Freedom, Justice, and Competition

I frequently bemoan the fact that political debate starts at narrow issues, rather than at foundations. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve mentioned before some thoughts about the nature of human institutions and their relation to freedom and justice and the inherent competitive nature of them. I’d like to take a few moments to explore that concept a bit, because I think it is one of the fundamental pillars of how I think societies should be understood. I strongly believe that human institutions should have humanity as their primary goal and focus: we should focus our efforts to bettering ourselves and our habitat, as a whole. Secondarily, we should promote all life in our habitat. I think these tenets are held by a majority of people – it benefits each and every one of us. When we imagine utopia, unless you are Ayn Rand, you imagine a world of peace, of tranquility, of selflessness, and comfortable living. In my experience, this is almost universally the case. Therefore, in order to achieve these goals of transforming society into something more conducive to said goals, we must understand the way that societies are built and they way institutions exist and interact.

There seems to be an intersection of real positive growth in understanding of human culture in philosophy, economics, and sociology. Philosophers grow and develop new analyses of the human condition, while economists and sociologists confirm or deny or build upon those ideas. I think, then, we should do some armchair work and think about the nature of humanity as a whole, and from there, human institutions. Humans are fundamentally self-centered, seeking one’s own survival even at the expense of others. Even among those of us who might sacrifice ourselves for the good of others, we often do so at least somewhat begrudgingly. We do it either because it is expected of us or we hope to receive something in return at a later date. We have laws on the books protecting one’s ability to protect oneself or one’s property even to the point of killing some trespasser. I’m not stating something we all don’t already know: foremost in our minds, at least to some extent, is the fundamental belief that you are more deserving, more important than others. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we hurt in order to guarantee that we keep our jobs, that we get the last turkey on the shelf, that we win the prize. At the fore of these behaviors is a maxim that, whether consciously or unconsciously, we hold above all else: I am worth more than you. I don’t think there is much evidence to the contrary, and the evidence required to disprove this observation seems enormous.

Human institutions are, at bottom, groups of humans working together to some end. Whether its the church, the state, or your company, each of these institutions can be understood as a collaboration of individual powers and skills to a combined purpose. That collaboration need not be voluntary to be exist, and that power need not be recognized to exist. I think this is the key observation: human institutions multiply (or at least combine) the power of numbers of individuals into one single entity, such that that entity is much more difficult to overcome by those of lesser power. In other words, a bigger company, a bigger government, a bigger labor union are all more difficult to topple compared to smaller ones. The combined effort of each individual to survive is multiplied into the behavior of the larger entity, simply based on the fact that all its members of human. The entity, then, operates in such a way that it adopts the same maxim as humans themselves: I am worth more than you.

Consequently, institutions lie, cheat, steal, and hurt in order to guarantee their survival. This behavior extends even to the members of that entity. Anyone who has been an employee of an especially unreserved corporation knows the cutthroat nature of some policies that, while harming members of the entity, fundamentally strengthen the entity’s chances of survival. We further see this in nuclear arms races, in stagnant wages, in destruction of the planet. A government is more likely to survive if it has more nuclear weapons than everyone else, a corporation is more likely to survive if it keeps wages as low as possible, and both are more likely to survive if they value productivity at the expense of the environment.

Generally speaking, this survivalist behavior is fundamentally short-sighted. We value a short-term guarantee of our survival against long-term goals beyond that. We can see this in individuals, too, and it seems to reflect Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in both cases. When we do not perceive our survival as guaranteed, we are more likely to behave rashly in order to improve our chances. Conversely, when we perceive our survival as more or less guaranteed, we are more willing to spend our time or money on pleasures or even on other people. Similarly, a human institution not guaranteed its own survival is more likely to behave more rashly.

At this point, I think we can make some arguments about how we should structure our societies and institutions, given the aforementioned goals and observations about human nature. If we want guarantee of survival as individuals, we must guarantee methods of survival (income, food sources, etc.). If we want to guarantee survival for ourselves, we must guarantee survival for most (preferably all) people, otherwise we run the risk of being subject to the unhappy end of our selectivist policies. Moreover, our institutions must be guaranteed some form of survival. Guaranteeing individual survival seems at least hypothetically doable, but in most theories I have encountered, guaranteeing survival of institutions runs contrary to that. I’ll examine a few.

Anarcho-capitalism is absolutely fascinating, and honestly, I would love it if I thought it were at all viable. It relies on the belief (with which I agree) that humans, on an individual level, are more likely to be responsible and compassionate to others without government mediation. It tacks on free-market principles in a very neoliberal fashion, holding that capitalism holds the secret to human happiness. I reject the latter notion out of hand, because capitalism without government mediation results in different all-powerful institutions fighting for survival at the expense of individuals (i.e. feudalism).

