I’m painfully aware of how pathetic it looks when some unknown citizen decides to enlighten the rest of us with their manifesto or theory on how to
"fix the system" or
"save the world". Nevertheless, the following pages represent my own contribution to this unique literary genre. Please accept my apologies; I’d greatly prefer not to make a spectacle of my delusions but the compulsion is more than I can resist. The self portrait seen here suggests madness, but you cannot entirely discount the remote possibility of genius without at least reading a few pages.
To imagine that an idea (any idea) might have the power to arrest the ongoing train wreck of Western civilization is probably grounds for commitment, but I am obsessed with the thought that this idea does exist and is in fact familiar to all of us; it predates Christ, was known to both the ancient Greeks and Chinese, and in recent centuries has exerted a profound positive influence on Governments around the world. But that positive influence has always been sharply limited and constrained by a contradictory belief which holds it in subservience. It is, in my opinion, quite literally an idea whose time has finally come. Instead of languishing in servitude the time is now ripe for this idea’s ascendance to a dominant position in our culture. Given the opportunity it might even save us from ourselves.
Yes, I'm speaking in riddles and I do apologize. I’d love nothing more than to state my thesis clearly in the first sentence or paragraph, but since my thinking flies so thoroughly in the face of convention I’m afraid to, fearing you’ll reject the concept out of hand without giving it the consideration it deserves. So instead of taking the direct route I have chosen a long and meandering course of eleven thousand words. Most of the following essay is devoted to abstract theoretical speculation, withholding my central point and concrete proposal for the final pages. No doubt this wordiness will also turn many readers away, but perhaps any who actually reach the conclusion may even be partially convinced. This is the most that I would hope for, because unlike most zealots I do not promote my opinion as fact. I insist only that my position is marginally plausible and worthy of your serious consideration. Perhaps there really is no stopping humanity’s apocalyptic course, but if such a thing is possible then my recommendations may be as credible as any.
There is a link at the end of the essay directing readers to a page at Blogspot. Daily KOS is fine but diaries obviously have a short shelf life. The Blogspot location is meant to provide a long term home for this proposal. I intend to post this diary repeatedly, in the hope of gradually siphoning off some supporters from KOS. I hope you’ll become one of these.
Preface
When The Origin of the Species appeared in 1859 the first people to expropriate Darwin’s ideas were the rich. They promoted pseudo-scientific arguments using “natural selection” to rationalize their domination of society. Communism was a threatening new ideology which challenged the existing social order; Evolution seemed to offer a scientific rebuttal. This line of defense was eventually discredited, however, and today the phrase “social Darwinism” is universally recognized as a pejorative description for sophistries that excuse oppression on scientific grounds. The very mention of Darwin’s name in a political context is now likely to raise eyebrows. Nevertheless, in the following essay I commit the intellectual indiscretion of revisiting social Darwinism. I justify this by examining the same subject but drawing wholly different conclusions with an entirely different objective.
In the 19th Century Darwin was appropriated to justify the status quo; fetid slums, child labor, eighteen hour workdays and global imperialism were all rationalized as necessary manifestations of a pre-ordained natural process. Today, I would use Darwin to discredit, once and for all, the notion that such things can any longer be justified; arguing that contemporary class divisions and the Nationalistic sparring of global geo-politics are an anachronistic evolutionary inheritance from the pre-industrial era. In the ecological dynamic governing our species during that former period class structure provided a vital advantage to human populations competing (militarily) over limited habitat (agricultural land). Class oppression and warfare were as inevitable as famine and pestilence; all necessary parts of a self-regulating natural system (much as the original social-Darwinists had in fact argued).However, in the post-agrarian, industrial world that ancient natural system has been upended. Hunger and plague are largely gone. Social violence should be also. Oppression and warfare are no longer necessary parts of a natural system, they exist primarily because human social institutions which evolved under the former dynamic actively perpetuate them. To end oppression and warfare we must modify the institutional mechanisms which facilitate it.
I also argue (contrary to popular belief) that our Constitutional system of Government is foremost among those institutions upholding class divisions and perpetuating military aggression. The framers were not true revolutionaries. They made modest adjustments to the traditional English governing institutions that they were familiar with. The resultant system was appropriate to the 18th Century but failed to anticipate the stunning changes that would inevitably be wrought by industrialism in the following century.
From the 19th Century onward there have been numerous calls for an end to the class oppression and interminable warfare perpetuated by traditional governing institutions, but the arguments used, on both sides of the debate, have generally lacked coherence. Supporters of the established order jettisoned Darwin in favor of Adam Smith but their arguments remain pseudo-scientific; with “market forces” replacing “natural selection” as the technical excuse for a wide range of destructive practices. Proponents of change have shown even less creativity, making little effort to supplant the doctrine of Karl Marx even though his thesis could equally be described as pseudoscience. Both sides regularly resort to couching their arguments in the language of Judeo-Christian morality, implying that more scientific arguments have clearly fallen short of the objective. Neither side has ever seriously questioned the fundamental structure of our institutions. In this environment of intellectual stagnation nationalist and capitalist propaganda either goes unchallenged or receives ineffectual moral rebukes. Two Centuries after the birth of Marx, class oppression and warfare are as pronounced as ever, while the consequences of the industrial revolution threaten to overwhelm human society. If social justice and environmental sanity are indeed possible, they will surely require an advancement of the intellectual position supporting them.
The struggle between progressive and conservative forces hinges on ideas. The success of progressive goals depends (at least partially) on the quality of progressive concepts. There is as much orthodoxy on the Left as the Right; to move forward we must first confront our preconceptions. The views which I express in the following pages are unconventional, but I take comfort from the example of John Adams, who always possessed the courage of his convictions even when those convictions were universally unpopular. I dedicate this essay to Adams and quote him freely throughout because I believe that any argument against our Constitution should answer directly to the minds which created it. His thinking was central to the design of our Constitution but he was also a tremendous critic, especially in later years. Perhaps after two centuries we may yet wish to listen to him and consider those criticisms.
The Extinction of Politics
A speculation on the relationship between Ecology, Politics and Government
Dedicated to John Adams
Study government as you do astronomy, by facts, observations and experiments; not by the dogmas of lying priest or knavish politicians
Whatever is not built on the broad basis of public utility must be thrown to the ground
Theoretical books upon government will not sell. Booksellers and printers, far from purchasing the manuscript, will not accept it as a gift
Experience and philosophy are lost upon mankind…
John Adams
John Adams was eminently qualified to lead our Country; a Harvard trained lawyer and polyglot with an encyclopedic knowledge of Western history, he was well equipped to judge on the important issues facing a young nation. As part of this broad wisdom, he had a firm grasp of two fundamental truths:
Government is (or should be) a science, not a superstition.
