Before I get into discussing specific issues, I believe it is best to lay a foundation. There are lots of ways of thinking about societies and governments. Since these subjects are extremely complex, all of these are bound to be simplifications, and as such, will at times yield accurate and useful insights and at other times be useless or misleading. Having acknowledged this, I think it is fair to share some of my thinking on the subjects, with the explicit acknowledgment that I realize this is very much an incomplete and partial analysis.
There are two basic ways that people can get other people to do what they want. The first is coercion, which is achieved by force or threat of force, and the second is persuasion, achieved by convincing the person that it is in their best interest, often by trading them something they value. As an example, if I have an apple and you would like to have it, coercion is threatening to hit me with a stick to make me give it to you, while pure persuasion would be offering me a loaf of bread in trade. In between is manipulation, which is where I think I am being persuaded, but there is some element of force or dishonesty involved.
It would be nice to think there could be a human society where no one used coercion on another person, but the reality, unfortunately is that has never been, and short of a huge change in human behavior, is unlikely to exist on the scale of more than a few people. Because there are always those who would use coercion or raw force on others, in any situation where there is not already an organized social structure in place, people will start to form one. Anarchy is unstable. If you were to place 50 strangers on a deserted island, it would not be long before a structure started to form.
At their basic level all governments are primarily coercive. Historically, most grew out of what was basically a protection racket. Some enterprising thug realized rather than just pillaging to get what he wanted, if he took some rather than all of a victim’s goods, they could continue to live and he could come back to take again. The mere threat of force was generally sufficient, so that the victims, serfs, peasants or whatever you wanted to call them would pay not just once, but over and over. Naturally, he would protect his turf from other thugs. He could expand his territory by recruiting other thugs to work with him, sharing the spoils. In areas where states have failed and even in areas of developed, successful states where the government is weak, this trend starts to build from scratch, with gangs and territories and turf wars.
In many areas these warlords would vie for dominance and often through force or threat of force, one would become dominant and become a king, or some similar title, ruling over the others. In many places and times, manipulation also enforced the head thug’s rule, utilizing ideology or religion to stabilize and give authenticity to the ruler’s place in society, making challenge less likely. It was also true that offering benefits to the ruled made retaining control easier. If this seems ugly and brutal, it is, and in the worst of human societies, that is what existed, and unfortunately, still exists in far too many places.
Growing up alongside this coercive trend in societies was the persuasive trend. This was trade, and ultimately the specialization that trade made possible. Specialization made societies more efficient and therefore wealthier, with more goods to go around. Humanity’s ability to pass along knowledge of skills also increased wealth, and with writing, this skill could be passed more easily to future generations, so that the knowledge and skills could build.
While people in general are not necessarily good, neither are they wholly self-centered, if for no other reason than, as a species, to continue, we have to have an instinct to nurture and protect the next generation. People are also not immune to the ideas, religions, and moral teaching around them. Those that ruled sometimes, and in some places, and to varying degrees, worked to make their societies better, and not just solely to benefit themselves. Some wise rulers realized that making and enforcing rules that applied to most people in a society would produce a society that ran more efficiently and produced more wealth that the rulers could take, as well as making a generally more tolerable society for those ruled.
One of the principles that I think is important is the “good enough” principle of government. What that basically means is that those who are ruled will consent to the government, and not try to rise and rebel, if the balance between the imposed burden and the cost of rebelling is such that it is easier to just go along. To put it another way, rebellions happen when the conditions are such that enough people believe that the risk and cost of overthrowing the government is outweighed by unfairness, unjustness, or intolerable conditions. In very controlled authoritarian societies, conditions can be quite awful without open rebellion, simply because of the brutal cost to those who rebel and fail. On the other hand, in a fairly free, affluent society, rebellion can take root and flourish due to perceived injustice. It can also take a more stylized and less serious form, just being a protest. This is not a rebellion truly attempting to overthrow the existing government, but just enough of the form to register the level of discontent to the ruled, and perhaps cause change. Of course, this makes it sound far more intentional and planned than the reality as it usually occurs.
One early innovation was having written laws. The idea was that if everyone knew the law, and was at least somewhat generally enforced, that created an orderly society. The first widely hailed example was the Code of Urukagina, in the 24th century B.C., though only references still exist. Another example is the Code of Hamarubi. The best known example is the Jewish law as presented and detailed in the Torah, which is part of the Christian Old Testament of the Bible, of which the Ten Commandments are a very well known part. While no doubt some of these laws existed to simplify control of the rulers, there was at least some attempt to create a more fair and just society.
There are several times and places where huge progress has been made. In ancient Athens, rule was generally by a small class of aristocrats. One far-sighted Aristocratic leader, Solon, saw the dangers of the inequality in his society and attempted reforms to spread political power, giving most male property holders a role in government. While this did not last long before a Tyrant took control, the idea had taken hold, and later, Cleisthenes was able to institute reforms and institute a democratic government again. While this experiment was imperfect, as for example the right to participate in government was limited to men, and there were still more slaves than citizens, it was by far the broadest sharing of political power that had existed in any sizable society.
A second very important series of events occurred in England from the 11th through the 13th centuries. While the King of England at the beginning of this period in 1066, William I, had almost unprecedented power, his successors had threats to their reigns that caused them to need the support of the nobles and clergy. To secure this, upon their coronation, they were compelled to issue edicts, which contained promises. In a sense, they agreed to be bound by laws. For a monarchy, which at the time was the normal form of government, laws were generally issued by the king, not binding on him. Over the years, and through a series of conflicts, these promises were expanded, and eventually a series of documents, all called the Great Compact, or the Magna Carta, were issued, that contained not just limits on the King, but broader protections for all men. The most important thing about this was not the individual protections, but the idea that the King, the nobles, the clergy should all be subordinate to the laws of the land. Over time, this trend continued in England, with the idea of the “Rule of Law” becoming a key element of English society, which if not perfectly enforced in practice, was at least an ideal. I believe this was one of the key elements that thrust this small island nation into world dominance in the centuries that followed.
The development of the Constitution of the United States was also a time when huge progress was made. A group of men (no offense to women, but at the time while women had influence and added their insights, it was primarily through the men in their lives) organized themselves to intentionally and thoughtfully create a government that let men live in as much freedom from tyranny as possible. Yes, it was flawed, as women, as was almost the universal case at the time, were not given a vote, and it allowed slavery. At that time, slavery was the norm, not the exception, and even so, it nearly caused a failure to achieve unity. A compromise was reached, with I think some of the most forward-looking members seeing a day when slavery would be ended. Despite all of this, it was progress. It added to the protections built into the English common law, which was adopted, with the formal addition of the Bill of Rights as the first 10 amendments, which were enacted to ensure the adoption of the Constitution. More importantly, and its biggest achievement, was dividing the powers of the government into separate, competing parts with limited powers. Despite a steady erosion of these limits in the years since, these protections and limits have endured somewhat, yielding a mostly free society that has been extremely successful, so much so that the U.S.A. has been the dominant world power for much of its existence, primarily due to its economic success.
To summarize, it my contention that there are two types of human interaction, cooperative and coercive. Governments are by their nature primarily coercive. Paradoxically, that means that governments that are weak, not in the sense of their military, but in control of their people, allow more internal exercise of the cooperative elements, like trade and commerce, that result in a more successful and strong economy as well as the progress that makes everyone’s life better. On the other hand, if government is too weak, that opens the door for internal competition, in the form of gangs, corruption, etc., which makes life worse. That means that the best government is always a balance. In the next article, I will discuss this further, and look at different types of governments, as they often categorized in modern political science.
