The ideal result of a democratic system is power distributed throughout the citizenry. This would be a result where the average citizen maintained influence over the laws and policies that affected their lives. The ideal result of a capitalist system is economic power distributed throughout the middle class on downwards. This would be a result where the average worker could find a decent job, buy a home, and try to live a happy life in exchange for their labor. As of June, 2023, in countries like the United States and Canada, both of these ideal results seem foreign when compared to reality. In both countries, the center of power within the political and economic systems has coalesced at the top of concentrated hierarchies. Corporations, politicians, and the ‘ruling class’ have combined to form a power structure that serves its own interests, and imposes its will (directly or indirectly) on the rest of the populace. The question is, why did this happen?
In the course of human affairs, power almost has its own dimensional existence and characteristics. It pushes the human mind in a Nietzschean sense to climb social hierarchies. While its hedonistic benefits exert a gravitational pull over our desires. That is to say, when we see someone enjoying the benefits of power, we tend to want what they have. Since these characteristics are tied to our evolutionary programming, we all have them to some degree. Yet it should be noted that while our evolutionary programming has a foundation of species commonality, it differs based on the random trajectory of our individual descendants. This means that some of us might have a psychological makeup that predisposes us to seek power over others. While other individuals might be more predisposed to function as part of a system, rather than try to dominate it.
This looks to be key in understanding why time after time, throughout human history, the ill effects of power manifest at the top of hierarchies that organically emerge; and those that we create. As human beings in this reality, we cannot escape hierarchies; they just seem built into nature. Whether it's a bee colony, a wolf pack, or a kindergarten playground; hierarchies among interacting biological creatures become established. The more a hierarchy is dependent on purely evolutionary determinants, the more likely primal (or physical) dominance will play a role in who rises to the top. The more a hierarchy is dependent on human made laws and customs, the more individual psychological makeups determine who ascends. Our modern predicament is related more to this latter scenario.
In democratic, capitalist countries like the United States, the basic idea behind the structure of the government is dispersed power. In the United States, this notion is understood as ‘checks and balances’. The idea that no single branch of government, or individual within the government can unilaterally make decisions or wield inordinate amounts of power. Those behind the origination of the American government understood the pitfalls of human nature as it related to power. They understood the human mind needed to be protected from itself if the country was going to avoid devolving into strife and authoritarian rule.
Yet despite the best efforts of the architects behind the American system of government, in 2023 their creation resembles less a structure of checks and balances than it does a concentrated hierarchy run amok. Members of Congress now use their service as a permanent occupation to gain wealth, rather than a temporary position to aid their fellow citizens. While US presidential administrations are filled with individuals who move through revolving doors between corporate boardrooms, and government positions. Worst of all, many in positions of authority to regulate or check the power of private interests, actually take money from the very interests they are supposed to be regulating. This (and more) paints a picture of a hierarchy where power has accumulated at the top. When this happens, the nature of power requires that those at the top of the hierarchy act in ways to increase or maintain their power. Think about it for a second; could there be any way for those that control an economic or political system to willingly take actions that undermine their own power?
The steady drift of power concentrating towards the top of a democratic, capitalist country looks as much to be an emergent product of human nature, as it is a product of willful decision making. A democratic country allows individuals with a natural desire to seek power and influence the relative freedom to maneuver and pursue those ends. Over time, this leads to more and more people climbing to the top of the democratic hierarchy because they desired power, not because of an altruistic call to service. Add to this the corrosive and contradictory effects of capitalism on the human mind, and the hedonistic appeal of power becomes irresistible. As Daniel Bell explained in his 1976 book, ‘The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism’, capitalism undermines the very human traits needed to maintain its healthy existence. Positive human qualities like restraint and prudence give way to the seductive ills of greed, power, and consumption. This creates a kind of feedback loop where the pursuit of power aligns with unchecked, hedonistic appetites.
