems unlikely to change. In a civil service bureaucracy I assume that the politically appointed head follows the orders of his politician bosses and that their directives flow downhill, ultimately introducing a substantial element of political activity throughout the entire organization. I don't have any direct experience here though like you.The closest we've ever come to a "pure" non-political civil service organization was (I suppose) either the Manhattan project or the Apollo program. In these cases I imagine that the program heads were engineers and they were probably left to their own devices with a minimum of outside interference.
As to "jury-style governance" I don't doubt these individuals would be susceptible to manipulation and corruption. I think that something along these lines may have happened during the early years of the Soviet Union. I doubt the Bolsheviks had too many party members with the technocratic skills to run a country. Ideally, in my opinion, lawmakers must be well educated both in the sense of general knowledge and also technocratic specialties such as law, finance and probably the hard sciences as well. Otherwise I'm sure you're right about the consequences.
Theoretically, a non-political government could even employ a lot of the same people. If you remove the pressure of the electoral process and also do everything possible to minimize institutional politics then these lawmakers are operating in an entirely different environment. It's the whole nature/nurture thing; are politicians intrinsically bad people or do we create politicians out of otherwise decent individuals ?. We are all political animals, but if we can acknowledge that fact openly and use institutional structures to minimize, rather than exacerbate, the situation then I would have some faith in the future....
The idea which I'm promoting is very simple, but I have no illusions about the implementation and execution being simple. Complexity and pitfalls abound I am certain.
By the way, what did you mean by "positive selection"?