What is government’s best and propper mandate and what are the most efficient means for achieving its ends? Such reforms would include practical upgrades in material efficiency, as for example with the adoption of techologies. Tax policy and distributive justice issues, currently the end result of political jockeying and compromise, are ripe for thoughtful redesign based on best practices. Distributive justice involves not only the disparity between rich and poor, globally and locally, but also the fairness of balances between humanity and the natural environment and between present and future generations. Are there better mechanisms than the push and pull of political forces to find the right balances? Globalization breeds familiarity across cultures, familiarity breeds tolerance, and tolerance reduces violence and the need for police and military.
Justice and fairness are goverance and structurall issues. To the extent that the balances between rich and poor, humanity and the natural environment, one generation and the next, are all distributive justice issues, they are the business of governance. To the extent these balances are imbalanced, or the mere result of power and money instead of conscious collective choice, to that extent there would be an improvement and something to gain were these three balances, and all distributive justice issues, chosen by some collective mechanism other than mere force of money and power. It is therefore a task of societal adolescence to consciously and optimally choose mechanisms for rebalancing these justice dimensions.
Reforms may also be at the level of making conscious and then actively choosing consciously, various balances of equities, which ultimately are government’s responsibility. I’m thinking of distributive justice between rich and poor, at every level from globally to nationally to locally, between humankind and the natural environment, and between one generation and the next. In all three types of distributive justice, it falls to governance institutions to determine this balance, conciously, unconsciously, or as manipulated by money and power forces that do not well represent the interests of the collective society of human beings.
Regulation of the economy, custodianship of public resources, and overseeing distributive justice, as between rich and poor, humanity and the natural environment, and between present and future generations are all suitable mandates for collective governance. But these are not settled issues nor are the means to achieve them settled. Reforms may also be of a spiritual nature, in the sense of addressing the cultural pathologies of alienation, loneliness, meaninglessness, lack of community, and so forth.
It comes down to, how do we govern? How do we reach a balance between war and peace, humanity and the envrionment, present future generations, rich and poor, locally, globally, and wherever distributive justice is an issue. What mechanisms do we have via which we can be helped coming to a resolution of such fundamental balances. At it’s essence, governance is about striking balances among oposing interests.
Balance is a matter of flexibility, responsiveness to surroundings and “data dependency”. Rhythm enters in. Balance is achieved like meandering water, first too far one way, then the other. The balance is achieved by rhythmic alternative extremes and return points. That return point is a like a metamorhosis. An entirely different direciton of orientation takes hold.
This takes us to the issue of fairness. How do we just fairness? There’s little rational consensus here. Nor are there many rational principles that may be applied. There’s the greek (Aristototle, Plato, other?) that the difference in wealth (not income) between rich and poor in the assembly, making decisions for the entire group, in this arena, the ration must not be more than 10/1. Otherwise they are not inhabitting same worlds and can not make consensus decions. 10:1. (Or was it 5:1)
Next Robert Nozic, considering what’s fair as it looks from the bottom. Thought experiment that if everyone has equal percent chance of their relatives or themselves or someone close to them, ending up on the bottom, or anywhere else — with that assumption, where would we individually and collectively draw the income distribution. We’d for sure have a helpful minimum and survivable income,. In otherwords, we’d rationally choose a safety net. Where do we draw a circle around that? Shelter? Food? Healthcare? Other. How do we guarantee this to everone. SHould be an option for every young man to survive, at minimum level, rather than become a wage slave. Wage slaves are enslaved to the mighty dollar. There is a power we must acknowledge, that of money. Money is making slaves out of many. In what sense are they slaves? What is missing? Freedom. Freedom to dream, think, create, be generaous spiritualluy with vitality and how it’s directed.,
What are monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policy in holistic organic terms? A fiscal surplus or deficit is like an eating disorder — a surplus being over or under eating? Monetary policy is more like blood pressure, bounded by being too high or low, overly restrictive or stimulative. But what is exchange rate policy, balancing the relative roles of the various parts, weighing time allocation among various activities, from mental, to physical to artisitc? Is tolerance for conflict on the love/beligerance spectrum. Internal, external and balance control mechanisms, a triad of basic systems. Cell differentiation also creates 3 tissues, endo, exo and meso derms, with differing functions. Skeletal, chemical and electrical systems — are they analagous?
