Sane Polity: A Pattern Language by William Ophuls
A proposal for the best, not the perfect
This piece is going to be a bit different. This book isn’t well known or widely circulated. It’s brief. It’s a kind of cookbook for designing a better political system. Not a utopia—Ophuls doesn’t believe that’s possible—but a better, more functional polity. He bases his scheme on architect Christopher Alexander’s work, Pattern Language. So here, I’m going to outline the bones of Ophul’s works, essentially transcribing my notes. I’ll go chapter by chapter, as headings reveal the point of each chapter. My comments and musings will be set in italics. I’m also sprinkling in some random quotes to add a feel for the original. There are some interesting, provocative ideas in here, well worth contemplating.
Preface
Ecology, not mechanics, will be the master science in the coming era.
This emphasis on ecology may be a first in social, economic, & political thought, at least since the Agricultural Revolution of 10,000+ years ago that led to the advent of cities. Cities and their residents become forgetful and alienated from Nature. But in the end, we’re all a part of Nature, and we’d best not forget it—or rather, ignore it—any longer.
Introduction
Neither the clock nor the machine will provide the guiding metaphor of our era. Dynamics will replace mechanics at the forefront of our thinking. Process becomes more important than structure.
Agrees with the ancients that a mixed regime is best, with no one value dominating, neither liberty nor equality. Each regime has its own virtues & vices.
A pattern language uses the knowledge of the fox, not the perspective of the hedgehog.
Chapters:
Nature First
“Ecology precedes humanity.”
Community Prior to Individual
The key question: do we want a government that’s oppressive & predatory, or one that’s sane & humane? How does one assure that the common good comes before private interest?
Mores are more essential than government & laws.
Create an economy that emphasizes plenitude over acquisition.
Have a strong government but few laws.
Mores the Keystone
Humans need training to be social, as we are neither angels nor beasts.
Rousseau: Laws are the ribs of the arch of society, while mores are the keystone.
Guiding Ideal
Aristotle: No society can be “a mere alliance” of self-interested individuals.
Gustave Le Bon: People w/o an ideal are just a crowd, and crowds have power only for destruction.
Ideology is the new secular religion.
Prudence
Prudence is wisdom in action
Prudence requires realism, calculation, & foresight.
Per Burke, it’s all about circumstances.
Prudence therefore means playing a long game, foreseeing the future needs of the polity and investing resources accordingly. Above all, it means anticipating and forestalling future dangers as Niccolò Machiavelli urges:
“I compare fortune [the unpredictability and uncontrollability of life] to one of those violent rivers which, when they are enraged, flood the plains, tear down trees and buildings, wash soil from one place to deposit it in another. Everyone flees before them, everyone yields to their impetus, there is no possibility of resistance. Yet although such is their nature, it does not follow that when they are flowing quietly one cannot take precautions, constructing dykes and embankments so that when the river is in flood they would keep to one channel or their impetus would be less wild and dangerous.
6. Tolerance
Tolerance is essential.
Freud said that repression is the price we pay for civilization.
Have to balance freedom & repression, rights & responsibilities. We Americans always tend to talk about rights but little about responsibility. It’s like trying to have a contract with all duties falling on one party, but no consideration required of the other party.
Prudence & tolerance need to balance.
Hypocrisy is a key ingredient. I’ve said of late the Richard Nixon at least had the decency to practice hypocrisy and secrecy; he didn’t want to broadcast his crimes or being seen denigrating traditional American values of honesty, fair play, following agreed laws, etc. Unlike some others we all know in politics today.
Need some Apollo & some Dionysus.
To achieve this end, hypocrisy is a social necessity. Usually regarded as rep-rehensible, the vice of hypocrisy is essential precisely because it pays tribute to virtue. Human beings are passionate creatures, but living together requires that their passions be channeled or repressed. Some things have to remain in the closet, or society cannot exist. But as long as individual behavior does not frighten the horses or upset the children —that is, as long as everyone sins discreetly then at least some of these passions can be acted out behind closed doors between consenting beings without thereby calling into question the , standards of the community. Hypocrisy is, therefore, the balm that makes conformity to community standards bearable. We must tolerate what we cannot reasonably regulate or, as Mill said, risk "enslaving the soul itself."
