Governance systems

It is easier to understand governance systems if the models for legislative change are separated from models of economics.

Legislative models - Autocracy to democracy

Common models for legislative change sit on a line containing Autocracy (Monarchs, Emperors, Dictators, tribal Chieftains, Papacy etc) at one end, where citizens have little say in the rules that govern their lives, and the various forms of democracy which allow citizens some form of involvement in the legislative process. Much has been written elsewhere to describe these systems, the following is a summary.

True democracy: Where there are no rules and everyone does and says what they want. Often referred to as chaos. This is our natural starting point, where those wanting some order kicked off some social engineering.

Autocracy (zero citizen participation): Good choice where citizens are culturally combative and unable to reach consensus, where society is fractured into feudal castes, where citizens cannot control their emotional and superstitious hysteria, where morals are weak and crime and corruption are rife, or where the state is at risk and requires a united response. Also useful if you want to extract the wealth of a nation and use citizen's work to bolster your own position. Autocracies can force rapid societal change (not necessarily to the benefit of citizens unless you are lucky and get a ‘good’ autocracy). All nations started from autocracies who kicked citizens into some shape and order.

Representative democracy (single party): This is really a democratic veil hiding an autocracy where citizens can vote for any representative but only from a single party. The party hierarchy controls the change agenda and candidate representatives. There are several versions where autocrat approved alternative parties are allowed to put forward representatives to give the impression of a multi party system. Single party systems may be the best choice where there is no process to resolve conflicting and diverse views, or where citizens are still not trusted to make good decisions. These systems are often the first stepping stones from an autocracy when citizens start to ask for some say in their governance, but autocrats are not ready to relinquish power.

Representative democracy (multi party, first past the post): Multiple parties stoke competitive division and polarisation. First past the post systems effectively give temporary autocracy to the winning party to ride roughshod over all minority views. Party manifestos obscure the calibre of representatives, so that voters choose the party rather their individual representative, and this allows a range of idiots into the governance system. Tied elections sometimes offer opportunities for power sharing and the limited injection of minority party views into the majority party agenda. Multi party first past the post systems may be the best choice where representatives have little or no training, where citizens are not good at selecting relevant representatives, instead relying on broad party manifestos, where consensus is generally not possible due to polarisation, and where representatives have not developed an ability to use discussion to educate, compromise and achieve consensus.

Representative democracy (multi party, proportional representation): Has all of the multi party issues above, with the added complication of who gets to choose the representative.

Direct democracy: People do not have the time or the inclination to get directly involved with all legislative and executive issues. Direct democracy is only viable if day to day activities are already performed by slaves or automation to give citizens time, all citizens voluntarily agree to collaborate and play their roles, and where the mental models of all citizens are already closely aligned. Direct democracy is suitable only at small scale.

Representative democracy (zero party): This can only succeed where citizens, organisations and representatives can be trusted to play their roles, where the system has robust processes for training representatives and engaging them in governance, where competing cultures have subordinated themselves to a higher purpose, where citizens have emotional control and media moderates its ability to polarise, and where processes are in place for discussions that lead to the discovery and evolution of consensual solutions. Representative democracies also need to create and maintain a long term inspirational vision that all citizens can subscribe to and that lasts across generations.

In short, autocratic systems are the most basic of our organisational structures. They can knock diverse populations into shape and establish order, but only work until a mass of citizens start to question and want to engage. Democratic party based systems give a semblance of citizen involvement for the few who want to engage. They give temporary autocracy to the elected party, and enable a state to lurch and zigzag into the future with no long term vision. Democratic zero party systems would seem to be the pinnacle of an organised civilisation but require many stepping stones laid into a firm foundation, and no state has yet managed to successfully implement such a system.

The current system proposal is to aim for a zero party representative democracy model, but this is under review as we consider whether humans can actually support consensual decision making at scale, or whether all democratic processes just mask a hierarchical decision making process. Most species demonstrate hierarchical collaborative behaviour, why are humans different?

Actors

The system proposes a set of governance actors and their interactions within governance processes. What are the responsibilities of the citizen, the representative, the media? Should there be political parties? How should candidate representatives be funded and trained? How are laws discussed, agreed and implemented. What checks and balances can be built into governance processes? Find details in the proposal.

Regional power - Federation or unitary?

How much legislative power should regions have? Should they be able to set their own taxes? Should they be responsible for service provision and capital projects? This system proposes a single global law and economy, with government providing services to the same global standard. See the ‘system governance’ section of the proposal.

Economic models - Communism, capitalism, mixed

The following gives a gist of our proposed global economic model.

A vision to raise living standards in the ‘developing world’ and consolidate standards in the ‘developed world’ entails a huge demand for capital.
An environmental transition to greener technologies to help stabilise our ecosystem, and our exploitation of it, will require further massive investment.
Transitioning to an interplanetary species will require lengthy research and development, and further investment at a scale not seen before.

Most developed economies have, for generations, spent more on services than they extract in taxes. They have borrowed money to deliver services, invest in infrastructure, raise an impoverished population out of poverty, capture competitive advantage and in some cases to provide wealth to the powerful. National debt, especially foreign currency debt, strangles a nations ability to develop. The current method where individual nations accrue debt and become debt slaves to debt holders is unsustainable.

To achieve our vision we require a different model.

The proposed system is a single economy based on global law, and as such has no exchange rates, has no imports and exports, imposes common taxes, and provides common services and capital projects.

The system must be able to fund major projects and services considered beneficial to the species.
No system debt. A system that is capable of loading itself with debt by borrowing money is just asking for trouble in the long term. The new system should not try to balance the books – it is an impossible task.
The system must work in collaboration with a private sector of competing individuals and their organisations to ensure the species can benefit from diversity of effort and research and entrepreneurship.
The system should maintain the value of things and savings, and not let years of effort be eaten up by inflation.
The system should encourage full employment. The species needs to add value to its assets in many areas to level-up globally, transition to green technology and escape the confines of the planet. Work is the only way to increase global assets. The system also aims to reduce the destruction of work by removing the ability of competing cultures to make war.

Government's economic role is to:

Balance the pot of money, by creating and destroying it. The pot should grow as global wealth increases to enable more transactions and savings, but not so much that inflation weakens the buying power of savings.
Manage Work. At any one time the amount of work that can be done is limited. The key to managing an economy is helping to co-ordinate which sectors consume work. The private sector of course has its own ideas, but government has services to provide and capital projects that move us towards our species vision. If the private sector is just left to get on with it, government doesn’t actually govern, it just reacts to market forces. The private sector may move some work towards the species vision but it will be uncoordinated, inconsistent and it will generally be driven by competitive advantage rather than species collaboration. The proposed system needs to both govern and let market forces find their own paths. Government should aim to engage a proportion of the available work to manage services, a proportion to provide capital and research projects to achieve species aims, the rest it should leave to private enterprise to spark and fizz in its entrepreneurship. Achieving this balance is the crux of global government economics.
Loosely manage wealth distribution, by taxing those who compete so strongly that they hoard all the assets and control vast swathes of labour, and by providing an environment where all can successfully compete to become ‘successful enough’.

Find more detail in the ‘system economics’ section of the proposal.