Dogma and misunderstanding (which permeated the subject even then) are an insurmountable obstacle to its progress.
If these obstacles held sway in Adam’s day, during the enlightenment, how much more so now, in an age when U. S. Lawmakers openly reject the virtues of liberal education and scientific knowledge; publicly disavowing the theories of Evolution and human induced climate change? Most contemporary Americans would endure a root canal before reading Locke, Rousseau or Montesquieu; our elected representatives are no exception to this sentiment. In a more thoughtful age, Adams made a sincere contribution to the political literature, and suffered the rest of his life as a target for every sort of libel and slander; all because he dared to suggest (on the basis of voluminous historic evidence) that an overly democratic Republic might have some serious unanticipated consequences. Today, no establishment intellectual would dare to question the divine perfection of our Constitution’s general plan; it would be an act of social heresy and professional suicide, contradicting the revered maxims of modern political science. But what kind of “science” enforces a rigid doctrinal orthodoxy?
In natural science we've abandoned leeches and kite flying for genetic engineering and quantum computing, but the science of government stands motionless; after two centuries we still argue over the precise intention of the framers, as though unable to think for ourselves. If computer scientists at MIT spent their days scrutinizing Benjamin Franklins lab notes would we take them seriously? If your doctor discounted the existence of microbes would you continue visiting her? This isn't political “science“, it's theology! The Constitution has become a sacred tablet which the patriarchal pretenders of our society use to enforce a status quo that suits virtually no one.
Grand Ayatollahs and Supreme Court Justices both wear black robes while enforcing conformity in the name of an ancient document, but there is a critical difference; the will of Allah is inscrutable whereas the earthly intentions of the framers were clearly stated in plain English at the beginning of their document. Secular ends demand secular means; when government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to change their means. This is the province of science, not religion. But the theological interpretation of the Constitution is so ingrained we are mostly unable to see beyond it. Instead of doubting the institutions of government we largely accept their suitability as a given, even when the actions of that government are frequently repulsive to us.
Medieval peasants accepted the Catholic church as we accept the institutions of our Republic. On faith. Even the Inquisition was accepted as gods work, just as Guantanamo is considered defensible by many today. Even those who disagree with such atrocities seldom blame the institution itself: a wicked Cardinal? - yes certainly; a corrupt politician? - what else; But a failed institution? - no absolutely not, the Church and Republic are both beyond reproach no matter what evil is perpetrated in their names. We must pray harder and campaign more vigorously. In the end virtue will prevail, both in heaven and on earth.
For the faithful this attitude is understandable; gods will is mysterious and we mortals must submit. For the secular follower of a political ideology, however, this attitude is inexplicable. The ideology is simply a tool established by mortals for an earthly goal; social harmony. When the tool fails to serve we must examine it to understand the problem. When we understand the problem then we may seek to repair it.
Our Republic is sometimes described as an experiment. If the framers were scientists, the trial appears to have gone astray. It would seem wise then, under the circumstances, to review their thinking so that we may analyze the situation intelligently. We should examine their words not as a sacred text but as laboratory notes, seeking clues, not religious instruction. Our world has changed almost beyond recognition since the 18th Century. What scientist imagines their experiment will be duplicated when virtually all of the original conditions are altered? Instead of expecting something so improbable we should study the problem, like Adam’s astronomer, with an eye for facts, not dogma
Abuses and Usurpations
I know but one principle or element of government….a constant and perpetual disposition and determination to do to others as we would have others do to us
Justice is the only moral principle of government
John Adams
Not to belabor the obvious but rather in the interest of simplicity and thoroughness, we should start at the beginning and renew our understanding of the framer’s purposes. What postulates did the framers accept? What durable wisdom did they derive from three thousand years of European and Mediterranean history? On what solid footings did they erect their work? Well, to begin, they concurred with Socrates and nearly every other philosopher (except perhaps Machiavelli) by stating unequivocally that Governments are created for the benefit of those to be governed. “Freedom”, “happiness“ , “safety“, “justice“, “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare”; these are the goals of Government. Government is supposed to provide these goods, and ultimately derive its legitimacy through the “consent of the governed” who believe that these functions have been fulfilled. This position isn't science, it’s philosophy, but surely this is one article of faith which even a diverse and nominally secular society can agree on. In fact, it seems so incontrovertible as to be scarcely worth mentioning, except for a glaring inconsistency: the elephant in the room which is so painfully illuminated by these words. If government is an institution that provides for the general welfare of a consenting populace, why is our society so
unwell, and why is it that our
consent is so clearly forced?
What are we to do with this information? Is this not an enormous problem? The Republic was instituted to support our health and happiness, and yet:
What justice when a small fraction of the population holds most of the wealth and, by virtue of this wealth, enjoys an unlimited power to manipulate the political system?
What freedom, happiness and tranquility when the overwhelming majority, having little or no wealth, are de facto slaves to these wealthy overlords?
What welfare when our use of the earth’s resources threatens to render the earth uninhabitable?
What safety when the common defense threatens to annihilate us?
What consent when fewer than one citizen in ten approves of his elected representatives?
What person would seriously contend this is a more perfect union? Are these the blessings of liberty?
If we truly revere the framers, as so many claim to, then we must acknowledge this glaring and horrific discrepancy between the stated purpose of our government and the reality of the actual existence which we now lead. And if we will admit the obvious, and concede that our Government has become counterproductive to the desired ends, then we must look for some flaw in our Government. It is pointless resorting to the theological interpretation of the Constitution. Adopting a moral tone and blaming plutocrats, political groups or corporations is futile. Of course these parties are flawed, we are all flawed, but it is the function of Government to protect us; from each other and also from ourselves. Remember Madison, the “father” or our Constitution:
If men were angels no government would be necessary
When government fails to achieve the desired ends it is absurd to blame that failure on the citizens. Government exists because humans are imperfect. When the citizens run amuck we must look to the Constitution, not the people. The other view is backwards.
If the framer’s experiment has gone awry there is no shortage of material to examine in our search for answers. The conditions of their experiment were the total reality of human existence in the 18th Century; the sum of our social, spiritual, intellectual, economic and technological life. Not only has our physical existence changed virtually beyond recognition but so also have our attitudes. One might advance scores of theories on the unsuitability of an 18th Century document to serve as the ultimate authority guiding humankind in the 21st Century. In the following pages I advance just one.
.“Checks and Balances” revisited
Food. Raiment, and habitations, the indispensable wants of all, are not to be achieved without the continual toil of ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind….The controversy between the rich and the poor, the laborious and the idle, the learned and the ignorant, distinctions as old as the creation, and as extensive as the globe, distinctions which no art or policy, no degree of virtue or philosophy can ever wholly destroy, will continue, and rivalries will spring out of them. These parties will be represented in the legislature, and must be balanced, or one will oppress the other. There will never probably be found any other mode of establishing such an equilibrium , than by constituting the representation of each an independent branch of the legislature, and an independent executive authority, such as that in our government, to be a third branch and a mediator or an arbitrator between them. Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
The great art of lawgiving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature.
