Meta-Take: Freedom and symbiosis

I've written before about how a balance of power between different groups is perhaps the most essential factor in securing a free society.

A second, complementary factor is the alignment of incentives.

If a society has an imbalance in power but people all have similar incentives, the powerful will not re-arrange things in a way that screws over the little man, and the little men won't fight with one another.

So what determines whether incentives are aligned?

There are 3 factors I'd like to talk about:

1) A Shared Belief System

A common factor across all cohesive societies is a belief in something larger than oneself. This tends to manifest itself in religious belief or patriotism.

A society strongly defined by their belief in a nation or religion is more likely to be good for all in that incentives are aligned through their belief system.

Such alignment minimises the varying needs and idiosyncrasies of individuals by subjugating the individual to the greater ideal, thus making a Pareto social equilibrium easier to achieve.

This subjugation of the individual suppresses material want as well as competition between different individuals and groups.

A wholly materialistic society will be more problematic in that it is zero-sum due to the scarcity of material resources.

As a caveat, it's worth noting that ruling classes have long used such belief systems in order to get buy-in and loyalty from the masses - it is a form of social control.

If you identify strongly with England, then what's good for England is good for you - hence you will willingly serve as a cog in the machine.

While the most effective belief systems are those that subjugate the ego, this needs to be done within reason else you risk making individuals surplus to requirements.

It helps a lot if the elites are equally committed to the broader ideal.

2) Economic Prosperity

Even in the society with the most strongly held belief system, people's material situation will matter - we all need to eat, after all.

This is where economic prosperity becomes increasingly important.

The more scarce resources are, the more misaligned people's incentives are.

To take an extreme example as illustrative, two tribes fighting over the one buffalo on the plain will fight to the death.

Compare this with a society of relative abundance where people's competition will merely manifest as dislike.

The more there is to give out, the easier it is to balance different people's interests.

It's worth caveating that even an abundant society will still lead to competitiveness given our proclivity for Pride - this again goes to highlight the value of a metaphysical belief system that suppresses the ego.

3) Transparency

Finally, you need transparency.

Transparency aligns incentives because it keeps powerful factions in society accountable for their actions.

If they know they are going to be effectively held to account by the ballot box, consumers voting with their wallet, or the threat of violence, they will be far less likely to take actions that widely diverge from the interests of the masses.

Conversely, if the powerful know they can do whatever they want and never face retribution, they have no incentive to act in any other way than that which maximises their pleasure.

This often has disastrous consequences downstream.

*Democracy and accountability*

I want to make a final point, related to transparency.

The reason democracy is a good thing in theory is that it enables the less powerful to hold the powerful to account - to boot them out if they take too much action which doesn't meet the interests of the people.

There is nothing holy about a vote - a vote implies accountability but doesn't hold the powerful to account by definition.

If the vote only presents us with two options who represent the same interests, it is no good.

If politicians are just puppets for the powers that be, and if we don't know exactly who the powers that be are, we cannot hold the powerful to account and thus align incentives.

This is why the commonly held belief that the vote is the only way we change things is short-sighted.

We need to take a much broader view, and seek to increase transparency in society as well as work to rebalance the distribution of power.

Only then will the vote bring change.