In the last post, I examined the most accepted definition for the purpose of government - the Preamble to the US Constitution - and found it wanting. Instead, I offered up a more modern explanation for government that looked like this:

Government is created to regulate the markets for all goods and services in order to ensure the fundamental evolutionary principles of cooperation and competition are acting for the maximum benefit of all life.

That's the theory. Now it's time to put it into practice. We've seen all three US presidential debates, we've heard the campaign speeches, we've read the party platforms, and we know the candidates' histories. (Unless you are Donald Trump.) So how do the visions of Obama and Romney stack up against the ideal definition of government? Let's examine five major issues in order of long-term threats to our future.

Environment - Global warming's terrifying new math adds up to a global catastrophe, there's very little that we as individuals can do about that, and yet our presumptive leaders didn't even discuss it. That is an embarrassing condemnation of the state of American politics. Competition narrows focus to the short-term, which is exactly why extreme competition is such a detriment to the future of a species. Well, this election season and its dismissal of long-term concerns is a prime example of that. Advantage: no one. (Although currently, the Democratic party does lean more towards protecting the environment than pro-business Republicans do.)

Societal Inequality - There is no question that extreme social inequality leads to revolution - a destructive in-fighting of citizens that leads to decades, if not centuries, of pain and mistrust. The question is, what defines "extreme"? I don't think there is a simple answer to that, but when America leads the developed world in social inequality, movements like Occupy Wall Street are growing and openly advocating revolution, and frustration over Congressional inaction is rising, I think it's safe to say, we are edging closer to an "extreme" situation. In the face of this, Obama proposes tax increases on the wealthy, Romney proposes more tax cuts. Obama wants to extend unemployment benefits, Romney and Ryan want people to stand on the own. Advantage: Obama.

Debt - Bankrupting a country leads to mass pain and suffering for citizens who see life savings wiped out, social safety benefits taken away, and an inability to invest in the future of the country. We have seen this in waves of debt crises over the last several decades - Argentina, Russia, Thailand, Greece, etc., etc. The world economy has recovered from each of these crises so far because there has always been a bigger lender to staunch the bleeding. If the US were to go bankrupt, and we are absolutely threatened with this, the pain felt around the world would certainly be much worse. Both political parties recognize this. Obama has repeatedly proposed a "Grand Bargain" to stabilize the debt trajectory with $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1.00 in revenue increases. Republican have rejected this every year, preferring instead to walk towards the debt cliff in the hope that the American public will blame Obama and vote to give them free reign to slash both spending and taxation. Republicans are refusing to cooperate because they believe only their ideas have merit. That heavily competitive strategy is very likely to fail, even if they were to win this election. Advantage: Obama. And the democrats.

International Relations - There was a time when this concern would have been much higher up the list. Nuclear standoffs between America and the Soviet Union posed an existential threat to the world. Now, nuclear arms are being reduced (behind a continued push from Obama), and increased economic ties between America, Europe, South America, Russia, and China, means an assurance of the mutual destruction of quality of life in the event of a breakout of any competitive war. In this new interconnected world, the greatest issue for international relations is the punishment of cheaters who threaten this economic cooperation, whether they be state sanctioned (North Korea, Iran, Syria) or uncontrolled by any state (Al Qaeda, Taliban, drug lords, mafia, pirates). In this type of world, cooperation with partners is paramount, while resolute and pragmatic action against cheaters is required. Obama has clearly displayed this deft balance. Romney has insisted Russia is our #1 geopolitical foe and seems to prefer driving them out of any possibility of cooperating with the rest of the world. Advantage: Obama.