John Adams
The above statements by Adams may provide a clue as to where the framers’ experiment went wrong. Proponents of our political system rarely tire of extolling the great virtue of its “checks and balances”, but as Adams states quite clearly here, the elaborate mechanism of our government was created solely for the purpose of maintaining a social order in which the "rich" are supported by "the continual toil of ninety nine in a hundred". Two centuries before the Occupy Wall Street protests, the most thoughtful of the framers makes it clear that the Occupiers are absolutely correct in their assessment of American society. Similar explanations of our Constitutional system appear throughout
The Federalist. What Adams says here, was once common knowledge among all educated people.
It would be unfair to condemn Adams and his peers. Class divisions are as old as civilization and the framers were both wealthy and pragmatic. We cannot reasonably imagine that they would have attempted to create a Utopia. They simply wished to design a Republic which tempered the excesses of grinding despotism and revolutionary anarchy. Set in the context of the 18th Century, their thinking was progressive and humane. But is this thinking still appropriate today?
Nominally, the virtue of this class balancing act was that each party would be protected. The one percent would be limited in its oppression of the ninety nine; the ninety nine would not overthrow the one. Order would be maintained and property would be secure. Well, we
have had order and property has been
tremendously secure, but the benefits derived by the ninety nine are surely overstated.
The essence of checks and balances was to maintain the status quo; neither the rich nor the poor could fundamentally alter the system by themselves. But the status quo was not static, it was a dynamic system called
Capitalism, and two centuries of buying, selling, research, investment and consolidation have generated an entirely new status quo based on technology the framers never even dreamed of like automated mass production, nuclear power, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Surely this is a transformation worth contemplating. If the entire
art of lawgiving consists in maintaining an economic system based on manual labor, what happens to Government when manual labor becomes virtually irrelevant?……
The “Class System” is not just a worn out Marxist cliché. It is a recognizable feature of the social landscape in every civilization which has ever existed. Adams describes its perpetuation as the central problem in Government. That being the case, is it unreasonable to examine this system in detail? Would it not be
scientific to examine the history behind the central feature of our political system? Is it not at least
conceivable that an understanding of the class system may shed light on the self evident failures of our Constitutional government? Can we do this without simply being derided as
“Socialists” or, god forbid,
Communists!?
To accomplish this examination, it may be desirable to frame the subject differently and shift from “politics” into “ecology”. Not that these two subject are necessarily so different, but it does fall outside of our habitual ways of treating the subject.
An Ecological theory of Class
How is the nature of man, and of society, and of government, to be studied or known, but in the history and by the experience of human nature in its terrestrial existence?
John Adams
History (or her-story if you prefer) is not just a collection of facts, it’s a narrative. We use selected facts to tell a story that suits our taste. It’s a version of the old tale about three blind men describing an elephant; each “sees” an entirely different creature. Similarly, there have been a variety of themes used in historical storytelling:
Traditionally there was the great man approach, which concentrated on the one percent; major actors like Alexander, Caesar and Charlemagne.
There is a Cyclical theory which suggests empires and civilizations rise and fall, as if driven by some sort of cosmic pendulum.
The notion of Progress represents a linear historical theme in which humanity is constantly improving. This is really just a warmed over version of Christianity in which a futuristic Utopia has been substituted for the second coming.
Some historians concentrate on technology. This is surely relevant but is it the driving force?
The Marxists concentrated on social class and technology both, which seems a more balanced approach. But they also accepted the notion of progress and this was problematic
Economic historians follow the money. Charles Beard made this school famous.
Popular historians (like Howard Zinn) concentrate on regular people, the ninety-nine percent, which is a nice change from the great man school, but does it explain history?
But has there ever been an Ecological school of history which explains the evolution of our political institutions primarily as a social adaptation allowing some human populations to compete more effectively in the eternal struggle over habitat? Not so far as I know, but I don’t understand why not. We are terrestrial creatures after all; we exist within the context of the earths biosphere and we are a part of the complex web of ecological relationships which describe it. We are born, we grow, we reproduce and we die; our populations compete for habitat and are limited by the available resources like all other creatures; surely these facts have a bearing on our history. No theory of history is complete; each is a model, a simplification, an effort to extract the most important elements from the full complexity of available information. An ecological interpretation of the class system may also be a gross simplification, but doesn’t it make sense to at least consider this perspective?
Whether we wish to admit it or not, humans are primates. As Jared Diamond has noted, to any impartial observer “humans” are clearly a variety of Chimpanzee. If you go back far enough our ancestors were naked, inarticulate scavengers with little of note to distinguish them from countless other species. Somehow, in the space of a hundred thousand years or so, we elevated ourselves to our current grandeur. This is the history of our terrestrial existence. Human social institutions, like government, did not arise out of a vacuum; this history created them. Surely this history is relevant to our understanding of these institutions.
Today, in the 21st Century, most people seem to feel that the usual rules don’t apply to humans; that whatever our problems may be, they defy analysis in the same terms that we would apply to other species. Well perhaps there is truth in this, a species which manipulates nature on the scale that we do does seem to play by different rules. But it wasn't always like this for us, and if we consider human history from an ecological perspective this may offer us some novel insights. Like every other creature, we adopted social behaviors which suited our means of existence; once useful, now these behaviors have become harmful. Understanding how these social habits arose may be the first step towards controlling them.
Like most other species, humans are competitive, territorial and violent. We justify this behavior with customs, codes and legal finery, but in the final analysis we are as primitive as two hyenas fighting over the same carcass. Unsurprisingly, our primate forebears are the same way. Jane Goodall had to wait a few years before witnessing her first full-on Chimp “genocide”, but now, after decades of close observation, we know that Chimps are no nicer than humans. They lack weapons but they’re hardly pacifists. And those distant human ancestors who followed the Chimps weren't so different either. Jared Diamond, who has spent decades observing the modern remnants of Paleolithic hunter/gatherer populations, has also noted a violent streak. To paraphrase loosely, he suggests that it was a major event in human history when people first learned not to kill strangers on sight. These indigenous cultures are already far removed from Goodall’s Chimps, but there is certainly an undeniable family resemblance.
The Earths resources are finite and life is a violent affair; each species struggles for its niche in the total environment, specific populations compete with neighboring groups for a domain within that hard-won niche and individual creatures fight for place within their respective populations. These considerations apply to Chimpanzees, they applied to Paleolithic primates (whom we arbitrarily choose to call “human”) and they applied equally to those Neolithic populations which stumbled upon agriculture. Today, we manipulate our environment with godlike powers, but our social forms remain the product of an earlier time when humanity was still weak, and daily violence was an unavoidable fact of life. If we wish to be less violent today we should consider how we got that way in the first place.
