Hierarchy of Governments

This article describes a situation, and then suggests form of government that could perform well given the situation.

The Situation.
1. Globalization has turned many of the ways that countries remain independent into obstacles. For example, as global trade increases, tariffs and border security become greater and greater obstacles. Differences in law, currency and language are becoming greater burdens to mankind.

Global trade can be very helpful because it encourages the efficient use of resources and enables the specialization of entire countries into one sector. Measures to ensure that a single country can survive without any external help may be necessary for countries that live with the threat of embargo.

This line of reasoning

2. Technology empowers the individual. On the one hand, people are dependent on others for the supply of utilities and Internet. On the other hand, once an individual has those elements taken care of, he is capable of doing many things that an individual wasn't capable of doing many years ago. Similarly, small countries have been given a degree of power that did not exist before the existence of rapid global communication. Outsourcing of labor enables small economies to benefit and even compete with the rest of the world. Technological advances enable a small police and military force to maintain peace. International consultation enables small governments to make proper, well educated decisions.

A suggestion.
The question is, in what direction are governments moving: toward unification as part of greater states, or toward division into smaller states? The advance of technology drives man in both directions. I think a model that takes the best of both individuality and union is a hierarchy of governments. This model has been implemented in the EU and USA. The model enables unity and similarity where possible and differences where necessary.

Ultimately, a hierarchy could unite all the countries in the world, but since there are so few things that all of mankind agrees with, its domain would be limited. Regions with distinct culture, such as the Muslim Middle East could create their own union, and so forth. Of course, Israel would have trouble placing itself because it's not comfortably part of Africa, Europe or Arabia.

A corollary of the above suggestion that mankind is moving toward this model, is that in international relations, countries should encourage this sort of hierarchy as opposed to absolute union or Independence.

International Competition

As geographical boundaries continue to become less of on obstacle, the competition between for countries for people worth money will become very real.

This means that governments will be inclined to introduce systems into the government that favor those worth money, in attempts to lure the wealthy to live in and do business in their countries. This could lead to a deficiency of equal treatment of citizens.

The counter to this phenomena are at least three factors:

a. Not everybody who has money is worth money, and not everybody who is worth money has money. There are those with yet unrealized potential.

b. Not everybody who is worth money would want to risk living in a country that favors them. The reason is that nobody can ensure that his children will be worth money. Hence, the notion of living in a country that would treat his children unfairly is not attractive. This type of hedge is part of what motivates governments to provide services equally.

c. The poor masses revolt. This means that the wealthy government must treat the poor fairly to the extent that they won't revolt.

International Obvervation & Foreign Influence.

Although foreign observation of the political activities is positive in that it should prevent any wrongdoing go unnoticed, it has two drawbacks.

1. First of all, it undermines the observed countries democratic system. That means that the international pressure on the observed government can be strong, so the government doesn't necessarily heed the desires of the country.

This was highlighted in the recent Israeli Disengagement operation. Although Israeli PM Sharon went to great lengths to gain a green light from the white-house for the operation, no national referendum was conducted, despite significant evidence indicating that legislative representatives weren't voting in accordance with their electors' desire.

2. Foreign powers can be misinformed about the situation, or have ulterior motives preventing them from judging the case properly.

This might be the case in Iraq. The US populace was misinformed, and the executive government had ulterior motives. In the end, it can be questioned whether the Iraq War has been beneficial to the Iraqi public.

Different Governmental Organizations.

The ideal Government should have a number of different organizations to facilitate checks and balances.

Let's take a step back first. The reason why checks and balances are important, is because democracy is not about "majority wins". The ideal government is for everybody, not just the majority. The checks and balances are put in place in order to protect the rights of the minority.

At present there are two popular ways to organize representation:
a. Geography.
b. Political orientation.

In order to develop government further, we shouldn't be satisfied with the present popular ways of dividing representation.

Really, there are two systems I'm talking about.

a. The central governmental body , (such as parliament, or congress etc.) consists of representatives organized by some system(s).

b. The lower-level governments are divided up by some system. (usually based on location).

It should be no secret that the reason I think so much about this stuff is my frustration with the present Israeli system.

On that note, I'd like to suggest some different ways they could organize local governments and parliament.

Lets start with local governments:
1. They(we? you?) could divide the land up into pieces that have the same area. This would ensure relative fairness even if the population density changes.

2. It could be divided up into pieces that have equal numbers of residents at present.

3. It could be divided up into pieces that have equal economic value. I like this one, because its different.

4. dunno.

I want to describe the two extremes that you can go in with a parliament system based on political sentiment and location.

