Is ANY form of govenrment workable?

[Binkie The Clown]

I was pondering the nature of government as it relates to the nature of the human mind and it occurred to me that any form of government works fine for a small enough tribal group. Tribes of a couple hundred people with a strong charismatic leader work; small tribes with completely democratic decision making work; a small enough tribe can work with utter anarchy. While a small tribe that shares the same culture and beliefs can thrive with a communal structure, communalism does not scale up beyond 150 or 200 people in the commune.

So I begin to suspect that any group of humans larger than 200 members is inherently ungovernable by its very nature. Likewise, any group of any size where the overarching philosophy among members differs significantly is inherently ungovernable.

A small enough group has no problem interacting with minorities because the group is small enough it has no minorities. A small cohesive doesn't argue about religious beliefs because they all share the same religious beliefs. If they didn't the group would not be cohesive.

Mankind evolved in tribal groups where all members of the group share the same goals, beliefs, rule enforcement methods, philosophies, diet, music, entertainment, art, etc. Yes, conflicts arise, but there are mutually agreed upon methods to resolve those conflicts. To an outsider, a given tribal norm may appear "barbaric" or "cruel", but the fact that the tribe survives means that it "works". What does it mean to say a tribe's way of life works? It means that it enables the tribe, as a unit, to survive.

We all want a better society, but the question that's been nagging on my mind lately is, can a "better" society ever survive? Does what we like to think of as a "better" government even work (in the sense of "work" defined above)?

What I think I know for sure is that:

Democracy works on a small scale, but on a large scale, it doesn't work. (Trump is a case in point. And don't say it "could" work. The fact is, it doesn't work.)

Socialism works on a small scale, but on a large scale, it doesn't work.

Communism, or Communalism, works on a small scale, but on a large scale, it doesn't work.

Dictatorship works on a small scale, but on a large scale, it doesn't work.

Anarchy works on a very small scale, but on a large scale, it fails utterly.

Perhaps mankind, by steering itself toward self-destruction, is correcting the problem by setting the stage to restructure itself into small, isolated, governable-sized tribal units.

[rufus dog]

1. Democracy works fine

You need an educated and engaged electorate.

Our current problems are due to turnout (or lack of) and uneducated voters who get information from Fox and Breitbart.

Overall the electorate isn't that ignorant but about 1/3 are and those need to be balanced by the remaining. If turnout is low then 1/3 can create a great deal of damage.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. What you're saying is "Democracy WOULD work fine IF this one thing is isn't true WERE true."

In other words, Democracy doesn't work fine in the reality we live in, but could work in the reality you wish we lived in, which simply proves the point of my OP.

[brush]

21. You left out democratic socialism

And if no form of government works, none of us would be here.

They might not work perfectly, but what is perfect?

Muddling through the best is probably the best we're ever going to get and that appears to be some combination of democracy and socialism.

[mvd]

23. I think it's more that there will always be malcontents trying to undermine a system

I do think some systems work, but human nature can interfere.

[Binkie The Clown]

28. Exactly! There will always be right-wing radical nutjobs, and they can prevent it from working.

I used to think if I could only convince the conservatives I know to see the light, then everything would be O.K. But then I realized, for every nutjob I could possibly convince, thirty three more were being born. We can never convince enough radical conservatives to make a difference, and there will always be an unlimited supply of radical conservatives, and as long that supply is unlimited, no form of government will work.

So I stopped trying to convince my conservative acquaintances. Unlike Sisyphus, I have the sense to realize that the task is hopeless. Government simply can't work on a large scale. Not now, not ever.

[brush]

33. Not quite. Governments work to keep those fools in check or we'd all have killed each other

Not perfectly but the dynamics of all the forces/parties/people pulling at and against each other keep the balls up in the air

It's like a pendulum. Right now things have swung to the right with trump's fools and the repugs in charge but it will swing back.

What's the phrase — checks and balances. We're experiencing a micro-second in greater scheme of things.

Remember the Whig Party. With trump's incompetence we might be watching the beginning of the end of the repugs.

[rufus dog]

25. It has worked for years!

Issue is some type of regulation is required, either via government or electorate.

