Introducing Metapolitics
How to upgrade our minds and human systems for good.
History enters when the space of the possible is vastly larger than the space of the actual. –Stuart Kauffman
Jenny is a Reform Jew from Chicago’s Hyde Park. She grew up just around the corner from Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, and the Obamas. I grew up in Charlotte, a sparkly banking center and model of the New South with a highway named after the preacher Billy Graham. We met in Austin, a blue city in a red state. Recently we moved to Greenville, SC, a red town in a red state.
In terms of our political sympathies, Jenny and I are a mixed family. But we wouldn’t say those sympathies are red or blue. We grew out of those color-coded designations long ago. Yet we remain cramped in a political system that neither appreciates nor serves our evolution. Instead, American politics creates incentives that keep most people in a crude binary. Failure to align with that binary gets you treated like a monkey–cold, wet, and beaten.
The Monkey Ladder
You might have heard of The Monkey Ladder Experiment In professional-development lore. The story involves a researcher, monkeys, a ladder, and some bananas. When a monkey attempted to climb the ladder for a banana, the researcher sprayed it and the other monkeys with cold water. After repeated attempts, the monkeys began beating and pulling each other off the ladder to avoid the spray. When researchers introduced new monkeys who tried to climb the ladder, even monkeys who had never been sprayed pulled off the new monkeys and beat them. By the end, none of the original monkeys were left. Yet the behavior remained till none attempted to climb for the bananas again.
Over time, the Monkey Ladder Experiment went from a study to a story. But the fable still carries a lesson. We’re the monkeys. System guardians start out by punishing those who reach for a better state, but eventually, those living within the system—partisans—become system enforcers.
Partisan politics becomes a parallel story of hairless monkeys who beat up on anyone who suggests a system upgrade–often more than they beat up on the other partisans.
If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain, say the Blues.
Voting for Purples is wasted effort and ensures Blue wins, say the Reds.
Not only are we obliged to operate within the constraints of a system that only offers two choices, but when it comes to thinking about creative alternatives, most people suffer from a profound failure of imagination.
And why shouldn’t they?
The prefix meta is wearing thin, but it’s apt here. If politics is supposed to be the set of processes by which groups make decisions—despite competing interests, beliefs, and values—metapolitics is a way of questioning the assumptions behind those processes. Metapolitics can also help us to explain why reforming a political system is so hard. Some might even suggest different design protocols for superior systems of human organization.
Enter Metapolitics
If you read beyond this point, thank you. It means you support this effort. But I will be honest: I wrote this as both a thank you and a call to arms. In one sense it is a way to create value and honor you for traveling on this journey with me. In another, it is a way to clarify an emerging doctrine for a fragile new priesthood of warrior monks. Once we internalize our doctrine, will we join in solidarity? Can we commit to more than talk? First things first. Then, more to follow.
To better understand what I’m up to, consider a psychosocial stage theory called Spiral Dynamics, fashionable in the early 2000s among the followers of the philosopher Ken Wilber. This spiral of human development, first offered by psychologist Clare Graves, builds on the work of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Maslow. Let’s use it as a heuristic.
But first, What is Spiral Dynamics?
As society has become more complex over time, people have had to adapt their cognition and values to keep up with accelerating change. It makes sense, then, that as we move through time—from tribal hunter-gathers to hyper-connected city dwellers—our ways of seeing and being, what some call “consciousness,” would change along with our environments. Imagine the following color-coded stages arranged in a helical pattern—a spiral. Color change indicates different developmental stages as complexity increases or tensions build within a paradigm.
First Tier
Beige: Survival, Sensation, and Self-concept
Focused on basic survival needs.Purple: Clan, Ancestors, and Surroundings
Emphasizes safety, coordination, and belonging through family and tribal bonds.
Red: Courage, Patronage, and Egoism
Dominates by power, control, honor codes, and breaking free from constraints.Blue: God, Morality, and Authority
Values order, stability, and obedience to established authority.Orange: Science, Commerce, and Reason
Pursues success, autonomy, and financial gain through competition.Green: Equality, Environment, and Consensus
Emphasizes relativism, equal outcomes, and communitarian sensitivity
Second Tier
Yellow: Integration, Emergence, and Complexity
Integrates diverse value systems; values flexibility, pluralism, and emergence.Turquoise: Holism, Paradox, Ineffability
Thinks holistically; sees global interconnection and subsystems nested in a web of life.