Economy - It's the economy stupid. Or should that be it's the stupid economy? The current state of the economy is the ultimate short-term measuring stick by which to judge the state of a nation. How is my job? Can I expect to keep it 6 months from now? What will my investment portfolio look like after the next quarterly earnings report or monthly unemployment numbers? Short-term, short-term, short-term, short-term. There is no question that if you don't survive in the short-term, you can't make it to the long-term. But if you only ever concern yourself with the short-term, you will surely get it in the long-term as well. By continually kowtowing to the short-term demands of the economy, we have irked our neighbors (International Relations), failed to save (Debt), bent to moneyed interests (Social Inequality), and poisoned our atmosphere (Environment). Now, all of our long-term problems are coming to bear on the short-term economy. And what do we obsess over? The economy! We need to address our long-term structural issues in order to create the right kind of environment that assures short-term success. In order to fix the economy, we actually have to ignore the economy. And yet, the economy has been the center of the entire political discussion, even though presidents have very little effect on the economy. I'm so tired of hearing about it, I refuse to discuss the politician's stances on this topic, except to say that Mitt Romney was right when he said the president doesn't create jobs, before he was wrong when he said he would create jobs as the president.

I don't think it will be a surprise pick to say Obama and the democrats are the clear choice if you are looking for a candidate who wants to balance cooperation and competition in America. Republicans and free market capitalists worship the concept of competition as a panacea for progress, incentives, and even morality because of a misunderstanding (or flat denial) of the principles of evolution and the philosophy that results from that. Obama is not a perfect president, but in our two-party system, he is the best option.

Near the end of my new novel, Draining the Swamp, one of my characters ends up stating what I believe is the real purpose of government. As I am bombarded with news and ads for the current US election, I often think of this definition and it compels me to write a post or two about the idea. We keep hearing today how our two parties have fundamentally different views of the role of government. On the right, the Romney-Ryan ticket believes government is just too much of a burden on society and needs to be drastically reduced in order to unleash the creative power of capital in the free market. On the left, the Obama-Biden team champions the belief that the government needs to stand up for the middle class (the 47-99%, plus or minus the next statistical gaffe) since they are the backbone of what makes America great. Who's right? How do we know? What exactly are we measuring these statements against? In order to know, don't we need a definition of the purpose of government? And what exactly would that look like?

The most cited definition for the purpose of government comes from the Preamble to the US Constitution. It's wonderfully brief and worth quoting here:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Simple, straightforward, and to the point. Problems arise however from the lack of definition and competing claims from two of these terms. The prescriptions for government to 1) promote the general welfare, and 2) secure the blessings of liberty, are very vague and often lead to conflicting viewpoints. The interpretation of these two terms or the precedence of one over the other, are some of the most fundamental causes of disagreement between our political parties. In a charitable version of the views expressed in this current election, the Romney-Ryan republicans are emphasizing #2 and the Obama-Biden democrats are prioritizing their view of #1. Our definition of the purpose of government is lacking and we as a country are struggling to come to agreement because of that. Could we do better if we tried to write a new preamble today based on 200 more years of extremely active science and discovery? I believe we could.

Historically, government grew out of organizations of powerful leaders oppressing their people. Think of tribes being held in check by a local chieftain and his burly sons. Think of city-states and their ruling classes with slaves held fast by indentured armies. Later, leaders figured out they could hold more territory by offering to protect people (the first government service) in return for taxes and trade monopolies to pay for this defense. Think of the Roman and Mongolian Empires allowing for some local autonomy in return for tribute. With the issuance of the Magna Carta in 1215, we saw an even bigger capitulation to the will of the people. We saw government recognize the rights of freemen (non-serfs) for the first time and the application of the rule of law to kings. This was a titanic event! A slow addition of rights (or a slow erosion of power) came over the next several hundred years. Habeas Corpus - the right to examine one's detention as lawful or not - crawled into existence for 300 years until it was first passed as a law of the land in 1679. The English Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689. The kingless democracy in the US Constitution was adopted in 1789, and its first ten amendments - the US Bill of Rights - was ratified in 1791. Slavery and serfdom were abolished all over Europe and the United States in the mid 1800's. Women's suffrage became a reality in the beginning of the 20th century. In the 21st century we are discussing rights for homosexuals.

So what exactly do we see in this progression of history? One way to interpret this quick overview of events is that we see a steady increase in the inclusion of who and what is protected by government. As government has become an institution of the people, by the people, for the people, its leaders ended up recognizing the benefit of including all of the people in its purview. In order to avoid disruptive unrest or catastrophic revolution from some elements of the population, government has adapted and survived by learning to create a society where all members can contribute to the competitiveness of the country. Using terminology from game theory and evolutionary philosophy, government has gained proficiency where it has learned to recognize the benefits of cooperation over competition. Ideally, all citizens under a government would recognize the evolutionary truths that we are in this together and that our species (as is true for all species) does better when we cooperate with one another rather than compete with each other or try to exploit one another.