So we have eliminated regulations (campaign finance, citizens united) while the media bombards the public with misinformation. Rather than making the US experiment better we have made negative tweaks over the last forty years. We either fix it or blow it up, fixing it is possible and less impactful than blowing it up.

But argueing something that got progressively better over 200 years (in the case of the US) doesn't work in total based upon the most recent events is far from accurate.

Look I live in one of the bluest states, and we are a huge economic power so we have a bit more slack room, so I understand Red Staters running out of rope.

[leftstreet]

2. SS and Medicare are huge and they seem to work pretty well n/t

[Binkie The Clown]

11. SS and Medicare are not "forms of government".

And, my mother, who is 95, has to find a new primary care doctor because her doctor is retiring. She is having a awful time trying to find a doctor because nobody wants people who are on medicare. The question they ask is "What is your primary insurance?" After, and ONLY after she answers "Medicare" do they say "Sorry, we don't have any openings."

So medicare doesn't really work very well.

But even so, Medicare is not government. Medicare doesn't maintain our roads, or protect us from criminals, or foreign invasions.

[leftstreet]

18. Oh, I know

I was thinking about your statements re: size and the 'governablity' (of sorts) of large populations

[sagesnow]

3. I have to fall back on Churchill:

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried. ~ Winston Churchill

More food for thought:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Democracy

[Binkie The Clown]

12. As long as Nazis are marching the street, and Trump sits in the White House,

Democracy isn't really working.

Tell a black teen shot dead by a policeman for no reason that Democracy is working.
Tell residents of Flint, MI drinking poisoned water that Democracy is working.
Tell homeless people harassed and punished for trying to find a safe place to sleep that Democracy is working.
Tell the working poor who can't find any source of health care that Democracy is working.

By any standard of measure, Democracy is not working to serve the people. When it does work, it works to serve those at the very top.

True, it's not the worst form of government that doesn't work, but it is still a form of government that doesn't work.

[sagesnow]

22. You are right, at this point,

I don't think we live in a democracy. Especially at the National level ,we have morphed into a kleptocracy. We have allowed gerrymandering, voter suppression and super-pacs to destroy this democratic republic. In spite of that, I won't give up. I will keep working to do what one individual can do to return democracy to our country.

[cilla4progress]

4. No, I agree with OP

Once anonymity sets in, all hell breaks loose.

So..

Where to from here?

[ProudLib72]

5. I tend to agree

Which is why states' rights were always so important; it provided a smaller community. I worked for a representative in the Irish parliament for four months. The thing that amazed me was the number of regular shmoes who would call up to talk to their rep personally about very small, local concerns. AND he always made time to deal with those concerns. I'm talking about someone upset that the road leading to their house was not paved, or (and I had to deal with this one) a woman whose husband had died wanted to know about collecting his life insurance. This is what you call "tribal". It's the people who grew up as neighbors with their rep. He doesn't just look out for them collectively; instead, he actually knows them personally and, therefore, can deal with them on a very personal level.

Can this sort of government work in this country? I highly doubt it. This is what congress is supposed to do, but we see how that actually works.

[Snackshack]

6. Yes.

The only problem with Democracy is that humans are involved in it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Socialism and communism are economic systems, not forms of government.

You can have a socialist democracy, as in the Scandinavian countries, which are also constitutional monarchies. And they sort of work.

[beachbum bob]

8. democracy appears to work ok as long as it its not hijack

by the 1%

[Binkie The Clown]

14. In other words, Democracy would work if this one thing that is true were NOT true.

Isn't that the same thing I said.

Democracy makes it possible for the 1% to hijack the system, which is one of the reasons why Democracy doesn't work.

[ileus]

9. Democracy doesn't work? LOL....

Just because for the next 4 years we're not going to get what we want, doesn't mean democracy doesn't work. In 4 years we'll all be happy again and they'll be bitching but in reality nothing is happening that will affect the bulk of us. We'll go to work, we'll come home we'll spend time with our family...rinse and repeat for 60-80 years then die.