These stages represent both individual and societal development, with later stages transcending and including earlier ones. Specifically, second-tier consciousness integrates first-tier stages. That means those whose psychosocial development has reached the Second Tier are able to appreciate important features of the prior stages worth retaining. It usually starts by exploring historical contexts, then expands to various contemporary niches.
For example,
Purple: Roving hunter-gatherer tribes (Prehistoric)
Red: Clashing, dominating warriors (Classical-Conquest Age)
Blue: Stabilizing crusaders, moral hierarchies (Feudal-Medieval Era)
Orange: Inquiring scientists or trading merchants (Renaissance-Modern Era)
Green: Moralizing advocates for disenfranchised, environment (Postmodern)
Today, we are pretty thoroughly ensconced in the postmodern era. But a few have made the quantum leap to the Second Tier.
When second-tier thinkers become practitioners, they are fluent in the various stage languages, sometimes leading people by meeting them where they are. But second-tier consciousness is not yet for everyone, according to Wilber:
With less than 2 percent of the population at second-tier thinking (and only 0.1 percent at turquoise), second-tier consciousness is relatively rare because it is now the ‘leading-edge’ of collective human evolution.
Note, though, that each stage can have healthy and unhealthy expressions. Such includes tendencies of those in the First Tier to tribalize and then otherize those with different values. Second-tier people are not immune to unhealthy tribalism but are likelier to integrate facets of the other stages’ values—and in what contexts. In other words, they learn to synthesize values that people with first-tier consciousness can only see as competing.
Now, let’s map some relevant stages atop the US political landscape. To avoid color confusion, forget about “red” and “blue” political affiliations. In Spiral Dynamics’ color coding, here’s what the US political landscape looks like:
Blue: Traditionalist Conservatives
Orange: Entrepreneurial Moderates
Green: Social-Justice Progressives
Some are transitional in that they express blue-orange or orange-green. And populism can be a category killer. Otherwise, Blue, Orange, and Green are still the big three of American politics. Despite some coalitions, these groups are usually at war with one another.
Despite our differences, more Americans are poised to make the quantum leap to the Second Tier. And those who do will increasingly come to find that partisan politics–today’s status quo–neither edifies nor improves.
It alienates, violates, and degrades.
From Finite to Infinite Games
In his classic book, James Carse taught us to see the difference between “finite” and “infinite” games.
Finite Games are games with a clear beginning, ending, and objective. The players are known, the rules are fixed, and the outcome is an endpoint—usually with winners and losers.
People play finite games to win. But once they've won, they’re done. Such games are prevalent in competitive environments where success is determined by beating others.
Infinite Games are games with no defined beginning or end, and the objective is not to win but to keep playing. The rules can change, and new players can enter the game, at any time. An infinite game is about perpetual play, where the goal is to continue the game itself. This mindset usually applies to personal development, commercial sustainability, or any long-term vision emphasizing continual growth and adaptation.
Politics is a finite game.
Our hypothesis, bold but tentative, is that our species can learn how to live in an infinite game. Metapolitics, which involves healthy second-tier thinking, ought to be about writing the rulesets for infinite games. Whether you consider yourself to the left or right is mostly irrelevant in metapolitics, or ought to be. That would be like getting all puffed up about just one of two apps on a really crappy smartphone running on DOS (Democratic Operating System) and never considering the phone might need an upgrade.
The question before us then is this: Are you ready to rise to the Second Tier?
A Quantum Leap
Here is a set of descriptions that might help you assess your second-tier readiness: Which of the following best captures your view?
Democracy stands as a beacon of human dignity, allowing citizens to have a direct or representative say in the decisions that affect their lives. Rooted in principles of equality and justice, it empowers individuals with the right to vote. Representatives are servant leaders. By encouraging civic participation, democracy cultivates a thriving society where the will of the majority is balanced with protections for minority rights. Its transparent and accountable institutions are designed to serve the people–reflecting a profound belief in the inherent value of every human being. Though it may face challenges, democracy remains an inspiring form of government, continually adapting to meet the needs of its citizens.