Don't get me wrong, competition has its place as a spur for innovation and progress, but it must have some limits. Like beasts refusing to fight to the death over reproductive access, we must also place limits on our competitions in order to ensure our continued cooperation over the long term. We, however, can extend these limits much further back and in a more sophisticated manner using the design of our governments. And we also know from studies of teams, management, motivation, and positive psychology that our contributions and cooperation are highest when we are not governed by oppressive dictators or stultifying hierarchies.

Does any of this mean that if we could only achieve perfect cooperative harmony then we could do away with government? No! For one thing, we will never do away with the evolutionary history we have inherited, which leaves us vulnerable to strong urges to compete. For that alone, government will always be required to take care of the protection from and punishment of cheaters. However, we also know through the study of economics and its definitions of terms like public goods, private goods, natural monopolies, tragedies of commons, externalities, perfect competition,and information asymmetry, that even if every individual was committed to cooperating with their fellow citizens, there would still be things that we need centralized and collective action to address. We know that the invisible hands of the market will lead to market failures if they are left to act on their own. This essentially is the modern reason we have government - to efficiently do for the group what we cannot do acting alone. This is government's purpose and how we the people should design our governments. In one sentence - a vision statement if you will - I said in Draining the Swamp that:

Government is created to regulate the markets for all goods and services in order to ensure the fundamental evolutionary principles of cooperation and competition are acting for the maximum benefit of all life.

In the book, I go a little further into some of the implications this has, but basically the government must be concerned with markets for things like national defense, utilities, natural resources, education, and consumer goods, and the government must be able to price in externalities, protect consumers, guard commons, and stop abuses from monopolies. That sounds a lot like what the government already does, and rightly so because our societies have been evolving for thousands of years and adjusting our governments to work better for ourselves. However, without recognizing the fundamental reasons why our governments do the things they do, we continue to argue over what should already be moot points and we risk erasing the wrong things we have built or preserving the wasteful institutions that have been tested in the effort to "promote the general welfare" or "secure the blessings of liberty."

Once we come to a more modern understanding of what our government is for our political discussions will surely become more fruitful. There will still be arguments over how to properly balance cooperation and competition, or what will benefit life in the long term, but we will understand more clearly what it is we are arguing about and perhaps learn to compromise in the face of uncertainty with smaller trial and error experiments open to later interpretation rather than issue grand dogmatic proclamations that purport to know an unknowable truth. At least, that is what I hope for.

In the next post, I'll examine how our political parties are doing - whether they realize it or not - in regards to this new understanding of the purpose of government. Even if we can't get everyone to accept this view of government, we can learn to vote to nudge it toward a design that would reflect this outcome.

I'm struggling to write this post today. The weather is getting colder, but I haven't changed to my flannel sheets yet, so I'm having trouble falling asleep. The sun is rising much later, but I'm still trying to keep to my productive summer schedule of waking at 7 am, so I'm feeling a bit groggy during my normal writing time. I'm going away for the weekend with friends, but I still have to pack and I know I need to fit in my friday workout and weekly relaxation time in the sauna and steam room at the gym. I've also been tinkering with my meals lately as a result of recently reading Ray Kurzweil's book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, which explains in great scientific detail how our modern diet contributes to a host of diseases and accelerated aging, so I'm feeling distracted and a little low in energy because I haven't figured out what works for me just yet. In short, I'm struggling with this mental task of a philosophy post because my body is not in tip top shape.

