Turning Politics Upside Down Again

Change is Hard

The last time politics was turned upside down (Stage-1 ► Stage-2), it marked the emergence of democracy, rule of law, and individual rights. This time, there should be a similar surprising, disruptive and difficult-to-imagine change.

Change in political institutions always requires turbo-charging. The coming changes are difficult to imagine because they are based on the outer circle of extreme modes as shown in the diagram.

Revolutionary turmoil during Transition #1 follows from excessive taxes, deaths in futile wars, starvation due to neglect or misguided state policies.

Note: Ideas are always essential to political change, but…Closed revolution depended on suffering and did not flow from abstract concerns with political theories or arcane conceptions of justice and fairness.

Ideological strife during Transition #2 involves overturning fearful tendencies encouraging governmental control of initiative, industry and risk (i.e. socialism).

Note: These arguments are never truly won…Closed but denying the importance of self-reliance, taking responsibility, accepting risks in life, and getting proper rewards from efforts, leads to personal and societal impoverishment that sooner or later becomes intolerable.

Spoiling common resources duringTransition #3 generates ill-health, misery and harm to many people and whole communities.

Note: The issue is again practical…Closed when firms pollute drinking water, fraudulently misrepresent products, or wilfully ignore public safety, no complex philosophical analysis is required to see that remedies must be introduced.

Now the people are faced with the calamity of end-stage plutocratic pluralism. 

Centrifugal influences revealed by plotting the 7 ethical choice approaches on the Typology Essences Table.

They realize—perhaps for the first time for many of them…Closed that the rapacity, mendacity, larceny and self-serving behaviour of the political-financial elites have inexorably and unavoidably led to the disaster that engulfs them.

Despite many good things for most people in the luckier countries (peace, raised standards of living, leisure time, new gadgets), past benefits count for little when disaster strikes. The scales fall from the eyes, but what is the remedy? I propose that sooner or later…

Forget Old Solutions

People will see that…

  • Democracy provides no solution—it is important, no doubt, but it is a Legitimist Stage-2 achievement, and voting only leads to a different set of self-serving electorate-pandering politicians.
  • Passage of more laws won't help—there are far too many laws and regulations, and penalties are simply another cost for big business.
  • More regulatory agencies are useless—aside from excessive costs, their work is easily subverted by politicians and suborned by the elites.
  • No individual can fight the system— from inside or outside, given the corrupting influence of vast wealth and incredible power.
  • Nothing will ever control human lusts—we must assume their omnipresence when we design incentives, arrangements and organizations.

So there is only one solution.

Summary of the crises that are associated with the first Cycle in the Spiral of Political Development

The people must (and will) recognize that to this point: they have served the government and been controlled, misinformed and ultimately betrayed by that government. Is that the way of a people who see themselves as free? And who is responsible for this state of affairs? Why—it's the people themselves!!

The only way forward in political terms must be to overturn the power relationship and start requiring government to serve the people. That then makes the people unambiguously responsible for what happens to them.

The Big New Idea

The necessary big new idea is:
«the people are responsible for their government».

The only problem is the idea is almost unthinkable and heretical—both for the political-financial elites who have been getting away with literal rape and pillage, and for the populace who have been infantilized, drip-fed money, and indoctrinated into acquiescence and dependency.

In any case, unless and until the populace are ready and willing to take responsibility for their governance, and translate that into social action, no substantial political maturation can come about. It never has in the past and it surely will not now.

While the future cannot be predicted, a general practical strategy for installing this idea will be offered in Topics to follow.

When change occurs, it should be (relatively) peaceful. If…Closed communist dictatorships in poor countries could fall at the end of the 20th century without a shot being fired, then peaceful political transitions should be able to occur in the West. 

We must now consider the three final political modes and imaginatively appreciate their nature and sequence.

Originally posted: July 2009; Last updated: 27 Mar 2014