While the nature of power eventually erodes democratic systems despite their designed efforts to mitigate the abuses of power; more centralized systems offer a built in express route for those looking to wield immense power for its own sake. In communist or (undemocratic) socialist systems, power is inherently concentrated within a ruling apparatus that controls most of the political and economic life of the society. In their idealized form, these systems would distribute all, or most power throughout the citizenry. In communism’s case, this ideal would even include a complete dissolution of all state power. Yet in real world practice, these systems fall victim to the persistent pitfalls of human nature, their inherent structure of centralized planning and control, and the inevitable emergence of human hierarchies.
The built in power structure of these systems seems to attract and enable the ascent of certain kinds of individuals. The hierarchy of control within these systems is so strong and rigid, that eventually the strongest (and most brutal) exertion of power begins to dominate the system. This eventually leads to a situation where the political and sociological nature of the society becomes less about the original intent of the system, than it does the nature of those in power. Examples of this include the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, China under Mao Zedong, and the current status of North Korea under Kim Jong Un. These scenarios where complete power has been concentrated at the top of a hierarchy usually lead to the worst manifestation of power in human affairs: the barbaric domination of one group of humans over another.
Things like genocide, slavery, violent poltical purges, state sanctioned oppression, and torture all occur under such scenarios. These are scenarios where the power dynamics between two groups of humans have become so imbalanced, that one group literally controls the nature of life and death over the other. I am not sure of its evolutionary or psychological roots; but unfortunately there is something deep within our psyche that allows us to be incredibly cruel to one another under certain situations. Maybe it’s our evolutionary signals that allow us to dehumanize ‘the other’. Maybe over hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors developed this trait in order to fight other groups of early humans over scarce resources for survival. Maybe what is seen as cruel by our modern standards, is simply seen as a method of survival in terms of the long hand of natural selection. Regardless, this final, extreme exertion of power is one that modern humans should avoid at all costs. For as much as we might not like to admit it, the capacity for terrible deeds through power exertion lies within all of us.
With that being said, our current situation is not as dire as those determined by maximal power differentiation. In modern democratic, capitalist countries, we still have varying rights to vote and protest. Yet as mentioned earlier, through the inevitable slide of human nature and hierarchy, power has calcified at the top of our societies. The ultimate question then becomes, what is the best way to insulate the human mind from the allure of power? Which leads to the next question, is it even possible to do such a thing in the 21st century?
As far as I can tell, the best possible bulwark against the psychological pull of power is some kind of moral or value structure. It doesn’t have to be an all encompassing moral philosophy, or an imposed system of behavior. But it does have to be something that becomes ingrained within the psyche of an individual. Something that counteracts an individual’s evolutionary urges for the perceived pleasures that come with accumulating power. In a simplistic sense, this basically means that individuals with a strong ‘conscience’ are more likely to avoid the pitfalls of power.
In 2020, writer and historian Thomas E. Ricks published the book ‘First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country’. Ricks was spurred to write the book by the unfortunate rise to the presidency of the obviously unfit, and autocratic leaning Donald Trump. For Ricks, Trump’s election signaled a massive departure from any (or all) of the ideal principles that were supposed to uphold American democracy. Rick’s decision then to examine the philosophical origins of America’s founders served not only as a historical investigation, but also as a marker to show how far astray the country had drifted.
In examining the lives, education, and intellects of the American ‘founding fathers’ like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, Ricks does not sugar coat things. He portrays them in their reality, warts and all. He shows that while each took varying principles of wisdom from their studies of the Greeks and the Romans; many also took an acceptance of slavery. It’s rather ironic that those that birthed a country to mitigate the abuses of power, exerted maximum and dehumanizing power over others while doing so. Despite this contradiction, one can still get an idea of how certain ideas and customs might insulate a mind from the allure of power’s influence.
