Order is derived from the correct use of Power
The maladaptive design of Democracy weakened its Power and is growing disorder
I have written about order in which we find the relationship between Truth and Power. I summed it up with “Seek Truth and you will discover Power. Obey Truth and you will discover Freedom”. Humans prefer order over chaos, prefer predictability over randomness, prefer steady states over variance. These properties are the are the building blocks of organization and action. The reason we have confidence in the actions we take to build and create is because we have learned to trust the patterns that we have observed and documented throughout history. The “harder” the science the more likely it is to translate order into power.
History and Political Science are softer sciences. They are more open to interpretation and because they are operating in the social realm of human decision making we are ever evolving the concepts and ideas that work best.
Democracy has Peaked
The liberalization process that has dominated the west for the last 200 years has hit its apex and is in the process of being replaced. We have seen disorder growing within Democracies at an increasing pace, especially in the last decade. This is because the primary principal of democracy is the sharing of power. The distribution of power to a larger and larger subset of citizens is naturally entropic. The reason for this is a decision made by many is much less difficult to interpret and implement. If a vote is a yes/no should we spend 30 million to build a school then it is fairly clear how to act based on the outcome of the vote. When voting for representatives who will make decisions across a wide range of subjects we have a much harder time understanding the consensus.
Take for example 2 politicians.
A - Pro-gun rights and anti-abortion
B - Pro-welfare and anti-Israel
Single issue voters who still have opinions on the other matters will weight their single issue above everything else. So single issue voter who disagreed with many other platforms of representative A could still end up voting for them because their issue was to support Israel. End result is we can’t interpret voting for representatives with the same granularity or accuracy. The representatives are then incentivized to act in whatever manner will result in getting elected which will not align with will of the people.
Democracy’s Design Flaw
Democracy has thus become increasingly bureaucratic and inefficient. The root of this is because a system that spreads the influence wide has a lot more to offer in form of direct jobs and payments. If a building permit needs the approval of the majority of a 10 member board, the result is that at least 6 people feel empowered on making the decision. If it was a single decision maker then 5 people are left out in comparison. It doesn’t multiply the actual power captured in the decision’s result, but the felt power by the 6 will be greater than 1. If each individual felt their input or sway was worth .25 of the decision and all felt the same, the felt power is 1.5 for the group of 6 making the same decision as the 1. End result of democracy is the constant spreading of this power as wide as possible so as to directly purchase buy-into the system by all those tasked with execution.
The addition of more and more individuals into the decision space brings with it massive inefficiencies. The building permit board above could consist of 10 people who all are highly similar and always come to the same conclusion. In this case the duplicate work of reviewing and participating in the process has about 9 times the wasted time. If they were highly dissimilar then we would see increased work in the review process before and during the group discussion because each side, knowing each decision is contentious, will prepare more so they can have a better chance at winning others over to their side. Then there is even more wasted time because the applicants will not have a good sense of what will be approved and so they will inefficiently submit applications that are rejected.
Democracy is designed to foster two primary actions: distributing power (via votes) and bureaucracy as broadly as possible. This poor design guarantees the negatives will eventually outweigh the positives. There was value in broadening the voter base and in regulation implementation, but because the system doesn’t have a natural check on the growth of these actions they have become maladaptive.
Freedom under Tyranny
The highest order would be a law of nature that has never been broken (i.e. speed of light). The sun is highly ordered for now, but it came from disorder and will eventually blow up in a final entropic blast. In societies order is the legibility of the governing body to declare and enforce Law. If we were to design a social system with Order as the highest priority it would be a hierarchal structure with a strong leader. Tyranny comes to mind and it fits, because it is highly ordered. If you lived under tyranny but none of your desires were in conflict with the tyrant would you be more or less free? I argue that you would be more free because tyranny has granted you the most efficient path for all the actions you would have taken anyways and that leaves the remaining decision space open for you to do whatever you want without needing to spend any extra effort.
Let’s imagine you live under a Fashion Tyrant. She dictates what everyone wears on all occasions. If you live under her rule but either don’t care what you wear or love her sense of style then this just added a great efficiency. What if instead it was a Chef Tyrant who had every meal cooked and delivered to everyone. If you hated cooking or grocery shopping this would be a massive gain without any loss. Then can imagine scaling these options down, say they allowed dress/cook what you like on Fridays.
So order is highest in this state, but there are trades most people would make to have safety and security and so the creation of checks and balances is valid. So how can we build a state that has the highest order in the most inclusive manner. I will explore this next. For now think about the disorder that has grown in the recent past and what the causes of it are and I think you will discover that as Power has spread out Order has fallen.