Democracies lack polycentricity, a condition in which multiple decision-making centers enhance experimentation, competition, and cooperation. Central authorities try to make simple decisions for a complex world. Such leads to one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore community needs. Additionally, the problem of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs poses another challenge to pluralism. That is, small-but-powerful interest groups gain significant benefits from obscure policies while the people bear costs that mount over time. Interest groups influence politicians disproportionately, favoring policies that benefit them. Such leads to corruption and disillusionment among ordinary citizens who feel unheard, despite periodic elections. For a more adaptive localism, we need new protocols.
Perhaps the smartest readers will warn that I have presented a dichotomy and that these two views can be synthesized—that is, from thesis A and antithesis B to some C. That might well be the case. For now, though, using the spiral heuristic is important to help readers see if they’re ready to transition from First Tier to Second Tier—politics (1) to metapolitics (2).
In a similar spirit, which of the following best captures your view?
I have special insight as to the nature of a good society. Some disagree, but I am a systems thinker. While it is unfortunate some don’t share my ideals, those with insight can rise to protect the overall good. Those who possess such insight must lead. It’s unavoidable. If we’re to thrive, leadership requires we compel those who lack insight.
People have different ideas about what makes for a good society. I want to live in my ideal community and want others to live in theirs. As long as we can agree to protect the innocent, my ideal society is one in which different people can choose the community or system she thinks offers her the best chance at flourishing.
Now, the two descriptions directly above run orthogonally to the spiral. That means either 1 or 2 could fall into the Second Tier. That said, one of the above moves us toward Integral Authoritarianism while the other moves us toward Integral Liberalism—which I consider unhealthy and healthy expressions, respectively.
One difference between these two second-tier forms of consciousness is whether one applies that consciousness to manipulate people. Or as
writes:[S]oft managerial regimes are largely inept and uncomfortable with the open use of force, and much prefer to instead maintain control through narrative management, manipulation, and hegemonic control of culture and ideas…. [B]ut, being managerial institutions, staffed by managerial elites, and therefore stakeholders in the managerial imperative, they nonetheless operate in almost complete sync with the state. Such diffusion helps effectively conceal the scale, unity, and power of the soft managerial regime, as well as deflect and defuse any accountability.
Lyons goes on to argue that the managerial class is now sino-forming itself, not because it wants to be hard-ass like the CCP, but because it panicked in 2016.
Now it seems there’s no turning back.
Beware the Systems Thinker
Perhaps you’ve met her. Whether she’s haunting the corridors of the EU buildings in Brussels, or sent off to Davos to expound on her ideas before the WEF elites, she spends her days in deep reflection, rigorous analysis, or synthesizing information from various disciplines. She sees possibilities that escape the notice of the laity, trapped as they are in linear thinking.
In the realm of “systems thinking,” she stands apart. Not only can she appreciate complexity and interconnection, but she can also plan such systems for others through intelligent design. While most are content with a surface-level understanding, she perceives the underlying dynamics that govern reality. To her, everything is woven into a tapestry of relationships and patterns—transcending the ordinary, penetrating the superficial. She is the weaver.
In her eyes, only those with a truly exceptional intellectual curiosity can hope to walk the path she has carved. In her mind, she’s no authoritarian. She’s a servant leader capable of making decisions for the common good. And she’s getting noticed. Her grasp of systems thinking is not just a pursuit. It’s a way of life. Her global outlook promises to heal a benighted world.
We should beware of this person. But why?
One word: humility.
Healthy second-tier consciousness demands humility as a jealous God might. I’m reminded of the great political economist F. A. Hayek, who, in a flash of second-tier insight, wrote that the “curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Hayek might as well have been talking about healthy metapolitics. Self-organizing complexity will smite down the planner’s plans and the designer’s designs. These systems within systems, arrayed as fractals, will overwhelm the systems thinker.
Many self-described systems thinkers are poseurs. But some have embraced the values and to some extent possess the cognition to ascend to the Second Tier. But no one on this blue marble is capable of designing or planning The Great Barrier Reef or the Amazon Rainforest. The complexity of just one of those ecosystems would fry the neural circuitry of a single human. A society like the United States is no different.