One one hand, you have a system that people vote for representatives that match their own political sentiments. The benefit of this system is that it gives a scattered minority voice in the government. The problem is that the organization of political parties might result in many people not finding accurate representation for all of their sentiments. Because the party only caters to its own, it doesn't feel the need for general appeal, making the parties and representatives stubborn, violent and offensive.

On the other hand, you have a system by which every location has one representative. The benefits of this system are that it promotes stability by emphasizing the center, and de-emphasizing the extreme. Another benefit, is that any candidate must strive for general appeal in order to win the election, promoting political correctness, open debate and intelligent, thought out compromises.

A mix of these two systems would happen if each locality would have more than one representative, like in the US congress.

I think the ideal system would have some sort of mix or combination of the two extremes. I wonder how a system with 3 bodies (of 100 reprisentatives ) could work:

a. One body of 100 people organized by political party.
b. One body 100 people, each one from 100 different geographic divisions, each one being the most popular in his division.
c. One body of 100 people, 10 from each of 10 different geographic divisions, being the top 10 in their division..

Really, the party voting system is pretty bad. I think it should be done away with entirely. Can any body point out even one benefit of that system? Let's nix it.

a. One body of 100 people, being the most popular 100 in the nation.
b. One body 100 people, each one from 100 different geographic divisions
c. One body of 100 people, 10 from each of 10 different geographic divisions, being the top 10 in their division.

Lonely Blog. Accommodation.

I recently sent a group email to all my friends and relatives in a sorry attempt to publish the blog. Unfortunately, most of the emails were blocked by spam filters. I did get some responses, but only one of real substance.

However, what I really want to talk about is the two types of accommodation that any government or legal system should incorporate.

Type 1: Accommodation over time. This means that as the sentiments of the nation change, so will the legal system.

Type 2: Accommodation over change in demography. This means that the legal system can accommodate for different sentiments present in different people.

Type 1 Accommodation is relatively easy to design. All you have to do is create a system by which the most essential laws are more difficult to change, and the more peripheral laws are easy to change.

Type 2 Accommodation is more difficult to design, because of the many ways that differences in sentiments can be distributed.

The most obvious way to accommodate for geographically arranged diversity is by having representation organized by location, and having local government systems.

Legal Hirearchy as a Source of Stability & Accomidation

A stable legal system has many benefits. Lets list some:

1. Stable laws help businesses and other organizations formulate long term plans.

2. Many times laws are created as a result of cultural norms and sentiments. However, often cultural norms and sentiments are a result the laws. For instance, in the US, freedom of speech isn't just a law that is a result of a general cultural sentiment. The fact that is encoded into the constitution has become the source for the validity of that sentiment. Over time, US citizens have come to identify th US Constitution as a definitive source of moral standard and good culture. This sort of bond between culture and law can only be attained over a long period of time. Among the benefits of this bond are respect for the law, and patriotism.
That being said, the benefits of a stable legal system are a stable culture.

3. Stable laws promote the image of the government as an authority.

4. Stable laws promote the image of a correlation between the laws and objective good or bad. If representatives were to arrive at some objective truth to base the law on, the law shouldn't change ever. If the laws change often, it means that there is no real basis for the law.

5. Stable laws reduce the number of new, un-refined laws. Some of the problems with new laws are that they haven't been tested (so they could be wrong) and that thy may contain loopholes.

The problem with a stable legal system, is that it can be un-accomidating to changes in culture & moral sentiments and changes in facts on the ground. An un-accomidating system could lead to the following problems:

1. Statewide instability. If the moral and cultural sentiments that a law is based on change, than a large part of the community will not be satisfied with the legal system.

2. Legal Inaccuracy: If the facts on the ground (such as economic facts) warrant an unmade change in law, an un-accommodating legal system can harm the country.

The way to properly blend stability and accommodation is via a hierarchal legal system. That means that the government should have a system composed of different grades of laws. The most fundamental laws be more difficult to establish and change, and the less fundamental laws be easier to change. With a carefully designed system like that, any government should be able to weather the changes of time, without having to sacrifice cultural stability.

Israel as a Government Research Center.

Israel is positioned to become THE developer of significant advances in Governmental systems. This is because the situation in Israel is so challenging.

The world is faced with 2 options concerning Israel. If we are to divide the land in 2, one side for Arabs, and one side for Israelis, that we are giving up on government. We are saying that it is impossible for one government to accommodate that specific demography. Should we say that? Is that true? Is it true that sometimes people simply can't coexist under one army and government?

In my opinion, if we can put a man on the moon, we can come up with a government that can handle the situation peacefully. I think its just a matter of taking all the intellectual efforts invested in cutting the place up into pieces or plotting the destruction of much of it and directing them to devising a new government system that can accommodate everybody.