Following the last ice age, our ancestors learned of a new way to acquire food. Agriculture allowed humans to extract sustenance from the earth more efficiently than hunting and gathering; it was a highly successful adaptation for our species, giving us a huge advantage over every other creature. We are told this shift to agriculture was the beginning of “Civilization” , and clearly it was the beginning of something enormous (whatever we choose to call it); but it was not the end of our subservience to the fundamental requirements of ecology.
Every population (of any species) will breed and multiply until it reaches a limit where the birth rate and death rate balance each other out. There are fluctuations of course, but behind these fluctuations there is a fundamental ecological relationship based on the full complexity of the earths organic and inorganic systems (in essence, everything from variations in the jet stream to the latest mutation of some microbe). For humans, agriculture altered these relationships enormously, but our species was still subject to the eternal necessity of balancing its population.
Many of the factors limiting population growth can be labeled as environmental - like weather, predation and topography - but in addition to these externally imposed limits there are also self imposed limits. Some creatures will eat the offspring of their rivals, some will eat their own offspring, and “war” is known even to ants. Consciously or not, each species understands the nature of limits and will use violence against its own kind in the service of necessity; either to limit competing groups inhabiting a contiguous domain or to eliminate competing individuals within a population. Jane Goodall witnessed this behavior among chimps, Jared Diamond has noted it among Paleolithic humans, and all of the same forces continued to apply even after humans gained agriculture.
If anything, agriculture would only have served to intensify our violent tendencies. Hunter/gatherers never achieve the population density of agricultural humans so there are fewer opportunities for conflict between groups, and when hunter/gatherers do experience conflict there is presumably a good chance that one group may move, rather than fight. But agricultural humans are tied to a specific geographic domain along with their crops, and agricultural humans achieve far greater population densities than their hunter/gatherer relatives, so serious conflict between groups seems much more likely.
In conflicts between hunter/gatherers and farmers, the farmers will normally have the advantage because of their greater population density and organizational skills. The hunter/gatherers are outnumbered and presumably retreat into the wild. But when the hunter/gatherers have all been displaced and a regions agricultural potential has been fully exploited by various populations of farmers, then the neighboring agricultural populations will eventually come into conflict when all of the good land has been occupied. It’s inevitable; oftentimes disease or famine may control the population, precluding the necessity for inter-group conflict, but at some point two agricultural societies expanded into one another. The resolution of this conflict had to be violent.
There is an account in one of the classic histories describing an armed incursion by Gaullist settlers into territory claimed by the Romans. When confronted by an envoy over this breach of Roman sovereignty the Gaul leader scoffs at their contrived legalistic reasoning: "We take this land by right of the ancient law which says that men who are hungry will farm land which is empty. Evict us if you dare, but you may expect to pay dearly for this earth." These Northern “barbarians” had a much clearer grasp of reality than the “civilized” Romans.
Form follows function. Human agricultural societies are designed to do two things:
extract sustenance from the earth
defend (or extend) the domain of a given population.
The specific behavioral features which maximize these functions are universal to all agricultural societies across the globe and they are as fundamental to civilization as the wheel and fire. Job specialization and regimentation; every society has them, and they were (for most of human history) absolutely essential.
The peasantry, comprising the bulk of society, worked diligently to produce as much food as possible; but despite their superior numbers, this group was always controlled by an aristocracy of professional warriors who protected the domain (or realm) from competing groups. This aristocracy relieved the peasants of their agricultural surplus and also pressed them into service as rank and file soldiers when needed. A class of lawyers, priests, traders and artisans supplemented this arrangement, but most people were peasants, while a relative few concentrated their full energies on warfare and government.
Human society was organized in conformance with the principles of ecology. Population levels would be regulated either by famine, disease or violence. Famine and disease may have been equally important from a quantitative perspective, but violence provided the organizing principle for our social structure. The exploitation of the peasantry was the foundation of all military power; and military competition has been the backdrop for all of human history. Right or wrong, good and evil; these concepts were irrelevant. Violence was essential to the operation and maintenance of this social organism. The military aristocracy pressed the peasants as hard as possible because their surplus supported the army. If they failed to do this, some stronger neighbor would invade and do it for them. In fact, there is archaeological evidence suggesting that humans were actually much healthier, on average, before the advent of “civilization”; in other words, the aristocracy often pushed the peasantry to the brink of starvation. Progress and Civilization, if such things truly exist, came with a very heavy price tag.
By now, this arrangement undoubtedly looks familiar, and the political overtones are inescapable. Yes, it is the same class system alluded to by Adams. It’s not just a cliché, the class system is as real as death and taxes and gravity; the bulk of humanity have been exploited and slaughtered in the service of this behavioral adaptation since the beginning of history. Once agriculture was discovered, this behavior became a necessity. Farming allowed humans to expropriate a much greater share of the earths resources, but the price for this success was a grinding mechanistic social system which reduces most people to the level of interchangeable parts. It is a machine designed for conquest and subjection, without conscience or remorse.
Is this the system that the framers were so intent of protecting? Is the maintenance of this brutalizing social machine the “central problem of government”? If there is even a shadow of truth in this supposition then surely we must acknowledge that the perpetuation of this social automaton in the 21st Century represents a dire threat to our health and happiness. In the framers era, this class system remained the essential basis for all society; they sought to make the system run as smoothly as possible and we may admire them for their effort. But contemplate for a moment the manifest insanity of allowing such a mechanism to continue running in a world where all of the original ecologic parameters have been radically transformed and humanity now holds the power to mold its environment and manage its population with science, not violence. What purpose is served by war today? Why must there be oppression in the midst of plenty? Regard the modern world and ask yourself; does this not look like the work of a machine run amuck?
Despite the uncomplicated logic of this argument for a an ecological theory of class and notwithstanding the framers own documented assertions regarding the class-oriented function of checks and balances, most people will probably find it very difficult to reconcile this view of the U.S., as a conservative bastion of ancient class divisions, with the more accepted perception of our Republic as a progressive product of the Enlightenment; a modern bulwark of individual liberty. But regardless of the stirring language in the Declaration of Independence, was the Republic created by the Constitution really so very different from the Feudal forms of government which still prevailed in Europe at that time?
The French peasantry which revolted just a few years after the Convention clearly fit the description of an oppressed agricultural class; but were the Pennsylvania farmers of the Whiskey Rebellion really so different from their peers on the other side of the Atlantic? No doubt the Revolution was a watershed moment in American history and certainly life in North America was tremendously different from life in Europe, but were these differences of degree and detail or did they signify an actual fundamental divide between two wholly different systems?
