Why Power Centers Adapt So Slowly to Reality
Centers of power are clots in a society's circulatory system--inherently a non-adaptive reactionary element. The reason is simple. Our planet is a bio-system containing millions of species undergoing constant mutual adaptation. Every unit in a bio-system receives information, reacts to it adaptively, and this new learning is then transmitted to its neighbors. Social systems operate in the same way, except when power is concentrated. Then information is not transmitted on its merits but according to the power position of the transmitting unit. Therefore information necessary for successful adaptation to changing conditions is lost. Information coming from the periphery of the system--invariably the main source of new information about changing conditions--is ignored precisely because it comes from the periphery, a low-power position.
This is why governments--particularly large ones, and particularly centralized ones--are always the last to accept the necessity of adapting to changing conditions.
This is also why empires eventually collapse. As power becomes more and more concentrated, more and more authoritarian, its circulatory system becomes more and more sclerotic--information is transmitted less and less according to its merits and more and more according to the position of the transmitter. Large, over-centralized systems become like organisms without senses. They are blind, deaf, and insensitive. To compensate for this lack the leaders create artificial organs--spies and security agents. But these artificial organs are as blind as the real ones, for they're not seeking information that will help the leaders change adaptively, they're looking for information that will keep the leaders in power. They're not looking for new ideas, they're looking for signs of disaffection, of 'disloyalty'. This simply causes the leaders to compound and multiply their mistakes, and hastens the sclerosis of the system. The more internal spies a government has, the nearer is its collapse.
(The public sector is not the only area where concentration of power weakens the capacity to adapt to change. The poorer adaptability of power centers is the reason small firms produce 24 times as many new inventions per dollar as big corporations with big R and D departments.)
This is the reason democracy has swept the globe over the past century. Not because (as most Republicans and lack-wits within our government believe) a bunch of liberal idealists thought it would be more 'fair'--but because it's adaptive. It keeps the veins unclogged so vital information will keep flowing. It maximizes spontaneous innovation and creativity. It responds more quickly to crises, as we saw in 9/11, when the formal systems broke down and the informal networks performed superbly. A truly democratic system is better attuned to its environment, more responsive. It makes fewer mistakes. It prevents senile memory loss--like forgetting that Prohibition was a colossal failure that bred crime and violence; or like forgetting that small countries don't like being bombed, invaded, and occupied by big ones from far away, and usually make their invaders pay dearly for the privilege.
Unfortunately, our own system has been democratic in name only for decades, as checks on the power of the presidency have virtually disappeared, the influence of unelected officials and lobbyists has mushroomed, government by secrecy has become acceptable, the rule of law has been progressively weakened, and the electorate has become increasingly passive and submissive.
The most significant adaptive failure of the Bush administration--aside from revoking American democracy--has been the inability to recognize that all of today's major problems--global warming, ecological destruction, terrorism, economic inequality, the threat of pandemics--are international, and can only be solved through international cooperation, transparency, and the sharing of information and resources. The Bush administration is still living in the 19th century, when the nations of the world were still ignorant of their interdependence, and it wasn't quite as silly and shortsighted to think in terms of empire, national power, and military solutions.
Militarism in today's world is like a man's left arm deciding to beat his right foot into a bloody pulp in order to feel more in control.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
An interesting intellectual exercise, and I agree with the premise.
However, it ends begging the question, "What are we going to do about it?"
Evolutionary process is not happenstance, be it biological, social, or cultural; it occurs through cognizant courses of action.
In more pragmatic terms, Centers of power are slow to change because they hold all the power and most of the wealth. The primary tool of power, as it has always been, is capitalism, concentration of wealth in a few hands.
Capitlalism's primary tools are the stock market and corporate hegemony over free enterprise.
Anyone who plays the stock market or owns corporate shares is thereby a participant in the center of power presently actuating global disharmony.
Good points, but a little overly simplistic. A concentration of power can also be the greatest engine of change imaginable.
Mikhail Gorbachov, for example, single-handedly dismantled the alcohol industry in the Soviet Union, broke the monopoly of the Communist Party aristocracy, and ended the Cold War. (It didn't all turn out the way he hoped, but they were still staggering changes brought about entirely in a top-down fashion.)
It's more than people with money and/or power resisting change because they want to hold on to money and/or power. It's the insecurity, the aversion to risks, short-sightedness, and more than anything just sheer intellectual laziness.
When it comes to changes, we need specific measures of what is "fast enough" or "slow enough." Generalizations about systems remain platitudes without specifics. Democracy is not an answer to bureaucracy; the latter is endemic to the former.
Yes, let us hope we can have a democratic bureaucracy someday. (Read Habermas.) While the bureaucracy grows (ain't it something that neither GOP or Demos can keep it within limits?) it feels like democracy shrinks. Size does make a difference.
We also need a responsive bureaucracy. Instead we have civil "servants" who think we work for them rather than we pay their salaries.
Has SEIU's Andy Stern said anything about his union members accepting the discipline of a job well-done? Not so's I'm aware of.