Socialism is, I think, a step in the right direction. Varying forms hold differing methods and results, but in general, socialism promotes the ownership of the means of production collectively by the citizenry. In many cases, socialism becomes necessarily hostile to other institutions, gobbling up all sorts of functions under a single monopolistic hegemonic monster. I reject this (simplistic) form of socialism out of hand because it still harms individuals by promoting the institution at their expense.

The next few theories are actually strangely similar, in that they recognize a few of the same problems with the former theories and in that they recognize the inherent flaw in our quest for utopia. Forms of social democracy (Marxian, et al.), anarcho-syndicalism, and some forms of anarcho-communism I think learn a lot of the lessons of our economic history and attempt to account for flaws in our behaviors. I do not want to delve into any detail, but I would invite the interested reader to look through the linked articles and perhaps read some other material on the subject. The important points, though, are that these libertarian forms recognize the need to level the playing field, so to speak, of institutions against one another. Government should never exceed the power of corporations so as to usurp them, and vice versa. Corporations, similarly, should never have the power to usurp one another. Indeed, maintenance of equality among all people and institutions is what makes these theories tick. In recognizing that the survivalist instinct is an unerasable element of human nature, they instead try to effectively lock it down in a standstill. By guaranteeing that one person or institution cannot overcome another, they simultaneously guarantee individual and institutional survivability. Helpfully, social democracy and syndicalism both retain much of the sort of hierarchy in society to which we are accustomed, maintaining the roles of leader and follower many people (including myself) agree are necessary.

I ended up writing a good bit more than I originally intended to, so I will leave a short summary to tie this together and to help those who skipped some (or all) of the post. Because humans and their institutions are fundamentally selfish, we need a system of economics and government that either eliminates or ties down those selfish tendencies so that we can realize greater happiness. Left-libertarian forms of government and societal organization retain the individual freedoms we cherish while transforming institutions in such a way that they retain their productive power while significantly reducing their capacity for harm. It’s not utopia, but it’s a gigantic leap in the right direction.

Centralization of the Internet

The question of whether or not we can trust the technology sector has become increasingly more a part of our daily conversation in the United States and across the world, especially with the information we now know about their supposedly non-complicit place in the NSA’s PRISM program. I feel like the question is loaded, and I think that if we look at it with the right details in mind that we can get a reasonable answer as to how we should handle personal privacy.

Consider how important it is to you that your data is your own. How important is your anonymity on the web? What would happen if suddenly everyone knew everything in your cloud storage platform of choice? What if everyone could read your webmail? These are the foundational questions. For instance, I want people to be able to attach my name to the pieces I write on this blog, or else I would not use my real name and I would not tie the blog to my personal social media profiles. However, I definitely do not want people to be able to see all of my data. I protect my documents for personal projects, for school, my photos, my videos, and all of those sorts of things behind what I usually hope is a secure, encrypted platform. I consider my ability to choose what other people know about me and what I think to be vital to my freedom and my personhood. As we decide how we will handle our personal data (be it paper or digital), we must think through these questions.

Because I value my privacy as much as I do, I want to protect my data, no matter what. How should I go about doing so? Firstly, I want to explain what we should not do. Consider webmail and online storage. How many people pay for email anymore? I certainly don’t. We have become so used to email being free that at this point we balk at the idea of paying even a nominal fee for the service. It is a service, though. Gmail is not an cheap service. How does Google go about making the service worth offering? We know that they offer ads on Gmail. I personally do not have a problem with that. There are some allegations that they sell data to the government or private entities. I find that proposition less than likely, but I am willing to at least consider it as possible. So knowing what we do about Gmail (insert Hotmail, Dropbox, or any other “free” online service offered by another party), how should we conduct ourselves if we want to remain private?

The wonderful thing about the internet (and to some lesser extent, the web) is that it is ad-hoc. The internet can exist with or without Google, with or without ICANN, with or without most any powerful agency that we currently think about almost immediately when we consider the subject. The problem, though, is that the way we use the internet is becoming more and more centralized over time. Nearly everyone uses a free webmail service. Nearly everyone uses Facebook, uses Twitter, etc. The internet was narrowed into what we know as the web, and it is continually becoming smaller as the services we use become more and more centralized. With the centralization of power individuals lose power and lose freedom. Regardless of how good I think Google might be now, it would be difficult to argue that their vast power over internet will not become a trouble over time.

Thankfully, the centralization of the internet is not so far along that we cannot combat it as individuals. Moreover, the internet is a wonderful platform that is inherently mostly anonymous. We can generally be actively involved on the internet without repercussions in the offline world (if you know what to do). As I understand it, though, there are a few problems with the idea of moving towards a more ad-hoc network. Firstly, it will be painful. We are used to the power of expensive software made cheap through theoretically infinite supply used by users that number in the millions (recall that cheap or free software is often paid for through advertising). A small amount of advertising revenue per person multiplied across a body of millions (or even billions) very easily pays for the labor required to build and maintain these services. So we, as ad-hoc users, will have to pay in terms of cash or in terms of quality, at least for the time being. Similarly, there is the problem of cash. The tech sector is experiencing a massive boom, but whence does that money come? Advertising and the sale of private data, which is exactly what we are trying to prevent. So either we will have to begin paying for our software through other means, or we will have to rely on cheaper or volunteer software. Finally, some things seem to be best or most efficient when centralized. Can you imagine a non-centralized Facebook? How would such a protocol work? While doable, it would be among the more difficult problems to work through.