Yes, the colonists enjoyed a larger degree of personal freedom and better economic prospects than most European peasants. The lightly populated habitat of North America offered a vast range for agricultural expansion with little of the population pressure experienced by Europeans living on a continent that had been filled up for centuries. Also, the colonists were, in the early years, largely absolved from much of the Royal taxation burdening their peers on the other side of the Atlantic; and the Catholic and Anglican churches, oppressive institution which traditionally support the State, were largely excluded from the Colonies. But still, in the final analysis the U.S. was a commercial and military enterprise, like any fief or kingdom.
The several states agreed to joint taxation for the purposes of a common defense; reasonably assuming they might have to defend their territory from various European powers, or put down a rising of the peasantry (like Shay‘s Rebellion). It was a compact created in secrecy by a group of the most powerful men in the Confederacy and the results were obnoxious to many of the farmers who bore the brunt of the burden for supporting this venture. Some, like the Whiskey Rebellion farmers in Pennsylvania, even resorted to violence, but the military aristocracy defeated them easily. No, it wasn’t the French Revolution, but the fact that wealthy individuals on this side of the Atlantic feared an American version of the French Terror suggests that there were deep class divisions here as well.
It really seems as though the main differences between the east and west shores of the Atlantic were a matter of degree. A new population in a previously unexploited habitat enjoyed possibilities not open to the population remaining in the ancient environs, but the fundamental nature of social organization was essentially the same. The most substantial difference between the two populations appears to have been the means by which they chose their rulers. In continental Europe, inherited titles were the norm and elective positions the exception; in the U.S. there were to be no inherited titles, the very idea was outlawed. All rulers would be elected.
This final difference, on which so much blood and ink have been expended, is universally regarded as something more than a mere detail. Americans across the political spectrum regard their voting rights as a sacred privilege marking them a free people; the keystone of their Civil Liberties and a great gift from the Enlightenment. But this hallowed institution seems to co-exist very easily with obscene extremes of wealth and poverty; it has been no obstacle to slavery, conquest or oppression. Why, even Adolph Hitler was elected once, and in its original usage, the word “dictator” referred to an elective office in Rome
From the Revolution to the present, Americans have elected more than a hundred Congresses and dozens of Presidents. Through all of this we have consistently maintained a class structure with an astronomical gulf between rich and poor, and we have rarely gone more than a few years without engaging in a war somewhere. Superficially, it does not seem that our society is so exceptional or our institutions so novel. Yes our middle-class was perhaps larger and more prominent than any previous society and we can probably thank the framers for this fact. Checks and balances may indeed have afforded some protection to the 99%. But if we’re looking at the big picture, the rudiments of the class system are clearly present. Based on results, it’s not obvious that voting is such a revolutionary act or that our society is so unique as many would believe.
Is it possible that most of the advantages enjoyed by Americans are largely a product of our unique geographical situation and that these advantages have relatively little to do with our political institutions? Is it possible that our society is much more traditional than generally acknowledged? Is it conceivable that Voting, the heart of our political process, is not actually a progressive practice? Perhaps we may even describe voting as an ancient practice; an evolutionary adaptation at the very heart of the class system. Certainly this might go a long ways toward explaining some of our more intractable problems.
Politics
Democracy…I have always been grieved by the gross abuse of this respectable word. One party speaks of it as the most amiable, venerable, indeed, as the sole object of its adoration; the other as the sole object of its scorn, abhorrence, and execration. Neither party, in my opinion, know what they say.
Is not representation an essential and fundamental departure from democracy? Is not every representative government in the world an aristocracy?
Permit me to ask whether the descent of lands and goods and chattels does not constitute a hereditary order as decidedly as the descent of stars and garters?
There is a natural and unchangeable inconvenience in all popular elections…he who has the deepest purse or the fewest scruples will generally prevail
The multitude have always been credulous, and the few are always artful.
John Adams
Consider (hypothetically) the origins of the class system in the first agricultural society. Farming had swelled the .population until warfare between two neighboring groups was inevitable. Bloodshed was imminent. This prospect raises an interesting question;
who created and led the first army? We may not know his name or what he looked like but we can certainly make a respectable guess about his character, personality and m. o.. He was the shrewdest, toughest son of a bitch in the group; able to prod, con, intimidate, inspire or simply pummel his peers into battle.
He had the foresight and calculation to understand that conflict was inevitable and he may actually have used this solid rational argument to persuade a few people, but others required a more creative approach. For those ruled by fear, he painted a horrific picture of the devastation they would experience by waiting for the enemy to attack first. For the greedy and hungry, he held out the promise of new lands to till. For the lustful he described the women they would enslave. And for those who were truly ambitious, his peers in violence and cunning, he held out the prospect of shared rule over this new dominion (some of these individuals died mysteriously in the days following the great battle, but others went on to become his trusted lieutenants). And with every audience he emphasized the ugliness and the backwardness of the “barbarians” on the other side of the river/hill/forest etc…As superior and virtuous beings, they would easily prevail over those savages.
Was this individual not a politician?…Was this process not a political campaign?…Was he not “elected” by his peers to be their commander and chief?….. Has this process really changed so much in ten thousand years?
Form follows function. Behavior is a product of evolution just as much as physiology. Each species adopts behavior which improves the odds in their favor. Jaguars live in the dense jungle and hunt alone; they are solitary creatures. Lions live in the wide open veld and find it more profitable to hunt in packs; as a result they have a complex social structure. Human society has an evolutionary logic as well. For agricultural humans the problem was to acquire and hold good farm land. Our only serious competitors for this resource were other humans. Chimpanzees will compete for real-estate, but their efforts are clumsy and crude. With language, tools and organization we turned this competition into a science; the science of war.
We split our society into different parts, each specialized for a unique function. Most concentrated on producing food while a smaller number devoted their energies exclusively to warfare and government. There were other divisions as well. The rough outline of this social machine was universal but the precise makeup varied and the transient human atoms that composed it were always in flux. The management of this flux so that the social machine runs smoothly is a process known as politics. It was not invented recently and the fundamentals of political behavior have never changed, we have only tinkered with it a little in the past thousands of years.
