17. THE POLLUTION OF DEMOCRACY BY POLITICS

Whether for a few people, states or nations, disputes can be solved by resorting to either violence or reason. Of the two means for establishing the truth, one way consistently leaves the involved parties with less than they had before the dispute: On the whole, violence always destroys property or life whether in a family, state or national quarrel. The spouse who fights may end up with a broken limb or marriage, or worse, while the nation that wars may have its landscape destroyed--if the loser of an initiated battle--or have its economy disintegrated--if the winner of a Pyrrhic victory.

Since the consistent end result of resorting to violence is a regression to a lower or backward state of being, the contestants should use every means to establish a policy on the disputed issue that is acceptable to all. The process of policy-making is generally known as politics, and the productiveness of politics is determined indirectly by the prevention of the inevitable losses that will occur if problems are not solved.

Perhaps part of the policy involves an understanding of the losses all round if the policy is not observed. The impoliteness of domestic troubles and international warfare is the end results of failed policy-making, that is, of poor politics.

Policy-making is productive if it solves problems and destructive--like violence--if it does not. The politicians who ignore problems effectively allow the backward movement of their trouble-plagued people--the polity. Thus, policy-making is not always better than violence in solving the problems of a collection of people; it may be just as bad or worse.

The efficiency and effectiveness of problem solutions by policy-making depends on

problem recognition--how quickly the policy-making process becomes aware of the problem--and
problem-definition--how relevantly the problem is diagnosed, with all the symptoms properly integrated and without any irrelevant symptoms or information.

The national policy-making process known as Congress is increasingly slow and irrelevant when it comes to recognizing and diagnosing problems.

The cause of this retreat from efficiency and effectiveness is the pollution of democracy by modern politics: polution. Polution is policy-making for a part of America at the expense of America as a whole; polution is compromising the nation for a few people rather than making productive compromises for the nation of people as a whole. Polution is legisflation.

Historical policy-making had a phase in which a solo chief policy-maker, by brute might or nepotic right, attempted to solve the problems of those below him. The efficiency and effectiveness of the problem-solving was the vector sum of not only his intelligence and motivation but also the size of the problem generating population. With a growth in population the policy-making process must grow ... productively ... democratically.

To remain or achieve productive policy-making this growth requires not only quantity but quality. Mere quantitative growth is insufficient as the bloated bureaucracy of Washington reveals. The productive chief policy-maker would institute intermediate policy-makers over whom he would preside. These intermediate problem-solvers would be duly delegated with power to resolve problems within their jurisdictions.

If a problem arose which the lesser policy-makers could not solve, e.g., a disagreement between two sub-populations, the chief policy-maker would then non-violently bridge and police the problem. His policy would stem from the information which his intermediate delegates had

collected, filtered, percolated, and honed.

This pyramid of productive policy-making powers consistently would produce efficient and effective solutions. Opposed to this power delegation is policy-making power concentrated into one entity: despotism, "a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power."

Despotism: A Rose By Any Other Name Is Still ...

As a policy-making process despotism fails because it can not consistently solve problems. Despotism fails because it cannot

collect, filter, percolate, and hone

the diagnosis of the problems for their solutions. Despotism, in name or in fact, fails because it can't prioritize and define the problems, let alone solve them.

The over-concentration of problem-solving power into a central policy-making process (royal or federal) prevents the resolution of problems at their sources. Any form of despotism--recognized or unrecognized, malevolent or benevolent--necessitates that many local problems will go unsolved until they have become systemic. Systemic decline reflects a lack of sufficient intermediate policy-making power.

The lack of an intermediate policy-making pyramid statistically guarantees the lack of an effective and permanent solution; there will not be the structure for

collecting, filtering, percolating, and honing

the problem information for a solution fitting the problem. Instead, despotic policy-making uses insufficient and irrelevant information in a shot-gun fashion. Problems riddled with half-solutions or less results from despotism.

The effects of despotism should not be ascribed to the morality of the central powers, but to the low efficiency in "re-presenting" the concerns and consensus of the problem-prone people. A Congress and a Presidency composed of Johnny-do-gooders will have nearly the same despotic effects as a tyrannical dictator when it comes to solving people's problems. The recent trend of Presidents show the non-correlation between the morality of a ruler having too much power and the increase of problems: Jerry was nice; Jimmy was nicer; and Ronnie is the nicest.

Policy-making Power Is Problem-solving Responsibility

Any well-meaning person elected to a policy-making office which has an over-centralization of ruling power is immediately despotic ... benevolent at best. Initially, he will be overworked and overblamed for problems that go unsolved. Misblamed by his constituents for the lack of problem solutions, his benevolence will become insensitiveness and will eventually metastasize into full-blown malevolence. This sequence occurred in both the Carter and Reagan administrations; recall how Reagan took offense at people not thinking that he cared, and recall how both he and Nancy were advised to ignore their critics.

In a tragic way, the modern politician becomes a victim of circumstances because of a modern hubris: If they have more power, they would solve more problems. They fail to recognize that policy-making power and problem-solving responsibility are one and the same. They fail to realize that a human being is capable of only so much problem-solving which additional power only dilutes.