7. Strong Governance
To govern means to exercise sovereign authority; that is, to control & direct the affairs of the polity.
Governance lays down rules, administration enforces them.
Freedom isn’t the absence of government; freedom needs governance to make & enforce the rules of the game.
8. Limited Government
Strong, but not unlimited.
The maxim "That government is best which governs least" is therefore mistaken if it is taken to mean a weak government that cannot perform its proper functions, for that would lead to dysfunction, if not anarchy. A strong govern ment is, in fact, the linchpin of a society. But the statement is profoundly true if it is taken to mean that government must be limited and small, so that it does not become oppressive or tyrannical (8. Limited Government and 10. Small Administration).
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill shows where the line should be drawn:
“A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins when, instead of calling forth the activities and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs.”
9. Minimal Laws
Government shouldn’t become a welfare state, such leads to an oppressive administrative state.
Law enforcement is driven by the “iron law of power,” the more power an organization has, the more it wants.
Use of red-light districts. Ophuls points to the example of the Japanese, but he might have used Amsterdam also, I believe. In other words, give vice an enclave to keep it in check. Interesting.
10. Small Administration
But a strong sovereign is essential. How does that work with the welfare and military state? It can’t, can it?
11. Collective Leadership
Knowing Acton’s dictum, how do we limit & control power?
“Entrusting power to one class is inescapable; entrusting it to one person is perilous.”
12. Restrained Liberty
“Liberty is not absolute.”
Locke:
The Freedom then of Man and Liberty of acting according to his own Will, is grounded on his having Reason, which is able to instruct him in the Law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrain’d Liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his Nature, to be free; but to thrust him out amongst Brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched, and as much beneath that of a Man, as theirs.
Liberty is not license.
Must balance liberty with responsibilities & duties.
“Man has a surfeit of passion & a deficit of reason.”
13. Civil Rights
Balance rights & duties.
Mustn’t allow government to be arbitrary. Gov’t must be even-handed.
Personal Voting
There are many critics of democracy: Plato, Madison (Federalist No. 10), Rousseau, etc.
But go with Churchill in the end: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except when compared to all the other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Aristotle contra Plato: Citizens aren’t like seamen bound to follow the captain’s orders, but like diners authorized to judge the chef’s cooking.
Aristotle liked popular participation because it fostered individual development. So you need a small group.
Small groups imply no mass democracy: A problem for Jefferson. Repeat: no mass democracy; no democracy by TV ads and other types of blather & propaganda; first person. It’s not what we have.
So go with a mixed gov’t.
Long Time Horizon
See Burke on the compact between generations. China is building out its green economy, it’s building and selling more green tech, while the U.S. mostly fiddles. We have an incredibly short time-horizon as a people.
Wisdom Council
Popular divisions aren’t necessarily the best decisions. But how do we determine who is wise? Are they just the old? Or should wisdom include those with bold new ideas and innovations they want to pursue? I think a mix of both, a truly diverse group. Age is no guaranty of wisdom, as we can all see very clearly now.
Tech Board
Proponents of new tech emphasize potential benefits and down-play risks.
Need to ask: what’s the worst that could happen before allowing to deploy.
A great idea, and we’d be wise to adopt something like this ASAP as we venture in to the perilous world of AI.
Constitutional Dictatorship
War is the threat to the existence of the polity, need extraordinary focus, powers, and directions.
Must be temporary. Democracy has no greater enemy than war. Wars distort and ruin democracies. Wars on some occasions may prove necessary, but they should be few and far between and governed only by necessity.
Constitutional Convention
Instead of Jefferson’s suggestion of a revolution every 20 years!
A “select group of eminently qualified individuals” would examine the issues & suggest any changes. This is a place where one might use sortition, citizen panels, or idea juries selected at least in part at random.
Paideia
Need education for a higher purpose
Need excellence in character, statesmanship, aesthetics, etc.