We are mesmerized by the trappings of modern democracy; the campaigning, polling, balloting and perpetual intrigue of the legislative process; they are a constant distraction. But the fundamental act of choosing a leader or making a deal really hasn't changed since our ancestors left the jungle. Of course, a hundred thousand years ago in a hunter/gatherer tribe, the replacement of a chief (perhaps trampled by a Mammoth) would not require campaigning or balloting as such; there would be, perhaps, two or three obvious leaders among this group, and a natural process of factional formation would quickly determine who the next chief was. If the contest was close there might be a scuffle to determine the issue, but is that so different from modern politics? Even today, political violence is common in many cultures. The U.S. has had its share of assassinations, violent protests and voter intimidation as well. We even had the duel of Burr vs. Hamilton; do fine clothing and oil paintings really make the incident any less primitive? If they had worn animal skins and fought with stone knives would this be so different? Formal “Politics” is simply the process of organizing this perpetual power struggle, minimizing the violence and scaling up the methods to meet the needs of a much larger group; like a city-state or even a modern Nation. But the fundamental process is universal and eternal. Call it politics, or Democracy, or majority rule or mob rule; this last is probably the most accurate. But call it what you will, every group of social animals (of any species) is forever in a state of movement, and that movement always looks about the same. Stronger creatures dominate (in general, politicians are still larger than average) but strength is transient and may be thwarted by new blood or new alliances or superior guile or luck. “Politics” is simply a primate variation of this process; we homo sapiens have refined the process of jockeying for position; making it more complex, more nuanced and usually less violent.
Most social animals, other chimps included, establish relationships of dominance and submission purely through aggression; but we articulate primates have a greater range of options at our disposal. Violence serves a purpose but it has limitations. No individual could hope to rule a large group purely on the basis of continual, overt displays of force. The trick is to form a coalition of individuals who agree to fight with you, then you have a convincing threat to back up your edicts. If people fear your coalition then they will fear you. A majority is the ideal coalition because the math is irrefutable; obedience is virtually assured. This is the real foundation of our much vaunted faith in “majority rule”; morality and ethics have nothing to do with it, it’s an unconscious acknowledgment that if 51% of the group favors something the other 49% would be wise to go along. Majority rule is the foundation of all prior and existing governments. Even in cases of Monarchy, the progenitor, no matter how great a warrior he was, acquired power through the political process, and every heir must constantly remain aware of the shifting political sands; there is always a usurper waiting in the wings.
And how do you form a coalition? Violence and intimidation certainly can play a role; but it’s much more efficient to use the full arsenal of tools described by Adams:
artifice, dissimulation, hypocrisy, flattery, imposture, quackery and bribery
The 18th Century language is quaint, but the concepts are timeless. You can be certain that all of these activities were well known long before anyone was writing things down. In fact, the ability to lie, consciously and convincingly (a skill underwriting all of these pursuits), is so basic to our species that it has even been observed in
other primates. Jared Diamond describes a variety of monkey, illiterate creatures whose “language” consists of a small number of “calls”. These creatures have been observed to fool their enemies by pretending that a predator is near. In essence they cry “Wolf!”, to distract their competitors.
And we think we’re so unique.
To say that lying is synonymous with politics may be a slight exaggeration but it’s surely not far off. More accurately, perhaps, we might say that lying and politics are Siamese twins; connected at birth and virtually inseparable. Viewed in this light, Political Reform is clearly an oxymoron. Political leaders are the human embodiment of natural selection in action; they do (and say) whatever is necessary to get elected and hold power. This rarely corresponds with anyone’s idea of morality. Most voters will recognize the truth in this observation; still we continue voting, always hoping for a morally desirable outcome in the next election. But our disappointment is eternal, and after the election it only gets worse.
There is an episode mentioned by Herodotus. The Spartan auxiliary force, a peasant militia known as Helots, had served their masters exceptionally well in a particular campaign. They had really distinguished themselves, so the Spartans invited these heroes to a feast. Mysteriously, the Helot heroes were never seen again… When the slave becomes too powerful he constitutes a threat; the heroes had to be eliminated. A feast was the perfect ruse. One wonders; did they ever get desert? Point being, even the noble Spartans, eternally famous for their valor and virtue, even they were quite capable of cold blooded treachery it seems. When the situation called for it. Multiply this incident by a factor of millions and you’ll have a firm grasp on human history. Directly or indirectly, all of this carnage was “democratic”.
Whether you choose to call your faction leader chief, king, president, emperor or dictator, the title matters little; once the victor has assumed power they must do whatever is expedient. In a world of shifting alliances, secret agreements, double crosses and continuous warfare, the leader cannot blink. If an enemy is advancing on the castle, he may wish to pillage his villages and burn the crops to deprive the invaders of sustenance (if the peasants starve as a result this is the cost of doing business). If he’s the invader, it may be desirable to take a city and then slaughter every last resident. If the peasants are rebellious he must periodically make an example out of some, impaling their heads by the castle gate. And don’t forget his intimates; family and friends are all potential competitors so he can’t afford to be squeamish here either; duels, assassinations and hunting accidents are all part of the program. It’s a nasty business but absolutely unavoidable, and since it’s unavoidable he may as well try to enjoy it. There may even be an evolutionary basis for sadism here. The deep seated connection between sex and violence may be labeled as a “perversion”, but both of these behaviors are essential to our being and they probably inhabit the same neighborhood in our neurological circuitry. As we said, the practical exercise of power rarely corresponds with anyone’s idea of morality.
In fact, if Evolutionary theory holds that we’re only concerned with our progeny and relations, then what happens when the ruling class segregates itself from the subject class? If royals only procreate with other royals and millionaires only procreate with other millionaires, then the health of the subject class is a matter of the greatest indifference to these leaders. As long as tax payments are made and the army is strong, then nothing else matters. Viewed from this perspective, peasants, factory workers and office drones may as well be a different species from their leaders, akin to domesticated animals. How much humanity have we ever shown to farm animals? All of this and more are the fruit of "Democracy".
Let us pause, briefly, to summarize and reflect. I have speculated at length on something which I describe as an ecological theory of the class system. Probably none of this thinking is new, but these sorts of subversive ideas are usually relegated to the purgatory of library book-sales, dusty attics and (nowadays) the black holes of cyberspace. Having just now been resurrected, these ideas have the appearance of being novel, and so we must look two or three times, preferably from different angles, so that the whole thing doesn't simply vanish again.
I have suggested that class divisions, which are universal, arose not by accident but because they served a real evolutionary purpose. Those groups which adopted them were better able to compete (militarily) in the eternal struggle over habitat (agricultural land). I have pointed to the definite fact that the Framers were very conscious of these class divisions, describing their perpetuation as the central purpose of government. I have described class based society as a “machine” designed by the evolutionary process for the express purpose of exploiting the bulk of humanity in the service of perpetual warfare between myriad populations all competing for the same resources.
And I have described the social behavior which perpetuates this class system as being identical to what is commonly described as Democratic politics or Majority rule. Far from being modern, enlightened or progressive, these institutions (in my view) are nothing more than a human refinement of the sort of power struggle which creates hierarchies in the society of chimpanzees and wolves and many other creatures. Language and literacy made the process more efficient and less violent but the fundamentals remain the same. Human political operators lie, cheat and connive their way into positions of leadership just as wolves fight their way to the head of the pack. Is our process more moral because it is less violent? I even suggested that in a large society where the political operators are typically segregated from the general population, we may consider them as parasites. If the political operators only procreate with others of their kind, then (from an evolutionary standpoint) the rest of humanity may almost be considered as a “host” species.
