Nature of Man

Conversations have to start with perspective.  Too small or too large a box placed around a conversation leads to conclusions that, respectively, have little impact or no practical application.  A failure to understand the reason an argument exists is perhaps even more detrimental to useful conclusions and leads to emotional, uniformed decisions that tend to repeat old, and frankly, stupid mistakes.

I’m of the belief that our current political arguments are suffering from a severe lack proper perspective.  The current philosophies of the left and the right side of our US political continuum on the surface seem radically different.  The arguments are heated and the view points seem irreconcilable.  On the other hand a trend of power consolidation seems to be occurring despite the seemingly dramatic political differences.  In the context of a Republic, this should sit very wrong in our collective stomachs.  The fact that it doesn’t points to our skewed perspective of the politics of our government in particular and politics in general.

When discussing any political system the very first question we should ask ourselves is, “Who holds the power?”.  The question of power is the basis of all politics and must be the foundation of any discussion on the subject.  Political conversation without this foundation is either meaningless or blatantly misleading.  The strange nature of human political power is that it must always be given by a group of people.  Only a rare few times in history and for only short periods of time has a small group of individuals held power through overwhelming physical superiority.  A few individuals with guns versus many with bow and arrow is one example.  In all other cases power is held through the people willing it, as a result of fear, loyalty or belief to those who hold it.  With this mindset let’s look at the possible forms of political power.

Power over Power Concentration

The graph above describes the three basic forms of organizing society throughout history.  The three curves represent the extreme forms of each basic type.   Every political system is some variation of one of these extremes.  When absolute power is increasing concentrated in fewer and fewer people a political system trends towards an Oligarchy.  When absolute power is concentrated in every individual a society trends towards Anarchy.  When power is balanced and no person or group of people holds absolute power the system is a Republic.  Republics are able to exist because power consolidation is held at bay by holding the entire society accountable to the Rule of Law.  The laws are kept in check by opposing forces; one side pulling toward government power and the other toward individual power.

These are the basics, the fundamentals of the discussion.  Unfortunately we seem to have removed this basic understanding from our political conversation and have instead allowed the seeminly divergant rhetoric, to lead us to the same dead end.  When we look at many of the arguments put forth by either side of our political perspective and see how they curve the power graph we find they both curve it the same way.  For example, on the right we see modern conservatives looking to place power in government to enforce moral agenda or military power, while on the left, modern socialists seek to place power in the government to enforce social agendas and economic policy.  Instead of creating a balanced politic, they both curve the power graph, in all areas of life, further toward concentration in a small number of people.

This is obviously not the original intent of our Republic.  By creating two opposing political parties, the founders intent was to create constant balance, our straight line on the graph, with one party pulling toward power concentrated in each individual person, while the other party would pull toward power concentrated in government.  In other words, the law makers would keep the laws in check with one side pulling toward no laws and Anarchy, while the other would pull toward totalitarianism and Oligarchy.

With both parties pulling the Rule of Law toward totalitarianism through excessive law and the consultation of political and monetary control, our Republic is quickly drifting toward Oligarchy.  Each party puts a different mask on its form of totalitarianism but underneath the face is the same.  While this seems to be the natural progression of nations, the consequences are dire.  As I discussed in the previous blog, consolidated power always leads to bloody succession and instability.

To avoid these consequences we have to get back to the basics in our political discussion, reorient our perspective and ask the fundamental question when it comes to policy: “Who holds the Power?”.

Shane Kempton Current Events, Politic, Power anarchy, oligarchy, political perspective, Power, republic

Constantine The Great

Power moves history.  Core to our kind is that most of our noted and perhaps notable history is the result of the movement of power from one set of humans to another.  From the printing press to Napoleon it is the movement of power which writes the memorable stories of our past.  This is sharply illustrated in the turmoil cause by what would seem a simple problem to solve, succession.  

The pages of our history are filled with turmoil caused by the transition of power and it’s a nearly unique occasion when those changes aren’t soaked in blood.   Let’s look at a couple examples of succession.  

