Political Parties or Self-Organizing Communities?

Political parties are organized members of power-sharing cartels who fight to keep shitty rules in place. They are likely to emerge and evolve in various democratic republics as they feed on power.

Jonas Jaeken

Political/Organizational Question: Can someone explain to me the purpose of political parties? Do not explain to me the historical and ideological reasons for their existence, I am aware of them. Instead, tell me why you think they are either indispensable or unnecessary for politics in 2023. In explaining, assume you have the freedom and power of a benevolent dictator (thus willing to relinquish his power) with the following intent: “to design from scratch a country management system that operates effectively with the fewest clear and understandable rules while ensuring the level of inclusivity or participation needed to create them, evolve them, and remove them at the right pace.” Under these conditions, would you include them in your design? And why?
—Andrea Faré

Andrea Faré is an “avid” reader from Italy. He reminds me that those dedicated to human liberation are everywhere. Faré posted the above question online, which inspired me to share my thoughts.

The Benevolent Dictator

I recently made a grudging admission: I don’t see small, benevolent dictatorships—Liechtenstein, Singapore, Luxembourg, or Dubai—as being somehow inferior to democratic republics.

Yes, they are dictatorships, which makes them illiberal in certain ways. But there are dynamics around these micro-nations that allow them to be run more like competing ventures with executive teams who don’t wish either to lose their performance relative to other countries or their populations to outward migration.

They must win through superior governance.

Democratic republics, though a major governance innovation relative to Imperial Monarchies of the past, are mainly devolving into corporatist empires. Why? Due to their shadows:

• The democracy part means voters can erode good institutions and basic rights in time, but not easily vote away bad rules, once they are in statutory amber;

• The republic part means representatives can act with relative impunity, so long as they’re “duly elected,” then they hire a coterie of corrupt technocrats to do their bidding at the people’s expense.

Public choice economics—more or less the study of how politicians and special interests find a common coital bed—is explanation enough. In any case, I’ve cleared my throat. I understand Faré is looking for his interlocutors to play the benevolent dictator role to address his questions on political parties and maintaining good rules. Hopefully, you’ll read long enough to see why I started the discussion with real benevolent dictatorships.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.—Clausewitz

Political Parties

Faré’s question on political parties is a tough one. One unsatisfactory answer is “It depends.” After all, the kinds of political parties that originate from bicameral legislatures will differ from those that originate from parliamentary systems. But if we were to click out one order of magnitude, I’d argue that in both cases, parties are likely to evolve as byproducts of any given system of power. That is, parties are only necessary because power matters and incentives matter. Political parties are organizational structures that form to gain and keep power and money, which, in politics, means a zero- or negative-sum game.

Zero-Sum Game: The gains and losses among all players sum to zero. One player's loss is another player's gain.

Negative-Sum Game: The gains and losses among all players sum to less than zero. The overall value or "pie" shrinks, and it's possible for all players to be worse off as a result.

Of course, parties log roll, horsetrade, and cartelize around certain configurations of power and money. But they and their favor-seekers have every incentive not to create good rules, “evolve them, and remove them at the right pace.”

Instead, they have every reason to perpetuate their existence, grow their ranks, and fail to solve problems or change bad rules. As I have written elsewhere, they even have an incentive to cause the problems for which they are the solution. Political parties are just members of power-sharing cartels. And you better believe they aspire to be monopolies, which means destroying their competitors given the chance.

So when Faré asks, “Can someone explain to me the purpose of political parties?” the short answer is to gain power and to restrict others’ access to it.

The Contest’s Raison d'être

Partisans in the United States hate this contest. Only those who feel politically homeless or disgusted with power get it.

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But the reason we launched the contest is to get as many people as I can from around the world to think about a system that would “design from scratch a country [international] management system that operates effectively with the fewest clear and understandable rules while ensuring the level of inclusivity or participation needed to create them, evolve them, and remove them at the right pace.” I give contestants big hints with “Five Pillars of New Constitutional Design,” summarized briefly as:

1. Principle of Consent: Only signatories to a constitution are considered citizens with associated rights and duties. Non-signatories retain basic human rights.

2. Principle of Judicial and Common Law Supremacy: Judicial rulings, particularly those based on common law precedents, override legislative and executive decisions.

3. Principle of Subsidiarity: Decisions should be made at the most local level possible; disputes over this are court-resolved.

4. Principle of Self-determination: Groups can join, secede, or form new jurisdictions through consensus.

5. Principle of Panarchy: Individuals can choose their governance system regardless of location.

Allow me to linger on that last principle.

If, instead of some monolithic governance system, we were to assume that people have different conceptions of healthy culture and good government, then we could create a system in which people can become members of civil associations instead of parties.

In other words, if you want to live according to the edicts of an organization dedicated to faith, family, and duty, you could. If you wanted to share a massive portion of your income with a kind of socialist commons, you could. Fuse the two? Join a cloud kibbutz or Mennonite commune. But that would be your primary governance system, and you would not be allowed to interfere with other similarly self-organizing communities—unless they export some tort harm or violate basic human rights. (Then, off to court.)

Of course, one wonders whether and to what extent so-called “Teal” systems of organization could be scaled to the level of society, at least in some measure. I suspect the answer to such questions will require experimentation. But to experiment, you need a framework that facilitates the freedom to experiment.

Competition and Cooperation

I opened with what might be considered a controversial claim regarding benign dictatorships. I expressed some appreciation for “dynamics around these small countries that allow them to be run more like competing governance ventures with executive teams who don’t wish either to lose their performance relative to other countries or their populations to outward migration.”

My hope is that these strange outliers need not be on the long tail of the governance distribution. Instead, I would like to get more and more people to imagine a framework of law that spawns these kinds of experiments worldwide, so more of these city-states can thrive in competition and cooperation. I’m less concerned about whether these smaller jurisdictions are dictatorships. Monkeys could run them, or they could operate on Holacracy. It doesn’t matter. As long as there are good exit options, they are more likely to find good rules and stable equilibria than democratic republics, with their sensational elections, corporatist politburos, and imperial ambitions.

Oh, and Would I include political parties in my design?

No. But you might, Dear Reader.

And that’s just fine as long as you keep your filthy parties away from our self-organization communities.

Grazie mille, Andrea, per essere un avido lettore e per aver posto una serie di domande così ponderate.