That’s why complexity scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam writes:
“Why should governments fail? Because leaders, whether self-appointed dictators or elected officials, are unable to identify what policies will be good for a complex society. The unintended consequences are beyond their comprehension. Regardless of values or objectives, the outcomes are far from what they intend.”
And it’s not just the complexity but the fact of pluralism. People are different, one to the next.
Still, too many wish to scale the highest echelons of the managerial state. And too many sound like David Sloan Wilson of Evonomics fame, who writes:
“We must learn to function in two capacities: 1) As designers of social and economic systems; and 2) as participants in the systems that we design. As participants, we need not have the welfare of the whole system in mind, in classic invisible hand fashion. But as designers, we must. The invisible hand must be constructed…”
Such a conceit will not stand, because that jealous god, complexity, will not let it. The best we can do is launch experiments in protocol design—whether in local experiments or emergent rulesets. There is no One True Way.
As theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman reminds us:
If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order…. [I]f ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order.
Likewise, if practitioners of metapolitics are to have a go at creating a second-tier social order, they will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of emergence and evolution.
Local is Beautiful: Experiments in Protocol Design
Some of the more odious online personalities use the hashtag #nationaldivorce—mostly in the context of trolling or partisan warfare. It’s easy not to take it seriously. But if we consider the suggestion through the lens of metapolitics, we can find wisdom. Despite the connotations of the mommy party and the daddy party going their separate ways and dividing up the children (us) by blue states or red, metapolitics recommends a break-up of sorts.
We need new niches of experimentation so that Kauffman’s twin forces can work their magic. We need more local eyes on local problems. And we need good protocol design to unleash all the experimentation. Good protocols can originate in theory or emerge from practice.
Let’s talk about theory first.
Philosopher Robert Nozick was a genius. He was a master of metapolitics, though most of his ideas remain locked in theory. Two such ideas bear mentioning.
First, organic unity refers to the idea that the value of a whole is not always equivalent to the simple sum of the values of its parts. In other words, the way elements combine and relate within a whole can give that whole a value that's different from just adding up the individual values of each element. This concept challenges a simple additive approach to value and suggests that there's an intricate relationship between parts and wholes in determining overall worth. Nozick also thought that organically-unified systems balance diverse elements and unifying elements. For example, a valuable scientific theory might be a unifying law that explains diverse phenomena. A valuable society might unify diverse people through equal legal rules that allow them to pursue diverse ends.
Second, Nozick introduces the concept of a “framework for utopia.” The idea is that no single vision of utopia can satisfy everyone’s conception of a perfect society. Instead, Nozick proposes a legal framework in which individuals join or create their own communities based on their distinct conceptions of the good. This overarching structure would enable a diverse range of ideal communities to coexist. Individuals would have the freedom to choose or switch between these communities. Essentially, the framework would be a system that balances individual freedom and community while preserving how one wants to live.
It’s no accident that, theoretically at least, the Framework for Utopia gives rise to organic unity. Imagine a vast array of communities, each representing distinct visions of the good life, offer more people more options. Such dynamics require no stretch of the imagination. With the limited differences among US states or Swiss Cantons, people can migrate to communities that make them happier. Metapolitics helps us to be more conscientious about these dynamics.
When diverse communities coexist within the system, the overall societal value isn’t just a mere sum of the values of individual communities. Society achieves organic unity by comprising varied, unique, and complex communities. These interrelate and offer individuals a spectrum of choices. The totality becomes more valuable and richer than if we just tallied up the worth of individual utopias, many of which will fail. Nozick’s framework creates a society where the collective offering of multiple “utopias” creates value that surpasses any individual community.
So it would be a significant upgrade of DOS (democratic operating system).
Nozick’s colleague John Rawls used metapolitics, too. Rawls offered a theory of abstract justice that sought to blur competing conceptions of the good into a single, conceptual monolith. But Nozick’s theory creates more space for variation, perhaps because he took Adam Smith’s warning to heart:
The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess–board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess–board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess–board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it.
Smith was also aware that it’s not just the chess pieces we must worry about, but also the hands that would move them.