[Binkie The Clown]

15. Are you saying there was no homelessness under Democratic administrations?

As I recall, things were better under Obama, but there were still a great many things that simply didn't work, never did work, and, if my thesis is true, simply can't work under any form of government beyond a certain limited size.

[mvd]

13. It's more that rigid systems don't work well

Unfettered capitalism brings out greed and only favors the top of the income scale. Socialism would be fine IMO but would be hard to make work here. Democratic Socialism where capitalism is significantly regulated would be the best system IMO.

[Binkie The Clown]

16. Unfettered greed is a fact of human nature.

It's one of the reasons why no form of government can work with a population over a certain size.

[mvd]

17. I don't really agree. Some countries function fine

Ours did when we had regulation. I wouldn't use the words "can't work."

[kcr]

39. It is?

Where did you pull that fact from?

[The_jackalope]

19. Your last sentence is on the mark.

It's a problem of scale. Once a social organization exceeds a certain size, any governance structure loses connection with the people of the organization as human beings. They become structural units - voters, subjects, slaves etc.

The critical size is extremely small. Ever hear of "Dunbar's number"?

Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships.

Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.

IMO, no form of governance is truly "good" at the group sizes modern society has to deal with. It comes down to finding a "least bad" form, taking into account all the psychological and value-system tradeoffs between 300 million people.

[Binkie The Clown]

29. Now that you mention it, I do vaguely recall hearing about Dunbar's Number.

Thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten about it.

[TreasonousBastard]

24. Define "workable". The fact that we need a government at all means we can't have a perfect one...

We are not a beehive with everyone knowing his place. ("his" because there is only one female in the hive) or school of fish.

Neither are we a group of animals with a defined leader-- usually the biggest and baddest one.

We are humans, both blessed and cursed with differing views and need a structure to force us to get along. The problem is that any structure we devise might destroy our individuality, but will probably be destroyed by that individuality anyway.

[applegrove]

26. Democracy works until corrupted by money.

[Binkie The Clown]

30. Which is to say Democracy can't work as long as it is possible for it to be corrupted by money.

Which is to say, Democracy can't work.

[applegrove]

32. Nope. Democracies have ruled the world and beat communism. They

are the best thing. Trump is encouraging corruption in newly Democratic countries because he is a creep. Only the wealthy and powerful benefit from corruption. That is when democracy begins to sputter and fail. Already canada is seeing huge amounts of increased foreign students into our high tech and science universities and colleges. All people who are afraid of the US after Trump. That doesn't say that the best and the brightest will not move to the US when they graduate. Trump may be gone by then. The US may be swinging back to being an admired Democracy again by then. But for now democracy struggles.

[Pope George Ringo II]

27. Monarchy illustrates another point

Sometimes it's a question of what sort of incompetence the government can survive when it fails to put a qualified leader in place.

[Binkie The Clown]

31. Clearly monarchy is yet another system of government that doesn't work.

Replies have seemed to focus on trying to point out that "democracy works." It doesn't. But my OP did not say that democracy doesn't work, but that no form of government above a certain size can work, including democracy.

[Pope George Ringo II]

34. All true.

But monarchies do make a more vivid example of how things run well for a while with good leaders, and then you get George III, or Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Elegabulus. We got Trump, so it happens to Democracies too.

[KT2000]

35. Probably not.

No matter the structure some will figure out a way to take advantage for themselves. They will join together in their own tribe and further exploit others and garnering ever more power.

Right now we have forms of capitalism and democracy. The pendulum swings between the two because they are really incompatible. But, now that money has been given human status via the Supreme Court, free-market capitalism wants it all and democracy will fail.

As my friend from China says - all governments are corruptible and eventually corrupted.

[greyl]

36. Don't confuse our culture with humanity at large.

Tribes were developed by humans over a couple/few million years, and a precious few of them are still around. They're sustainable and they work just fine.

[clu]

37. Human intelligence

Warrants specialization of tasks (artisans and scientists) possible only through civilization and agriculture. The govt and economy should be built around that

[Yupster]

38. The Byzantine Empire

lasted 1100 years or 1400 years if you count the time before the split with the same form of government.

Who should the Emperor be?