Constantine is perhaps the most well know Roman emperor during the Byzantine age.  He was the founder of the first Christian empire and shaped the resulting course of history so significantly that he certainly earned his title “The Great”.  Constantine is a particularly interesting example of succession because the emperor before him, Diocletian, was a exception to the normal rule of bloody succession.   Diocletian was neither overthrown nor did he die of natural causes while still emperor.  In rare occasion, Diocletian, in an attempt to solve the problems of succession, retired, passing the empire to four men, Galarius in the east with a sub-emperor and in the west Constantine’s father, Constantius, also with a sub-emperor.   

Unfortunately it didn’t take long for the bloodshed to return.  Soon after his retirement the temptation of power ate through the thin peace Diocletian created in his empire and it fell into chaos.  The resulting years of battle and betrayal saw Diocletian forced out of retirement, a period where none of the four legitimate emperors of the Roman empire controlled Rome, and finally ended with Constantine winning the battle of Milvian bridge  and becoming the single ruler of the empire. 

With sole control, Constantine succeed in restructuring the empire leaving it upon his death a prosperous ordered state.  What he did not do was solve the problem of the transfer of power.  Succeeded by three ambitious sons, the infighting started almost immediately resulting in none of his sons staying alive long enough to consolidate their power and Constantine’s nephew Julian eventually becoming sole emperor.  Julian almost immediately set about reforming the empire back to Paganism undermining one of his uncle’s most notable accomplishments, an empire unified by a single religion.  

As you can guess Julian didn’t solve the problem of succession either.  In fact, take any point in history, if you see consolidated power, you’ll find bloody, chaotic power transfer.  Rinse, Repeat and you have the fuel for the movement of human history.

So it is with this set of history glasses that we see a surprising anomaly that smacks us in the gob so hard we have to take notice.  

John Adams was the first man in the history of the United States of America to peacefully receive the transfer of executive power.  Interestingly the man he succeeded happened to be the first to hold the executive power of the United States.  Washington, peacefully transfered his executive, military power, peacefully and with no bloodshed to John Adams, surprisingly Adams succeeded the same to Thomas Jefferson.  

Since we’re talking about gob smackingly surprising, how about this? This peaceful transition has happened 44 times spanning more than 200 years of human history.  We should note this isn’t some back water no name nation, it is THE most powerful, wealthiest nation in history.  A nation that holds the military power to destroy the world and the wealth to feed it.  

It begs we ask the question why?  Why would the executive leader of this nation peacefully pass power from one person to the next 44 times, without bloodshed, when humans have proved for the last 5000 years we are incapable of such?  Has our nature changed in the past 200 years?   Of course not.  No, the reason far simpler and easier to understand.  It has to do with the concentration of power.  Here is where we can begin to understand the genius of the founding US fathers and the expectations we should have if we allow power to concentrate in this nation.  

The simple formula is this; the more concentrated the power of a people group, the bloodier the succession.  In other words the fewer people who hold a nation’s power the greater the chaos as result of its transfer.  It is the simplest economics, many grappling for a consolidated, rare resource and you get blood.   The genius of the US founders was their deep insight into history and human nature.  They understood this formula and structured the government to avoid this problem.  Their solution was so simple it seems surprising.  They structured the government to recognize every citizen’s sovereignty and made the leaders servants of those sovereigns.  To further hinder the natural tendency for humans to consolidate power, they spread national power to sovereign states, and split the power of the central government to different branches.  

In essence they made the resource of national power abundant to all by dispersing it to every citizen sovereign.  This created a nation in which a person was empowered to pursue happiness as he/she saw fit and if someone tried to consolidate that power, it was so dispersed it would be difficult to accomplish.  It took almost supernatural courage, sacrifice and unanimity for these men to avoid falling into the old temptations of history.  

In the end they have gifted us with something completely unique in the history of the world.  This same history should serve as a warning for us as well.  If we allow power to be consolidated, step away from the structure of our founders and give up our individual sovereignty, we will suffer the same bloody fate humans have for thousands of years.  The fate of a civil war every decade if we’re lucky, more often if we’re not, and the slow agonizing death of our nation. 

Shane Kempton History Lesson, Liberty, Power Constantine, Founding Fathers, Liberty, Rome, Sovereignty