These are harsh observations, entirely at odds with most conventional wisdom. Taking courage from the intellectual independence of our second president, I chose to follow my thinking to its logical conclusion. And despite the unusual nature of my argument, is it so unreasonable to describe exploitation and warfare as defining features of our social system? What better explanation has been offered for the sad state of our world? So far as I am aware, most analysis still concentrates on the moral character of the various participants, completely ignoring the institutional and evolutionary components. Does anyone seriously believe that moral outrage will solve our problems?
Still, very few (if any) will credit these speculations. Most remain infatuated with Democracy and with voting. The electoral reforms of the past two centuries brought politics and voting to masses of humanity who had previously been excluded, and imperfect as the process may be, it’s better to have a voice in the mob than to be shunned entirely, like a medieval peasant. We newcomers have been told since childhood that voting is the only proper way to select leaders. The imperfections are acknowledged but we’re told they’re unavoidable; we must accept them, like a crippled spouse or retarded children. We must love this process for better or worse, because underneath all the flaws lies the noble perfection of “Deliberative Democracy”; a thing akin to romantic love or divine providence. Or Santa Claus.
Deliberative Democracy is a myth, which, like most myths contains a grain of truth. Yes, it probably happened once or twice or even three times during the first few congresses. In all probability there was once a rational debate which examined all viewpoints on an issue and then proceeded to a reasonable compromise, but this is the exception which proves the rule. The rule which wins out nine times in ten is exactly the opposite of deliberative democracy; let’s call this process “Actual Democracy“. In actual democracy a lying primate with a lust for power tells a fable which is believable to six out ten voters, while another lying primate, who’s fable isn't quite as good, concedes the match. Then they arrive at an understanding whereby primate A makes a great deal of money, primate B makes a little less, and the rest of us all wonder where our money went. Most voters recognize the existence of actual democracy but persist also in accepting the myth of deliberative democracy . Every couple of years, displaying a faith once reserved only for gods, they chase this myth to the polls.
But this faith flies in the face of all reason. At the dawn of history when life was brutal and our ignorance bottomless, we were undoubtedly right to place our faith in the biggest, baddest, sneakiest bastard around. A great deal has changed since then. We’re more knowledgeable now and life is usually kinder and more predictable. Also we have acquired “morals”, an unknown commodity when kings first appeared. Most of us claim to take these morals quite seriously, but evolution ensures that whoever we elect will almost certainly treat them as a joke while simultaneously quoting scripture. Which may be acceptable if we’re only talking about the little stuff, like infidelity and resumes, but experience has shown repeatedly that this same cavalier regard extends to matters of life and death. We cannot expect moral behavior from politicians; they are creatures of evolution, selected for their amoral devotion to power (in all its forms).
To expect moral behavior from politicians is like inviting a wolf pack to your local dog run and expecting them to play nicely with your Poodle and your Schnauzer. If we want different behavior we must create different institutions. Amazingly, our nicely mannered pooches do indeed have wolf DNA, but several thousand years of human companionship has (surprisingly) made them easier to cohabit with. The alpha males who create governments have usually endorsed some version of the golden rule, but this was either a ruse or they were simply confused. The fact that none of these governments has achieved its exalted goals should tell us something. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf; unless perhaps it is a politician.
How many times must we fall prey to the same tricks?
Conclusion
I do not believe it possible that men should ever be greatly improved in knowledge or benevolence without assistance from the principles and systems of government.
John Adams
Politics and Religion are the two subjects we avoid in polite conversation. In both areas, emotion takes precedence and rational dialogue becomes impossible. One respected thinker even connected the two, describing the great 20th Century conflict between Capitalism and Communism as a “religious war”. These subjects do seem at times as though they are one in the same. Yet there is no subject where rationality could be more important than politics. If humans cannot learn to govern themselves with less violence, oppression and destruction then the future seems certain to be a nightmare. We must , as Adams said, rely on
facts, observations and experiments. Public utility should be our only concern. If we continue treating politics as a religion we shall get nowhere.
I suspect that a big part of the problem is the result of a misunderstanding. I think many people have difficulty distinguishing between the moral ends of government (justice, equality, happiness etc…) and the institutional means that we have used in our efforts to achieve these ends (voting, legislatures, presidents etc). They feel so strongly about the moral ends (which are basically synonymous with religion) that they can scarcely see beyond these; and the institutional process itself is considered sacrosanct. This leaves very little room for rational dialogue.
But it is absurd to deify the institutions of the democratic process if the results of that process lead to ends which virtually everyone feels are wrong. We may not be able to speak about morals with those of opposing viewpoints but we ought to be able to discuss the mechanics of government. In fact, if we clearly distinguish between means and ends we may come to the conclusion that our means and our ends are utterly opposed. This might explain why almost all of us are unhappy.
Most people regard politics and government as synonyms, but I would like to make a distinction between these terms. Government, I would say, is that body of institutions which are pledged to maintains the health of society. These institutions represent a moral ideal; the belief that justice, order and security are the foundation of society and their maintenance is too important to be entrusted to any individual. Politics is an organized power struggle for the control of these institutions; it is an utterly amoral selfish pursuit in which all things are permissible, so long as you don’t get caught. In my opinion, politics and government should be considered antonyms. As I see it, they are opposing forces, the Yin and Yang of civilization if you will. There would be no civilization without government, but politics perpetually threatens to tear government apart. Government is the ideal to which we aspire, and politics is the reality from which we came; the behavior which was created by “the history of our terrestrial existence”.
That evolutionary history created political society; it is a form of social organization designed for warfare and subjection; functions optimized when the most aggressive, calculating and amoral members of society take control. The institutions of Government which grew in this environment (Councils and Assemblies, Courts and Constables and Sheriffs) were all initially created to facilitate the efficient projection of power, not justice. But as religion and literacy and commerce created both a demand and a need for a more equitable society these institutions evolved. Justice and the common welfare became real concerns for rulers, but their first priority was always power and control. Political figures came and went but the institutions of government endured, primarily serving the master of the moment but also, at times, serving the people. This is the origin of the hypocrisy at the heart of every State. The Government wants what’s best for you, but only when it profits political power as well. When there is a conflict between these two goals we all know who wins. The only way to end this lie is by a complete separation of Government and Politics.