"This is the reason democracy has swept the globe over the past century."
Swept the globe???????
Most countries in THIS world are NOT democratic, bro.
America and Europe are not "the globe."
Most countries that claim democracy are corrupt shams. Including America.
Look at the graphs and table in the following article.
http://en.
You will democracy exists in all continents. Democracy comes in various forms. Despite our tumultuous present, we are a democracy.
Actually, until the last century, we were pretty much the only democracy in the world. Now, for the first time in history, democracy, or republican democracies, are beginning to challenge monarchies for the number of world governments. It's not there yet, but it will be eventually. That or a one world dictatorship will happen, and then we'll all be dead in 100 years...
WW1 and WW2 was the demise of many political empires especially the British Empire. Empires were driven back to their homeland and colonies were granted their independence and sovereignty. Both world wars forced various countries to redraw their borders and in the process, new countries were created.
Tensions in the Middle East are in part due to artificial borders that force incompatible cultures to live in the same country and keep other cultures from having their own homeland.
Dear Mr. Slater,
Exceptional, outstanding, and eloquently expressed. Bravo! Agape.
It's just as our ruling elites tells us: in the tin-pot, banana-republic nations of the world it's strictly a dog-eat-dog existence; here in the good old USA it's exactly the opposite.
I have been saying for years, "We live in the decline of a great civilizati
Thanks,
Viva la Revolution
You've given a whole new meaning to the word, "clot."
A while back when Mr. Cheney had a deep vein clot, it was perhaps more symbolic than we imagined.
I wonder, could medical researchers come up with a way to scrub clean America's arteries and rid them of this administration?
America is no where near totalitarianism but the power hoarded by Bush needs to be reversed in the foreseeable future.
The article more aptly describes Cuba.
I wonder if the U.S. will ever be able to become a true democracy, given that it's not an appealing prospect to power mongers, or those who view freedom as the right to ignor completely how their country is being run. If, as you say, "the more internal spies a government has, the nearer is its collapse", we're in for some sort of big change soon.
I find myself wondering if it wouldn't be better for the states to be more independent. I know that "state's rights" has a mixed history, but times have changed. Let the red states enact their draconian social agenda (nothing would be quicker to teach them how awful it can be to get what you think you want). Let them stop paying Federal Taxes, and be forced to live without Federal subsidies. Maybe our future is to be 50 loosely connected small countries. At least then we wouldn't be able to do stupid things like invade other countries.
It's seemed to me for the last six years that our country would be better led if we simply grabbed people off the street at random and forced them to be our elected leaders. "Why," I have repeatedly asked,"have the executive and legislative branches been so far behind the curve on any number of issues and so far behind popular sentiment?"
Slater's answer to that question is as good as any I've heard.
Been saying something along those lines among my friends since way back in the 1980's - the era of Reagan.
Do away with elections for at least the Chief Executives and their Cabinet.
Instead: Come up with a pool of elegible, potentially competent Presidential candidates. Say - American Citizens, over age 35, with no criminal record and a college degree or 5-10 years of management experience.
Have a lottery to see who gets to be President.
In order to NOT be named President if you 'win' the lottery you must demonstrate that doing so would be a hardship to your family, or you are medically incapable, or something.
If you can't otherwise get out of it - Congratulations!!! You get to live in the White House and be President for 1 2-4 Year term.
No one can serve more than 1 term.
And you get a pension, and no Federal Taxes for life afterwards.
And, then the real power structure of the Executive Branch gets brought back into equilibrium with Congress and Judicial.
How is that any worse an idea that the circus we have now?
Well and clearly said. Never had my vision explained to me quite that way!
It gives me hope that the end is truly at hand, and also the new beginning. Not that I'm unaware that it is likely to get much worse before it starts getting better!
Blessings.
Good post. Not only are big governments last to react to changing conditions, but they are last to face reality. Few seem to realize that al Qaeda is little different in organization than the underground international narcotics trade. They simply have different objectives. Nor do they realize that the simplest solution to the drug problem is for the governments to buy up all the product. Maybe turn it into fuel. It would be a lot cheaper than the billions spent trying to control it. Just imagine, Afghanistan, presumably under U.S. and NATO control, reaches new highs in opium production!
Buying up all the product doesn't make sense. It would just produce more product because everyone would get into the lucrative drug business. The solution is democratization by legalization. The price would drop and the individual "cells" of the social body would have to become responsible for themselves without a sclerotic power system straining itself to control them.
The quality of the majority of components determines the overall quality of a system - even one with redundancies. People end up creating and operating governments and centers of power. People make up the masses. And people have an inherent tendency to degenerate to weakness of mind when they have it too good, too easy for too long.
Wisdom, not cleverness (intelligence + creativity), is in short supply because humans have not yet evolved the brain capacity to maintain wisdom in the face of complexity. But evolution is not yet finished. Selection pressures are building everywhere. In spite of all the calamity looming, a bright future for the genus Homo is in the works.
V.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