Two prime examples of this can be seen within the actions of America’s first president, George Washington. The first came at the end of America’s revolutionary war with the British Empire in 1783. As the commanding general of the victorious American army, Washington could have potentially used his position to claim monarchical power over his nascent country. Remember at this point, there was no American Constitution, civic norms, or patterns of free elections. Yet after the war ended, Washington gave up his powerful command and returned home to live as a private citizen. Yet in 1787, he was drawn back to civic duty as the country began the process of writing the Constitution. His leadership during this process, and his popularity in the country led to the conclusion that he was the obvious choice to become the nation’s first elected president. And in 1789, he won election handily and was sworn in at Federal Hall in New York City.
This led to the second, and most important example of Washington’s ability to mitigate the intoxication of power. In fact, Washington’s views on the subject weren’t so much a mitigation of his own nature, but were more utter disdain and contempt for the effects of politics and power in general. Washington served two four year terms in office, and declined to serve any longer. Remember, at the time there were no norms or rules governing how long a president could serve in office. By leaving office voluntarily and participating in a peaceful transfer of power, Washington began a precedent that sought to limit the power one individual could have over the nation.
The character traits that allowed Washington to reject the pursuit of power were a product of his education, and the time in which he lived. Each combined to give Washington a clear sense of an ordered world, and a clear sense of what was ‘right’ and what was ‘wrong’. Things like honor and virtue weren’t abstract cliches. They were metaphysical pillars upholding Washington’s view of reality. Once this kind of moral or ethical certainty is established in an individual, they will most likely be immune from the temptations that power provides. The pre-technological, simpler time of the 18th century provided ample space to build individual character. Additionally, the nature of human life at that time meant that moral and ethical concepts could maintain uniformity and spread throughout society. That is to say, with no internet, smartphones, or countless news options; human minds in 18th century America were all on the same metaphysical page. The obvious downside to this uniformity is that blatantly wrong concepts like slavery can maintain their justification. Simply because not enough individuals are able to mentally escape the metaphysical circumstances fate has thrust them into. A human mind born into a pre-technological age is more likely to accept the mainstream ideas of the day; good and bad.
In terms of our modern predicament, if we apply the concept of ‘individual character formation, plus societal wide ethical concepts’ as an antidote for hedonistic power attraction, I think we can see why we are where we are. An interconnected, yet atomized world is not a world that can maintain any moral or philosophical coherence. It’s a world that pulsates with ideas and information, yet lacks any cohesive principles to guide human behavior. Our minds are untethered from wide cultural connection, yet shaped by the digital worlds we individually curate. Old norms and traditions that were full of mostly bad ideas, were rightfully dismantled long ago. Yet the small amount of good they contained, the small ethical concepts that might aid in curtailing a society's worst impulses; these were lost and never replaced. All of this led to a cultural and metaphysical vacuum that was filled by capitalism and consumption. This in turn led to a warping of our political and economic systems. A warping that turned inevitable human hierarchies into ladders for those competing in the sport of hedonistic power accumulation.
There is a tension in a free society that might not be resolvable; especially in our current age. In order to curtail the worst accumulations of power, a society must have a kind of ethical nature that most citizens agree upon. Yet it has to happen in a kind of organic way; it cannot be imposed. For if it is imposed, it just becomes another accumulation of power exerted at the top of a hierarchy. Hundreds of years ago, right before the onset of America’s Revolutionary War, another member of the country's founders described this concept. In Tom Rick’s previously mentioned book, he shared a part of a letter that John Adams (the future second president) sent to a friend:
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private (virtue). And public virtue is the only foundation of Republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good - the public interest, honor, power, and glory; established in the minds of the people, or there can be no Republican government or no real liberty. And this public passion must be superior to all private passions.
We live in a time where private passions have surpassed and decimated all public passions. And this is the primary reason why our systems of government and economics have devolved into stagnant hierarchies. Hierarchies where those at the top seek to obtain and maintain power, above all else. For hierarchies shaped by private passions are nothing more than evolutionary ‘free for alls’. And left unchecked, we've seen time after time that our nature as a species leads us to misuse power, rather than use it to benefit wider humanity. If we are to truly progress as a species in the future, we will need to recognize the pull of our evolutionary programming; and figure out new ways to avoid its outdated impulses.