Natural Aristocracy
“Elites” should be a synonym for the best.
Don’t want politics to become a racket.
Not want incompetent pilots.
Meritocracy only partly good because it doesn’t require character.
Education for Excellence
James Madison captured the challenge in these words: "The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."
Achieving Madison's two desiderata is not easy, but it is not impossible.
Rough Equality
Good gov’t protects the weak and poor from the rich & powerful
Need a rich & satisfying culture.
Avoid envy. The extreme wealth inequality in the U.S. is a crucial factor in our terrible political dysfunction.
[I]t is not possible or even advisable to remove every inequality, injustice, unfairness, and imperfection. All of history testifies that the attempt to eradicate these and other "evils" will almost certainly create new and worse ones—at an extreme, gulags, reigns of terror, bloody repression, even mass murder. Just as we must learn to accept that men and women will always be a little bit vicious, we must also be content with a society that is only moderately bad and only partially sane. Otherwise we may be visited by massive evil and mass insanity.
Mosaic Society
Avoid a “monoculture.”
This kind of segregation [along racial, ethnic, or linguistic lines] has acquired a bad name in modern times and, according to John Stuart Mill, it does carry an associated risk:
“Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion necessary to the working of representative government cannot exist.”
Usufruct
Requires stewardship of resources leaving something for those who come after us, taking only what we require. This notion runs counter to our entire economy and political economic system, which runs on consumption and waste. This would require an entirely new ethic. As I’ve said before, Ophuls is a radical. And a conservative.
Economy of Plenitude
Frugality, sufficiency, amenity, & leisure.
Balance between destitution & affluence.
Have public amenities; not private affluence & public squalor. Something that we specialize in here in the U.S.
Thermodynamic Economy
Money supply should be tied to matter & energy. See Nate Hagens for more about this.
Thermodynamic costs should be minimized.
Conserve natural capital
Economy based on Nature, not Labor
Use local resources.
Use tech
Pay As You Go
So how does this fit with Keynesian economics, if it does at all? Probably okay, as Keynes recommended saving in good times to have reserves needed for downturns. But most politicians and their voters ignore this and want to put the pedal to the metal all the time.
Sound Money
Inflation can destroy a polity. Just look how cranky American voters became with our recent bout of post-Covid inflation!
There is almost universal agreement that inflation destroys a polity. John Maynard Keynes summarized this lesson of history by saying,
“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and it does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.?”
Market Regulation
Free markets are created & sustained by gov’t. So true, so ignored.
The market depends on non-market values. So true, so ignored.
Tax for Revenue
Proposes a transaction tax; i.e., each monetary transaction taxed upon execution at a tiny amount, but so many transactions allow plenty of gov’t income. How is this different from a VAT tax? How would it affect lower individuals?
Use Tax
No free rides. He doesn’t mention a price on carbon, which Citizens Climate Lobby and other groups support. But I suspect he would if it was brought to his attention. It would put a price on carbon that the gov’t would collect and then distribute back to citizens on a per capita basis. It means no more free riding for carbon users, no more externalizing the cost of carbon to the environment.
Severance Tax
Pay for the use of the commons, and taking natural resources, puts a price on resources.
Wealth Tax
Yes, they can afford it.
Graduated Prisons
Why allow prisons to become schools for criminals?
Epilogue
Even so, political entropy is, in the end, inescapable: "Experience hath shewn," said Thomas Jefferson, "that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
Well, you have convinced me that I need to read this book!
Also, very interesting note on the necessity of hypocrisy. I must think more about this. As someone who deeply values transparency and what I call the "honesty of existentialism" (live as you want to be seen living, to inspire others to live that way, and be seen living as you truly live), I had a gut reaction to the idea that hypocrisy is necessary. Perhaps its the characterization of it as hypocrisy, however, that I don't like. You cite Japan as an example or Amsterdam, and in those cases, I call it more 'consideration' than 'hypocrisy.' It is not that you say one thing and do the opposite, but more that you just don't show everything all at once. I will ruminate.
Thanks for the post. It was very interesting.