In the last post about how to know thyself through evolutionary philosophy, I arrived at the present and discussed answers to the question, "Where am I?" The next logical question is to look down at yourself and say, "ok then, what am I?" Before I get into the heavy, traditional philosophical work of examining my mind and thoughts though, I have to first recognize that we are physical beings, animals, bodies composed of structural elements that form larger integrated systems. We all share roughly 99.5% of our genes with one another, so some general advice is quite easily dispensed to the entire population. As I say directly in the text of my philosophy:

• "In order to survive as long and as well as possible, we must act to maintain the health of our bodily systems. Eat balanced, properly sized meals free from harmful additives. Stay hydrated. Exercise vigorously and regularly. Protect the body from hazardous environments. Avoid ingesting substances that do more harm than good. Identify stress symptoms and manage using relaxation techniques and lifestyle choices. Sleep well. Socialize. Treat illnesses with evidence-based remedies. Address underlying causes, not merely surface symptoms."

While these bromides might be universally accepted, the many shapes we see around the world (polymorphisms in biological terms) caused by those 0.5% differences in our genes means that science cannot dictate exact actions that lead to universally healthy bodies. Do not be discouraged by this! It just means the onus is on you to discover what specifically works best for you. Know how your body reacts to different foods, stresses, environments, and stimuli. Try to understand why this is the case. Once again, know thyself.

And now that I've got this post out of the way, I can go work on this advice myself.

In the quest to know thyself through evolutionary philosophy, I kicked off the journey in the last post by examining our shared past. We all have a common answer to our shared question, "Where did I come from?" It is the modern origin story we all can use to trace our history back to the very beginning of the universe. Arriving now in the present, we can each take a look around ourselves and ask the next obvious question - "Where am I?" - and realize that we once again share a common answer to this question. In my blog post about tenet #3 of evolutionary philosophy, I used the great Pale Blue Dot segment from Carl Sagan to help give us a little perspective on this location. If you haven't seen that 5-minute video yet, or just want another reminder of the humbling but awesome view we now have of our place in the universe, go check it out now. Once you've got that in mind, the main points I make in this short segment of evolutionary philosophy are pretty straightforward. In the main text of the philosophy, I say we are:

• On One Planet in Our Universe (Astrophysics)
• The greatest existential threat to our species on a planetary level is from the impact of an asteroid. We must develop means to detect and prevent this from occurring. And since that may fail, we must also develop the means to get off our planet and survive elsewhere.

• From what we know about Earth, life is abundant once it has begun. The enormous number of places in the universe indicates that life elsewhere is probable. The search for extra-terrestrial life is instructive to both know our own place better, and to find other places to live.

 

• In One Sliver of Suitable Atmosphere on the Planet (Environmentalism)
• We have evolved to live in only a relatively small environment on Earth. We must do what we can to preserve the air, water, and land of that environment. No profits can ever outweigh the cost of the long-term degradation of this impossibly precious commons. We need strong regulation and enforcement of industrial pollutants and a sustainable economy built upon renewable energy.

 

• Enmeshed in One Ecosystem in the Atmosphere (Ecology, Zoology)
• We have evolved to occupy a niche in a complex ecosystem of animals. Our survival is supported by microbes, insects, fish, birds, mammals, and plants to a degree not yet fully understood. We must tread cautiously on that life so as not to unwittingly step on our own throats. We must preserve wild spaces and wild species, both on land and in the sea.

 

• Immersed in a Global Human Society (Sociology)
• We have evolved into a tightly knit social species. The more we diversify, specialize, and trade, the happier our lives and the stronger our chances for survival. Society functions best when its individuals emphasize cooperation over competition. Life is not a zero-sum game and the “kill or be killed” mindset no longer applies to modern society. We need to educate citizens about this and help them find a productive place in society. We must recognize that individuals can contribute great talent and ideas, but the formation of society is what allows the production of enormous wealth. We must allow access to information and the means of production to anyone who wants to learn and has a good idea. We must establish good governments whose purpose is to enable all this to occur.

There are some strong recommendations in here for a wide variety of fields: space exploration, environmental regulation, ecological conservation, sociological education, economic policy, even political formation. All of these are tied together though and all of them are the logical result of the answers we find to one simple question. Where am I? Know this about yourself - and I mean know this in totality, not just in some local and temporary way - and the much wider worldview that results will lead to the formation of vital understandings that are consistent with our place in the universe and the way we can survive and thrive here.