As I move forward with this line of thought, I think it is important how difficult these ideas will be to realize even in a theoretical sense. The ideas I am puzzling through require going back many years and redoing much of the infrastructure we have built up over the years. However, I think the goal is a worthy one. If we want to have any amount of individual power and personal freedom, we have to end this dangerous trend towards the centralization of data. My data is my own, and it should remain that way. Similarly, your data should remain yours. I am not comfortable with the idea that we should trust an entity that I think is good to store my data. As benevolent as I think Google is (and I really do think they have been benevolent to this point), I do not know what might happen in a few years or decades. I am not willing to leverage my privacy in that way. If we want to have any semblance of a free society, we must reverse this hemorrhaging of personal power and freedom. My data, the things I produce, are part of who I am. I own that.

Why I Can’t Trust the State

I’m taking a quick break from coding to write briefly about some thoughts I have had buzzing throughout my mind the last several days. I have made it at least implicitly clear in my writing and in my tweets that I believe there is good evidence to think that a significant portion of human thought is based on connotation and that without an equally significant effort in analysis, that connotation will rule our thoughts. I am quite certain that we cannot escape that. (Or, at least, I usually can’t.) I may write more on that specific idea at another time, but please keep it in mind as you read on.

I frequently relabel my different beliefs because they are rather fluid. I am always changing my political beliefs, specifically, because humans and the societies they create are so vastly complex. I find it an egregious error of pride for someone to claim that they have all the answers in politics (e.g. politicians). I am moderately certain that I have been following some sort of an illustratable trajectory, though, so I will try to explain that pithily. From my upbringing onward, I have made pit-stops in neoconservatism, neoliberalism, modern liberalism (of the FDR variety), and lately I have been reanalyzing my ideas. As I learn more about the institutions of society, I become increasingly aware of how language is used and how connotation is used against people. Those with knowledge (who are generally identical to those with power and money) are able to sway the public mind with mostly-truths (denotatively) that have totally different meanings to the rest of us. The fact that this is even a possibility is troubling, and it is therefore incumbent upon those of us without knowledge to be highly skeptical of what a person with knowledge in power (i.e. someone who has something to gain from manipulation of the truth) might say.

As an example, consider the advertising industry. An advertiser is either part of a company or is hired by a company that has a product or service to sell. In order to sell the product, the advertiser should appeal to the potential buyer somehow. They are in a position of knowledge, and therefore power, because they know the details of the product or service (both positive and negative). We are therefore hesitant to trust advertisers. We read reviews from people who have nothing to gain from our purchase of that product. We want independent verification. We are naturally and understandably skeptical, as we should be.

With these thoughts in mind, I firmly believe that we, humans existing in a society, should be highly skeptical of the words spoken and written by those in the upper echelons of our societies. When you examine the backgrounds of the people in power, you find a vast number of qualities in common among those people. Let me give you some adjectives: lawyer, millionaire, Ivy League, the list goes on. The specifics, while troubling, are not the point. The point is that our State is only barely indistinguishable from something rather oligarchical or plutocratic. (I wouldn’t say aristocratic – the cool kids club here isn’t only open to those born to wealth.) As a body primarily consisting of lawyers (skills in language), as a body primarily consisting of people with similar backgrounds (therefore, often similar goals), I believe we have good reason to be extremely skeptical of the State (specifically the United States “federal” government).

I do not believe I need to explain why we ought to be skeptical of those who are moneyed. People who are vastly wealthy often became that way by some form of exploitation. (Does the CEO of a company really do hundreds of times more work than the other people in the company? I don’t think so.)

The conclusion I think that is fair to draw from these thoughts is that authority is something about which we should be explicitly skeptical. If we can endeavor to reduce subservience to authority and instead pursue what I think is fair to call real freedom, I think our societies can truly become something quite enviable. Encouragingly, I think a lot of the tech industry is based on some of this sort of thought. As an example, Mark Zuckerberg may have made out with a lot of wealth, but his employees get significant restricted shares in Facebook as part of employment. In that way, Facebook, to a tiny degree, becomes partially their own, and they become less subservient. A more interesting case would be Mondragon.

To summarize, then, be skeptical of those in power. Remember that power corrupts, and that it corrupts absolutely. Remember that if we are all truly created equal, then we have equal freedom. With equal freedom, I think that happiness and the power of innovation can soar to heights unknown to previous civilizations.