There is no paradox in this. The separation of moral Government from amoral Politics is something that humans have been experimenting with for thousands of years. The disconnection of Governmental authority from the power struggle of Politics simply requires that we replace the amoral selective mechanism of politics with an alternative mechanism which does not favor amoral behavior. There are two such mechanisms in existence and they are both well known to all of us. The first mechanism is lottery selection; the process we use for selecting jurors and (sometimes) soldiers. The second mechanism is the civil service approach; a well know improvement on the basic lottery. Aptitude and luck rather than aggression and deceit, are the deciding factors in these selection processes.
Humans have selectively employed these non-political forms of power for a very long time. Confucius instituted a civil service tradition which endured from BCE to the 19th Century, the Athenian Greeks used lottery selection for most Government posts in the fifth century BCE and from the 19th Century onward virtually every government has operated primarily through the instrument of civil service. But no society has ever dispensed with politics entirely. There has always been, at the very least, a monarch or an elective general or executive, if not an entire legislature. Non-political authority has almost always been subservient to political power; to some degree the experiment was compromised. This hedging was understandable though; political leaders rarely surrender power voluntarily and the masses, living in a violent and unpredictable world, were usually quite willing to sacrifice their independence for the perceived security of a patriarchal protector. Very possibly they were wise to do this.
In a world of myriad warring political entities, a political leader offers a service of real importance. In the 18th Century they called it “Secrecy and Dispatch”; the ability to act quickly, decisively and secretly. As long as warfare was an unavoidable necessity, a political head was also required. Shifting alliances, secret agreements, seditious uprisings, surprise attack, assassination, espionage and political subterfuge; all these sorts of things require one person, or at most a handful, who can keep a secret and made a quick well calculated decision. A political leader, by definition, is a shrewd morally unencumbered individual; ideally qualified for this challenge. But what happens when warfare is no longer an ecologically mandated necessity? In this situation the political leader/commander in chief becomes a dangerous liability, perpetuating a function which is no longer required.
For 99% of human history, famine, pestilence and war kept our population in check. Like all biological organisms we lived in a balanced relationship, sharing the planet with millions of other species. We answered to the same forces as ever other creature. Famine and pestilence may have been equally important from a ecological perspective, but war shaped our social behavior. This explains why, in the modern world, starvation and disease are largely abolished but warfare continues unabated. Famine and pestilence are largely forces of nature, which we manipulate masterfully today, but warfare is a human institution that we have built into our society. Politics is the mechanism which perpetuates war, by ensuring that the most aggressive, calculating amoral members of society are placed in positions of high authority. In the past, we actually needed these predators, but in the modern world they are a threat to our very existence.
“The many are always credulous and the few are always artful”
We have been fooled into believing that politics is necessary and desirable, but that necessity ended when we learned how to manipulate virtually every aspect of our natural environment. War is no longer an ecological requirement, it is merely an institutional requirement. Political society creates warfare and oppression while simultaneously serving the needs of wealth and power. We have accepted this situation because we are blinded by our misperceptions. Democracy gives us the illusion of control because we are active participants in the process, but evolution ensures that the results of that process will always be about the same.
If we want things to be different we must learn to distinguish between political power and non-political power. Evolution clearly created political society, it is only a refinement of behavior exhibited by many species. Non political society is still relatively new and has always been subservient to the political, but could this trend not also be described as “evolutionary”. Perhaps the ascendance of non-political power is simply the next step in our journey.
It is my opinion that the rise and pre-eminence of non-political power represents the future of human social evolution just as surely as large brains and an upright gait describe the history of our biological evolution. If we intend to survive in a world of awe inspiring technological and scientific powers then we must make a conscious decision to face certain stubborn facts. We must accept that humans are not (for the most part) moral actors and we must also sacrifice the illusion of control that comes from politics and voting. We must trade the illusion of control for the impartial certainty of non-political power. This could finally allow sanity to finally take precedence over violence.
As a culture, our final political act should be the step of amending politics into extinction, eliminating politicians with the same passion that we once directed against monarchs, replacing them with the impartial sanity of a professional civil service meritocracy.
Afterword
When you only have a hammer you treat everything as a nail
Many people have observed that our difficulties as a species appear to be institutional but relatively few have implicated the democratic process. Most seem to feel that we need
more democracy, not less. They believe the process has been distorted by money and power, and that if it were only allowed to function “naturally” then everything would be fine. But all prior efforts to reform the democratic process have failed to improve the outcome. The elimination of property requirements, the inclusion of women and minorities, secret balloting, direct election of Senators, the ballot initiative and public funding of elections; none of these have brought us substantially closer to the ideals of justice, equality, security and happiness. But still we continue to try, and this is where I part company with conventional thought. I don’t (as a rule) believe in political action and I especially don’t believe in political reform. The fight for progressive values (in a political setting) is an interminable struggle in which some battles may be won but the outcome of the war itself is a forgone conclusion;
he who has the deepest purse or the fewest scruples will generally prevail
It’s my position that political reform truly is an oxymoron. Even if it
were possible to eliminate all financial influence from the political process (and I’m highly skeptical of this), with or without money, the political process will still favor deceitful amoral actors. As long as politics exists, so will politicians. So long as power and public recognition are the rewards of a political career, there will always be people who regard these things above virtue. These people will do whatever it takes to win; and their allies who already possess power and influence will almost certainly find ways of helping them, even if these ways are subtle, secretive and indirect. Political society is a tool designed for violence and oppression. Everything it touches descends into conflict.
If we expect different results then we will need a different tool. We must recognize that our relationship to the planet has changed immeasurably in recent centuries and adjust the institutions of government accordingly. We must extinguish politics, once and for all, recognizing it for what it truly is; a dangerous, violent, uncivilized, amoral power struggle; an atrocity from our past like eunuchs or trial by ordeal. At one time politics was a necessary evil, but today there’s no excuse. It’s time to move on. The process of civilization may have begun with agriculture, but it won’t be completed until we renounce the connection between politics and government. Unquestionably, humans will continue to be political animals no matter what we do, but it is no longer acceptable to make political behavior the fundamental organizing principle for our government. Government and Politics must be separated.
The idea that a hall full of politicians would ever legislate themselves into early retirement by amending the Constitution may seem unimaginably quixotic, laughable even, but I really don’t see any alternative. As I see it, it’s an us or them situation; either we drive politics into extinction or the politicians may very well do the same for us. I believe that with the right strategy and tactics a campaign of political action can achieve this goal; if not sooner, then later. At the very least it’s worth a try.
Traditional progressive politics is an endless war in which battles may occasionally be won but surrender remains inevitable. We must recognize the war as un-winnable and regard the problem differently. Instead of fighting over issues we must confront the very nature of our institutions. In this case it is at least conceivable that political action may yield lasting results. It’s the only political action that I really believe in.
I hope you will consider this dissenting viewpoint seriously and visit the Blogspot page below
http://dissentingspeculations.blogspot.com/