In this vein, political economist Michael Munger offers the systems thinker yet one more metapolitical test:
Go ahead, make your argument for what you want the State to do and what you want the State to be in charge of. Then, go back and look at your statement. Everywhere you said "the State," delete that phrase and replace it with politicians I actually know, running in electoral systems with voters and interest groups that actually exist. If you still believe your statement, then we have something to talk about.
Competitive governance systems don’t offer us immunity from politicians’ human prejudices, much less that of systems thinkers. It offers us more niches of self-organization and selection.
I would be remiss if I didn’t close this section by mentioning emergent law, which doesn’t start so much in theory. Lex Mercatoria (Merchant Law) and early Common Law are both examples, because:
Organic Evolution. Neither system was the product of deliberate design or legislative action. Instead, each evolved as responses to practical needs: the need for standardized commercial rules in the case of Lex Mercatoria; and consistent judicial decisions in Common Law.
Emergent Development. Both systems were developed from the bottom up. The practices and norms of merchants shaped Lex Mercatoria, while countless judicial decisions molded common law over time.
Flexibility and Responsiveness. Both systems could adapt and evolve based on the changing needs and values of communities. This contrasts with more rigid systems that rely solely on codified statutes, which ossify as the world changes.
In essence, emergent law captures the notion that law can arise naturally and organically from the interactions, customs, and practices of society, rather than being imposed from above by a centralized authority. Both Lex Mercatoria and early Common Law exemplify this idea.
Germs of Possibility
Theory is one thing. Practice is quite another.
Let’s talk about a handful of practical experiments in metapolitics currently being carried out in a first-tier world.
In 2013, legal innovators established the ZEDE law in Honduras. Soon after that came Próspera, a 58-acre tract of formerly unoccupied land on the island of Roatan, as a special economic zone. But as Scott Alexander of
writes,Próspera’s not a place, it’s a platform. It’s a government with a charter, laws, legislators, officials, contracts, partnerships, etc. Anywhere can become part of Próspera—if someone has land in a totally different part of Honduras and wants to be part of Próspera, they can.
Sadly, Honduras’s more recent government is hostile to special jurisdictions, despite enormous successes in places like Dubai, Gurugram, and Hong Kong. Still, other examples include the nascent CDEZ, which is the first platform-style special jurisdiction enabled by the sovereign Catawba Indian Nation of the Carolinas. The CDEZ is the first jurisdiction within the United States created specifically for digital entrepreneurs, freelancers, Web3, and other exponential technology groups to form and grow.
Notice that both of these recent examples are tiny. There are simply very few places on earth where anyone can practice metapolitics. Politics is still the 800-pound gorilla leviathan, and authorities and their supplicants hate competition. And they really hate not being in control.
Despite this harsh reality, the great SEZ advisor Robert Haywood, says “Keep trying!”
Practical metapolitics overlaps with the creation of what Haywood calls “Opportunity Zones,” but extends to the ambitious thinking of polymath entrepreneur,
, and his concept of network states. Srinivasan, who is well-steeped in cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, and other associated technologies, is working to reframe our thinking about legal institutions in a manner that looks far less like Westphalian nation-states and much more like open-source technologies.Believe it or not, Srinivasan’s idea extends back in time.
In 1860, the Belgian botanist and economist Paul Émile de Puydt began to ask why the law should be so closely tied to territory. De Puydt wondered why one couldn’t move “from republic to monarchy, from representative government to autocracy, from oligarchy to democracy, or even to Mr. Proudhon's anarchy—without even the necessity of removing one's dressing gown or slippers.” Today, this means both crowd governance and cloud governance. Crowd governance would be a system of decentralized self-governance run by the many instead of the few. Cloud governance would be digital, censorship-resistant means to make crowd governance happen for people worldwide, despite dark histories of conquest and imposed law.
The Contest
As I write, people are submitting entries to the Constitution of Consent Contest. While I would love to find a way to implement this future constitution on behalf of people like us, I’m under no illusions.
The more likely outcome is that people, perhaps a new generation used to moving among platforms, apps, and operating systems, will be more open to such projects in the future. Simply said, the contest is a prompt to get more people to engage in metapolitics. My hope is that, if they do, they will find an escape from both politics and the monolithic doctrines of the First Tier.
Maybe then, a new group of Founding Mothers and Fathers will carve out niches of possibility for a world full of people tired of living as cold, wet, beaten monkeys.