The reason why development of such a system is essential for mankind is very simple. The modern era has given birth to diverse cultures within one geographic entity. Muslims live in London too. So do Jews. So do Christians. I am sure that the sort of political upheaval and religio-cultural struggle occurring in Israel today will present its ugly face in many parts of the word. The world must devise a solution better than cutting countries apart, or it faces great dangers.

Civil War & Israel.

Upon consideration, it seems to me that the Civil War might have been a mistake.

Essentially, there were 3 possible ways the struggle over slavery could have been resolved:
1. One side forcing the other to comply.
2. Splitting the union in two.
3. Letting the south decide for itself whether it should legalize slavery or not.

Was option number 1 the best one to pick? Options 2 or3 would have saved the 100,000 or so soldiers who died in the war. Furthermore, I have a feeling that international political developments and trends would have effectively forced the South to end slavery eventually.

Why is it so obvious to Americans that the best way to handle the slavery crisis was with option 1?

Taking analogy to the present political situation in Israel, we are presented with the same 3 options. It seems obvious to the global audience, and the Israeli government, that the proper way to handle the crisis is via option 2. Option 1 is ruled out due to the negative effects of war.

What's wrong with option 3?
Neither Israeli's or Palestinians like #3 because both prefer segregation over coexistence. Option 2 is impractical because the geographic areas involved aren't big enough, or naturally distinguished.

I think that highlights the main difference between the Civil War and the Israeli crisis:
Israelis don't like Arabs, and Arabs don't like Israelis. On the other hand, Northerners didn't have a problem with Southerners, it was just a relatively superficial policy they didn't like.

While I'm on the topic, I'd like to point out that the Civil War really highlights the fact that much of what the US has come to stand for didn't really exist until recently. The constitution should have implied a ban on slavery, but didn't. In fact, the ideals of equality for all weren't really implemented until the '60s. It took America 200 years to figure out what it stood for. (?)

That said, it seems to me that the discovery of the American style government, with a constitution, checks & balances, and democratic representation was stumbled upon not because of the great moral vision of the founders, but only because the practical situation necessitated it. The situation of 13 weak colonies desiring independence obviated the need for such a system. Without that system, the colonies wouldn't have been able to band together despite cultural, religious, political and geographic differences like they did.

Going back to Israel, we can arrive on a couple of points:
1. It can take a long time for a country find itself.
2. Twisted morals and gross errors can thrive for long times too.
3. I'll leave this one for the next blog.

Democracy, and Government as a service.

Here are some thoughts on government.

1. One of the key developments of modern government is the definition of the role of the government as a lowly provider of service to the people.

That said, loyalty to the government should only go so far as that government is acting in the best interests of its people.

2. Democracy is the tool by which the populace expresses its opinions. A perfect democracy wouldn't have Representatives, it would simply defer all the decision making to the public. In the modern era, this would really be possible using the Internet. The main problem with this is that the public is often wrong. Ultimately, we end up with a conflict between expertise, and good intentions. That means, that if we leave the decision making up to the public, we'll often end up making unwise decisions. However, if we give experts unequal weight in the decision making, we increase the risk of corruption.

In the end, it seems that there must be some sort of compromise, or combination of the two.

Socialism & Capitalism.

One of the problems with socialism, is that it appeals primarily to 2 groups: the idealistic wealthy, and the poor. Some poor people are genuinely oppressed by the system, but most are poor because of their poor contributions to the public. Hence, most poor supporters of socialism are looking for a free ride. So, socialism appeals to most as a way to distribute the wealth in disproportion to contribution, which is a spell for disaster.

Because Socialism is forwarded most strongly by those who will benefit financially from it, it can't claim to be any more altruistic than capitalism.

Another problem is that the same problems which cause capitalist economics to become abusive also cause socialist models to be abused. That problem is the selfish human nature. Because man's intellect can find loopholes in just about any system, a socialist organization can succumb to selfishness as well. It just has a different expression than in capitalism. In capitalism, its form is underpaying employees, cartelisms and cheating others. In socialism, it is lack of motivation, and abuse of resources by governing bodies.

I think the real deciding factor between socialism and capitalism, is that capitalism is self-maintaining. That means that capitalism can iron out any new developments and problems without re-building the system. Socialism, is fixed and artificial. Whenever a socialist structure is encountered by new realities, it tends to fold.

In the defence of socialism, I'll state the following idea. People are social animals for a reason. That is, social behavior has its place. I think when resources are truly scarce, the benefits of social behaviour outweigh the problems. When there is plenty, the benefits of capitalism outweigh the problems.