Sapient governance I. Part A

What would an operational level governance look like?

Economy governance — Natural economies in living systems

When I started this post I imagined I would get all the contents into a single article. But after several hours of typing, I realized that it wouldn't work. As simplified as I've tried to make this subject, it is still huge. Therefore I have adopted a different strategy for this and probably subsequent postings. Here I will just roughly summarize the content but provide you with a link to my academic site where the whole article can be found.

So here is the outline.

1. Economics is basically the concept of allocation of resources and decisions about what will be produced and consumed. The human economy is part of an overall governance system that assures that, in general, people are going to work in this economy to everyone's benefit. But real economies that have evolved over time don't seem to really work to this end. What I do in the article is claim and, I hope, show that the concept of economy is ubiquitous in the natural world, especially in the realm of biology. In fact, I would assert that our economies are really just extensions of this general model of complex, dynamic systems achieving stability and longevity in an otherwise uncertain environment.
2. Market-based economies characterize what goes on in the various kinds of transactions that take place within a living system (cell, organism, population, community, ecosystem). I will say now, and show later, that the markets are not the only form of governance in operation. Later we'll see the coordination and strategic control levels and their roles in comprehensive governance. My point in this piece is just that markets form a major aspect of operational control.
3. I show a generic economic system and then argue that it has correspondences in living systems.
4. I delve into some low level details of operational control starting with basic feedback and homeostasis. I attempt to demonstrate that complex organizations of homeostatic processes trade products by virtue of signaling that helps mediate transfers, similar to our use of money to signal what work is to be done.
5. I finish by mentioning some important differences between human economies and natural economies, pointing out that these need to be considered in any thoughts about designing a natural (sapient) economy for humanity. In some cases, for example the rights of individuals, the economy design needs to accommodate what is unique to humans as components in an economic system. In other cases we should take guidance from living system economies that have learned (through evolution) how to provide stable environments for their components. For example I raise the question of growth and point to the fact that the human economy, unlike natural economies, seems not to have recognized that nothing can grow forever!

This first article only looks at the operational level in a hierarchical control structure governance. And there is much to cover just at this level. Part A covers the outline above. Part B will examine how we apply the principles suggested from the study of natural economies to the design of a healthier human economy. That means, an economy that supports and fulfills human needs and aspirations without destroying the Earth.

Sapient Governance II will start to examine the nature of coordination in living systems. As it pertains to human society and economy, this is where we start looking at formal government and its logistical role in regulating those parts of an economy and those members of society that threaten instability. I will use the same tactic of explicating what we find in living systems as examples of the principles and then identifying those principles at work in the human economies, both current and what could be.

Finally, in Sapient Governance III I will delve into strategic control. I will follow the same basic plan of attack, but here there will be a major deviation in that for the biological world the strategic part of governance can be largely wrapped up in one word — evolution. The only relevant example from biology for strategic level control comes from the brains of mammals and birds where the cerebral cortex (specifically the neocortex) provides some primitive strategic control for the individual. For humans, the brain is capable of orders of magnitude more strategic control over life. Humans have transcended an important boundary of the biological world when they became recurrent symbol processing agents. If you have read any of my past postings on sapience then you will know why I call this series Sapient Governance. Not only are humans themselves capable of strategic thinking and planning, but so too is the society of humans (as well as all social organizations). From that standpoint, I then will be looking to launch into something I've hinted at before: what is the strategic plan for humanity and planet Earth?

I hope this format works for readers. I would apologize for the length, but sometimes you just can't say all that needs to be said in a few paragraphs. Even so, I only cover the territory roughly. You could write a whole book about this!

Comments

[Wayne Hamilton]

Your thesis is becoming more interesting. I agree there should be a hierarchy in some sense, but I'm still pondering this fine-but-enormous point. Please soon tell us your view of the hierarchy that existed millenia before present; and before that.

[George Mobus]

Wayne,

I assume you mean historical forms of governance such as monarchies/dictatorships and feudalism/mercantilism, etc.

The short answer is that they all represented forms of organization that were on the path of evolution (sometimes brought on by revolution - punctuated equilibrium!) toward the current republic/market/capitalism form that is sweeping the world! An undercurrent to that evolution, aside from the obvious fact that economic efficiency has been increasing, is the status to individuals in the framework has been progressively elevated. In our current market economy with varying degrees of freedom for individuals (contrast USA, UK, and China) the rights of the person are taking a commanding seat. I plan to investigate this in the next paper.

In my mind, an ideal governance completely recognizes the dignity and rights of the individual while still maintaining inter-individual regulations (I mean we do this now in things like property rights). It just needs to be a priori explicit rather than always subject to case law determination. Something along those lines.

George

[Wayne Hamilton]

Hierarchy before Mankind, is what I meant by ‘before that’. Is there something we can learn from that hierarchy that could be used to help craft a new, evolved hierarchy for global governance? Knowledge of ‘natural’ interactions within and between ecosystems? Wildlife behavior, for example? Inter-specific relationships? Inter-kingdom interfaces?

This was my reason for nattering on about ants and Hopis and circles. I grew up in places where it was just a few steps away to forests, meadows, mountains, tarns, streams with bear, elk, pica, amphipods, trout, with pine, sage, flox, lemna, typha …
I paid more attention to the macrofauna and probably learned a tiny fraction of what a wildlife behavior specialist might know. I know the time of year to avoid getting anywhere near a cow elk or moose; and five months later avoiding close approach to the bulls. I know that female mule deer talk to each other, with the leader barking instructions like “Don’t dawdle back there”! I’ve seen Wapiti calves learn to play ‘king of the mountain’ with their playmates. I’ve watched a doe mulie escape a small pack of coyotes by splashing her way chest deep into the river, as I eyed a tree in case the canids decided to change their target. Looking at trails and browsing trail networks it’s easy to see that ‘going places’ is combined with snacking, while avoiding breathtaking vertical climbs.

It’s also been easy to see that man-caused extirpation of predators leads to over-browsing and loss of aspen recruitment and riparian willow, leading to stream entrenchment and dewatering of floodplains. But that digresses from my points here which are: 1. Where is the hierarchy? and 2. Where is the governance?

If pushed, I’d suggest that the top level of the hierarchy consists of the soil microorganisms and photosynthetic plants and phytoplankton that feed what we mistakenly call the ‘higher’ forms of life. If prodded, I’d say that the biosphere is governed by process – not by any group of organisms or individual. And if shoved I’d allow that each life form persists to the extent that it LEARNS genetically how to coexist in that process with other life forms.

And that is all that I want the strategy level of your structure to teach us.

[Phil Henshaw]

George,
I'm into a self-control theoretic approach that sounds somewhat like yours on the surface at least. I noticed a major similarity between natural system economies and human ones in that they are all designed by how they develop, so the developmental process is the natural steering mechanism. Have you considered that beyond that natural and human economies that become sustainable do it when they stop multiplying and stabilize? There seem to be some very clear procedural necessities for that to occur, having to do with first having a surplus and changing the way you use it. Does that sound interesting?

Phil

[George Mobus]

Readers,

I am working on the next installment in which I think more clarity will emerge (I hope anyway). I ask your indulgence to wait for that to see if some current questions are answered.

This has turned out to be a rather larger project than I at first thought it might be.

George

[Wayne Hamilton]

Re. "...larger project...", I'd say it's been a while since anyone tried what you're doing. Michelangelo's Sistene Chapel frescos come to mind. Don't fall off the scaffolding! Let us know if we can help hold a pallette or something.