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NOTE: This essay was written in response to a suggestion from the editorial board of the new political site http://www.salvo.com - You will want to visit the site before or after reading this.
It is a common place: it has become very fashionable to
demonize politics. Frequently this is done by equating politics with
government, usually called `big' government. This misses several points.
The easy point is that the federal government is now at about the same
head count as it was in 1960. As a percent of the total US workforce it is
about where it was in 1930. So government now is actually rather small yet
doing more. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, certainly has
done very useful things around the country in response to the recent spate
of natural disasters.
The more important points are these:
1. There are, as a friend points out, many reasons to `hate politics'
today:
But it is important to separate politics from government. Why? Because if
you hate the government how can you love the country? Hating politics is
another matter. What after all is politics? Is it the debate we have to
determine how we are governed? Politics will determine, for example,
whether we institute a flat tax. But politics should not, conversely,
determine how the tax is applied, just as politics has no role in the
administration of FEMA, social security or veteran's benefits. Politics,
being a debate, is truly amenable to reform through participation
2. demonizing a person or thing, even politics, does not increase
understanding of situations, it only obscures possible solutions. It only
serves to minimize and distort the idea space available to us in which we
can explore for better solutions. The fewer the ideas, the less likely we
are to find an appropriate one - to evolve successfully.
3. It is very hard to imagine a place you would want to live that had no
police or fire departments, public schools, roads, public services for
water and sewage, foreign affairs, defense capabilities and so forth.
Since these are all generally considered to be the `job' of government,
this suggests that we are stuck with government because we need it. And
politics comes with government - it is, after all, the process designing
government.
So now the question becomes, what sort of government and politics do we
want? Which really suggests a more important question: What sort of
country do we want to create for our children and grandchildren 25 to 50
years from now? If we can engage in a dialog to explore this issue, then
the results will create a frame work for implementing a government, and
its related policies.
How else should we expect to get to our goals and preserve democracy?
Another view of government is that is that we the people, who after all
are the government, ask the government to implement and manage the
constraint system we design to help us get to the goals we set. I think of
it this way: nature works very well from the bottom up within the
constraint system created by `the laws of nature' - the speed of light,
gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and so forth. Take
these constraints away and what is possible? Anything?
I suggest that the same is true for society, politics, government and the
market. Take away all constraints and the most likely results are either
total chaos or collapse into some sort of rigid, frozen, state. So the
question becomes one about the constraints we think are required to get us
to our goals. The first couple are pretty easy: thou shalt not kill, and
we can probably agree that it would be a good idea to have clean air,
water and earth. We can also probably agree that lying and cheating are
bad ideas.
Thus we have already started on a basic constraint system which we think
will help keep us as close as possible to the only place where there is
possibility for anything: the liquid edge of chaos. Move too far from this
edge in some directions and you freeze up, too far in some other
directions and you boil off into chaos. The hard trick is that the map,
the so-called fitness landscape, is always changing and thus so must
we.
Finally, if we must have government, for any number of reasons, then it
follows that working in government is an important job - far too important
to ignore and demonize. It is in fact as honorable to work in government
as it is to want to contribute to moving the country towards the goals we
choose.
So what do I hope for on SALVO? I hope we can stimulate a
vigorous dialog on what sort of America we want to build for our future.
And then begin the dialog on the steps we need to take NOW to start
getting to our goals. For example, how do we want to change our current
political process? Campaign finance reform strikes me as an excellent
place to start. What sort of participation is required to achieve our
goals? To take the abuse of money out of politics?
I may have only another 40+ years to go, but many on SALVO, and my
children, have 70 or more years yet to live in America. What sort of
America do you want to find when you get there? As we used to say back in
the 60s, if you are not part of the solution ....
Send me email and/or visit my
website. Under favorite places
there are some very interesting political sites. Under MIT, look
for the political participation project! Under clients, check out
MassINC. For a good read, try one of these: WIRED,
March 1996, page 67 "It's the NEW Economy, Stupid" by John
Heilemann. Or: Dan Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Evolution and
the Meanings of Life".
________________________________________________________________
Jock Gill
Penfield Gill, Inc.
Boston, MA
jgill@penfield-gill.com
http://www.penfield-gill.com/gill
________________________________________________________________
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