What is absolutely necessary for a “good life”? If it’s not measured in material terms, how is it measured? In grandkids? contribuion to the noosphere? Spread of love in one’s community? Making world a better place, or helping it maintain itself, or other constructufe endeavor.
Polarization, among nations, individuals and cultural groupings, points to a central task of societal adolescence, figuring out best ways to govern and structure society. The debated goes back to the formative beginning of democratic thought, in the struggles between Athens and Sparta. The push/pull continues today and will always be with us, the question being how to stabilize and resolve that tension. Perhaps it involves a rhythmic back and forth, rhythm having an informational as opposed to material or dynamically forceful nature. The diurnal turn of the earth mediates the forces of gravity and sunlight for life on earth. A water vortex pulsates to maintain its stability, and streams meander. A similarly debate arises in organization theory, when corporations decide which transactions are best handled through open market transactions and which are best brought in house through mergers or acquisitions, decentralized versus hierarchically managed exchanges. Even in the stylized framework of a repeated prisoners dilemma game, one player can gain by a opportunistically violating the rules, occasionally. A poker player sometimes bluffs. Our task in societal adolescence may be to find stability in that shifting balance between the two styles.
To dislodge the entrenched power of money in our democracy and government we will need the voting citizenry to insist on reform, first at the party level and then more broadly. At present the parties represent their own organizational agendae instead of that of the voting public. Democracy and party politics are in need of an upgrade in design.
For the voting citizenry to insist on reform it will need to be motivated. At present there much voter and civic apathy arises from the seeming hopelessness of overcoming the role of money in politics and government. As a precursor to the needed groundswell of citizen involvement we will need a hopeful vision of what an improved or ideal government might look like. Environmental responsibility will be a part of this vision, and the cause is already uniting citizens across the globe in support of government action. As a part of societal adolescence we will need to imagine and diseminate that image of improved or ideal democratic and governmental reforms.
Adolescence is a time for developing self-governance, taking responsibility for one’s emotions, impulses and mental direction. It’s a time of social acculturation, fitting in with social norms. Norms, rules, laws and government define the structure of society. They lay down how individuals and organizations relate to and are connected with each other. Societal adolescence will be a time for examining, upgrading and redesigning government and governance relationships and institutions.
It is widely accepted that government is too beholden to private sector money. Instead of representing the wishes and will of the voting citizenry, it too often represents those of corporations and wealthy donors. Campaign finance reform, lobby reform, and a redirecting the government’s purpose away from serving money and more toward serving the interests of the voting public will be central to the task of societal adolescence.
Nationalism and military and political competition between nations and between types of governance (democracy, oligarchy, theocracy, stratocracy) are relational and structural issues. Just as France and Germany will never war again, Protestants and Catholics in Ireland have laid down arms, Japan and Korea have made peace, so too expect more and more nations to embrace cooperation and reject military conflict as society matures through its adolecence.
Fairness is the guiding value for goverance. Fairness has few intellectual models to work from. Law as precedent vs. fairness
Distributive justice, and fairness across the board, are governance issues. To the extent that governance structures and formal governmental institutions can reach a better, or at least consciously chosen, balance of equities, then governance will improve as will human society’s overall well being.
In purely materialistic terms, to the extent that governance functions can be made more efficient in terms of achieving its objectives at reduced or minimal material cost, to the extent governance will improve.b
Government is all about fairness. As Freedom is value of culture and brotherhood that of the economy, fairness is the metric of government. We have no intellectual tools to evaluate what’s fair. It’s a feeling issue. The economy is measured materially, culture by ideas, but governance is feeling. Hence the income distribution and environmental justice are government’s baliwick.
Social Democracy take the position of responsibility for a robust safety net. It embraces the fairness issue directly.