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C00002 00002	politi[s88,jmc]		My political and social philosophy
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politi[s88,jmc]		My political and social philosophy

Politics

	I have arrived at a political position that is aligned
with conservative Republicans on most current political issues, but
isn't conservative at its basis.

	I think human society is enormously improvable, and the result
of these improvements will be something quite different from
present society.  The improvement will eventually be based on an advanced
social science.

	Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else understands
social science well enough to say what the effects of specific societal
changes would be.  Overconfidence in a theory can be disastrous,
because it leads to advocating large changes in society.  Such
changes can be disastrous in themselves or the efforts to implement
them can be disastrous.

	I regard the communist movement as ample experimental evidence of
this.  It has obtained power in a sufficient variety of countries
with a sufficient variety of social and cultural traditions and
has bull-headedly attempted to implement drastic changes in society.
Its theory often ascribes failures to sabotage by bourgeois elements,
and therefore it often reacts to failure and public disillusionment
by intensifying repression.

	Therefore, the only safe strategy is one of incremental and
localized change, whose effects can be evaluated by the voters.  At
present this usually puts me in the company of conservatives.  Some of
them may agree with the position I have taken, although others may suppose
that present or some past society is optimal.

Of course, some argue that incrementalism will lead to some terrible
immediate disaster such as nuclear war, environmental disaster, world-wide
depression or famine and that to avoid disaster,
they must get power immediately.  My interpetation of 20th century
experience is that giving such people power is more dangerous than
muddling through.

At the present stage of world history, it is very important and desirable that
the world continue to be divided into a variety  of countries.  Indeed
it is important the U.S. be divided into a variety of states, and I
wish the states had more power to regulate their own affairs than they
do.  This is because political processes, whether democratic or
dictatorial, are given to fads.  Politicians who ride to power
on a fad, whether religious, political, national or environmental,
are unlikely to interpret the uncertain evidence as indicating that
their fad was a mistake.  However, if the fad fails to conquer the
whole world, then the countries that it doesn't conquer will eventually
show up those which it does.

	For example, the anti nuclear power movement
has succeeded in stopping the ordering of new nuclear power plants in
the U.S. since 1973, and I think this is a terrible mistake.  However,
the movement failed in France and Japan, so if I'm right, then the
fact will become apparent some time in the next century when we have
brown-outs and they don't.  However, if the anti nuclear power movement
conquered the whole world, then even the brown-outs might not bring
about a reversal, because the anti-nukes would say that
disasters even worse than the brown-outs would have occurred had
nuclear plants been used.

	A frankly experimental government might do even better, but can
one imagine a world government deciding to experiment with full use of
nuclear power in France while restricting it in the U.S.?  Any social or
technological experiments is best made where the locals have some
enthusiasm for it.

	On the positive side, the world has regarded many American
experiments as successful and adopted them.  A current example is
that the Common Market is beginning to emulate to some degree the
American experiment with airline deregulation.  The U.S. is
now trying to learn from the Japanese industrial success.  The
communist ruled countries are trying to learn from the capitalist
West.

	While I will advocate many changes, I explicitly do not
threaten the reader with immediate death if my proposals are
not instantly adopted.

POLITICS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

	The psychological characteristics of individual humans
play an important role in the political development of human society.
What are the relevant characteristics?

	The Declaration of Independence mentions ``the pursuit of
happiness'' wisely not proposing that government institute measures
to guarantee that anyone catch it.  Biologically, happiness is a
strange and ununderstood phenomenon.  Evolution produces species
that are good at reproducing their kind.  Darwinism {\it per se}
says nothing about their evolving the ability to be happy.
Nevertheless, the phenomenon certainly exists for human beings.
Some of the time some humans say they're happy, and when humans
aren't happy, they aspire to become happy.  Happiness is
clearly positively correlated with being well fed, having various
comforts, having various choices and freedoms and not fearing the
loss of these things.  However, it is also positively correlated
with the satisfaction of wants that may be incompatible with other
people's welfare or even lives.  For example, some people get
satisfaction from the death or unhappiness of people identified as
enemies.  Others get satisfaction from power over other people
or the power to get their ideas implemented.  They are readily
inclined to believe that their power is positively correlated
with other people's happiness and inclined to disregard
evidence to the contrary.

	The following phenomena of individual psychology
are significant when we consider political phenomena.

	1. Most people are more strongly motivated by hostility and
competitiveness than by other emotions.  It seems, however, that modern
democratic societies tame these attitudes to a substantial degree.  None
of the advanced democracies have the election riots that kill tens at
every election in many less developed countries.  Nevertheless,
political activity is influenced by people strongly motivated by
hostility out of proportion to their number.