God

Governance and Democracy


CopyRight @ 2004

Democracy is a well used word. It is generally translated to mean rule by the people. There are many forms of democracy, including American, European, Russian, Chinese and others. Other terms used to classify democracy are republic, representative, direct and others. Those designations refer to how the people are represented. The one thing that is consistent about democracy and even more important than how is carried out, is that a democratic government is one is designed to be a benefit to the governed. That is stated very clearly at the beginning of the American Constitution.

This is another one of the topics where I would prefer to have more expertise in order to write about it. Unfortunately though, that expertise would have to include the American Constitution, Napoleonic law, constitutional monarchies and a number of other extremely sophisticated topics. Still, I have some adequate knowledge of those and that is not the point. The point is about changes in human ecology and genetics. In those terms, governments are organizational systems that humans use. This is to compare governments to biological systems, something I am quite familiar with.

Democracy is like other human systems. The biggest problem with the system is the humans in the system. Apathy, ignorance and self interest are all problems of the system. This is why it has been said that a benevolent despot is the best form of government, if it were not for the problem of transfer of power and potential for abuse of power.

Democracy is based on another premise. It's not that democracy is the best system. It's that all the rest are worse. As with all institutions, governments eventually come to where their primary purpose is their own self perpetuation rather than the purpose that they were originally created for. Even democracy doesn't seem to be immune to this. Since winning the vote is a contest, the politicians constantly come up with different ways to manipulate the vote. Still, democracy seems currently to be the best system for the most people.

What does this look like in a system based on a stable ecology and artificial genetic selection? Well, people should be smarter. That should help, but what will probably help more would be a better moral system underpinning the governing system. If the problem biggest problem is corruption and self interest, then a moral system that promotes cooperation by the individual is likely to vastly improve any governmental system, including democracy.

Up to this point, this essay has been about the representative aspects of government. All modern government is based upon law. The most recent major body of law of this sort would be the American Constitution. The most widely used body of law would be the Napoleonic Code. Humans are actually very new at the art and science of creating law. It probably fair to say that we will get better at it. That is to say that we will get better at developing formal organizational systems for our society.

Another thing that should help in developing better laws and better organizational systems is improved understandings of what humans are. A genetic based view of humans, such as this, should help in that regard as well.

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