The dilution occurs as the power-seeking politician becomes over-extended as a relevant problem-solver. With a false sense of pride--conceit--they assume too much of their capacity to solve problems. Most want to be good policy-makers but foolishly think that they need more and more power concentrated in their hands. This over-concentration of the power to rule on problems will only make them sterile, powerful policy-makers, capable of regulating people rather than solving the people's problems.

Their increased powers means they are responsible for a greater range of problems. Their humanly-limited time and capacity guarantees problem-solving failure. Pathetically, most of them blame their failures on lacking sufficient power. Some even phrase this external blame upon there being too much democracy in America. Not true; democracy is problem-solving sine qua non. Democracy is how a President could solve the nations problems, that is, immediately organize a democratic partitioning of the people with appropriate delegation of power and responsibility through dilution of his own power.

Policy-making power and problem-solving power responsibility are synonymous. You cannot have one without the other. As there is a limit to how many problems one can responsibly handle, there is synonymously a limit to how much power should be hogged or concentrated. Beyond a point, too much policy-making power or problem-solving responsibility is destructive for all concerned: the excessively powerful problem-solver and the under-powered problem-suffer. Invariably, one burns out and the other gets burned.

Even the best qualified, potential policy-makers know that there are levels of policy-making power beyond which they have no desire to hold. Any timistic productionist knows that there are rings of power that should not be borne by any mortal man. Such rings of power should be doomed to the mounds of history books and lore. No human being can be transformed into a problem-solving god by giving the person the powers ascribed to God--a devil will result.

The productive person knows that relevant divisioning of the people to rule themselves--democracy--is the Golden Mean between

over-centralization of benevolent or malevolent despotism, and
over-diffusion of directed or undirected anarchy.

Both policy-making extremes are meaningless when it comes to solving problems.

We, the people, must recognize the destructive nature of despotism which is the over-concentration of problem-solving power into a central ruling body. Human beings need intermediate policy-makers ruling over divisions of populations. This "rule by divisions" has consistently had good results when the intermediates "re-presented" the concerns and consensus of the divisions. Rule by divisions promoted rapid, productive problem-solving. Problem-solving reflects how relevant information is rapidly accessed in comparison to despotic isolation and insensitivity.

Divisions Of People Rule?

For those readers familiar with the Greek origin of the word "democracy", you will recognize "divisions of people rule", namely, the literal translation of democracy. As a problem-solving process, nominative democracy varies in results. The results depend on the quality and quantity of the divisioning of people.

Some people assume that democracy and elections are synonymous: If you have one, then you have the other. They are not synonymous. Elections can be too infrequent or can be staged by military or financial monopolies.

Elections are not democracy. The confusion of the two in an economically trouble nation that holds elections can lead people to think that their problems are a result of democracy failing. Democracy does not fail. Policy-makers fail to be democratic when a nation is plagued by unsolved problems. The cause of the problems is not democracy, but is "demolections" where people rule on their fate only at election time.

Have any of the last U.S. Presidents instituted a democratic process by which the intelligence of the problem-suffering American people could be used to efficiently percolate individuals to the top-making policy positions? Did Ronald Reagan ask the American people to democratically percolate individuals up to the 4,000 top-levels that he had to fill? Or did Reagan rely on the advice of old friends or new IOUs to fill the positions? Were these positions filled with problem-solving questioning people or yes-men willing to tow the line in order to keep their policy-making power regardless whether they solve problems?

The answers to these questions can be found in the newspaper headlines and the stories beneath them. The answers are not indicative of relevant problem-solving for America's future, and are not indicative of increased benefits from democracy. Democracy will not be there to solve the problems and provide the real freedoms that democracy brings: freedom from problems.

If a collection of people, a society, or a nation is plagued with continual unresolved problems, it is not a result of democracy failing. The failure is a result of insufficient dividing and integrating of the policy-making process and of insufficient "grass root" re-presentation. Ideal democracy does not fail to solve problems. Chronic problems are an index of insufficient democracy when it comes to solving problems. Democracy does not exist if the policy-makers elected in multiples of 2, 4, or 6 years are not democratic when it comes to actual problem-solving policy-making.

Does America suffer from the incumbent and cloned politicians laden with various forms of IOU's? IOU's make relevant problem-solving an impossibility. Does America suffer from a lack of democracy in a Congress? Seniority staleness has concocted a feudalistic concentration of policy-making power. Is this unavoidably despotic policy-making process increasingly a spitting image of the English Structure against which we revolted in 1776? does America suffer from a lack of intermediate policy-makers to

collect, filter, percolate, and hone

the information on the problems from which Americans suffer? (The emptiness of Congressional hearing do not fulfill this need.) Does America suffer from insufficient re-presentation of the concerns and consensus of its people? Does America suffer from a lack of democracy? Yes! The proofs and the indices are inflation, unemployment, overtaxation, and growing violence.

Inflation can be defined as the ongoing and growing costs of problems, problems unsolved or insufficiently solved. Inflation throughout history has been a result of insufficient democratic problem-solving: divisioning of the people and the problem-solving power to rule themselves. Inflation is here to stay until it has stopped the American production system, or a more productive rule by people is instituted: better democracy.

Democracy is not failing America. Modern politicians are undemocratic between elections when it comes to solving problems. There is nothing polite in the way that modern politicians police our policy-making process, an impoliteness derived from polution: the pollution of democracy by politicians.

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.
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