The actions of a person with power, if he is rational, will be motivated in his actions by one or more of the following three concerns:Improving is positive-sum. The more a ruler acts succesfully towards aim 1, the more I would call what he is doing "good government".
- To increase the value of those things he has power over ("improve")
- To increase the share of that value that comes to him ("appropriate")
- To increase or maintain the power that he has ("win")
Appropriating is nearly zero-sum. The ruler gains, but whoever would otherwise have received the value loses. Appropriating can be in conflict with Improving, because rearranging resources is likely to reduce efficiency.Winning can be strongly negative-sum. Whatever resources are diverted to aim 3 are not available for other purposes. A policy of Winning at all costs can be so destructive as to appear insane.
I LOVE the clarity. And I disagree on 2 major points.
First, I would argue that appropriation tends to be strongly negative sum. But...that's not the big deal.
AnomalyUK is talking about politics from the point of view of the Acting Ruler. I simply don't buy the paradigm. I don't think that's the relevant point of view.
My question is: What happens when a rich stakeholder (Richard Branson, George Soros, Jeff Immelt, etc.) wants something...and the rulers don't have the power to compel the rich stakeholder. The Aretae claim is that this is the normal state of affairs, monarchy or not. The rich, influential types negotiate with rulers, in order to gain mutual benefit. It is simply not a 1-way negotiating street. And the nominal title "ruler" doesn't get you the ability to command rather than negotiate with folks who have stuff you want, but aren't subject to your jurisdiction when they don't want to be.
Scarcity defines power. The owner of the military is only one player in the system. If Rama IX of Thailand reacquires his authority through failure of the elected government...what is his negotiating position with respect to Nike? He gets to make deals. If he screws it up, then Nike takes their factories to Cambodia instead. Ditto, largely, Google and China. Economic realities intrude on fictions of sovereignty.
The Aretae position is thus:
A governing coalition partner, assuming rationality, will act in 4 ways:
1. Attempting to increase total value
2. Attempting to transfer value from other coalition members to self
3. Attempting to transfer value from non-members to coalition
4. Attempting to defend ones place in the coalition against outsiders.
1 happens occasionally, and 2 is a permanent feature of coalitional politics, which is to say all politics, and is relatively harmless. 3 is immiserating to the populace, and generally quite bad. But the killer problem is #4...Microsoft using legal maneuvering to try to maintain it's relative position by decreasing everyone's absolute position (Android is potentially illegal?!? WTF?!? But is anyone surprised they're trying?). And #4 is unavoidable, given any real amount of power in a central government. The primary activity of government is to trade for favors with favored insiders to protect against outsiders. Monarchs do it, Republics do it, everyone does it. Only cases we don't see it are cases of benign neglect like Hong Kong, where locals were not allowed to make said deals, and Britain also made no such deals, because they were ignoring the colony. It's worth noting that the clear greatest economic success stories of the past 100 years were both ex-British colonies that were largely ignored politically...effectively rulerless systems ignored from afar.
The problem appears to be governments that do shit. If they would just do nothing, life would be awful good.
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A serious flaw in your argument: as wealthy as some participants may be, they are not actual sovereigns unless they have the "last argument of kings" available to them. Money may trump most things, but not blood. The formalist argument here is that, while an important source of power in a stable social order, it is an Orwellian formulation to treat someone like Richard Branson as a sovereign. He isn't. His wealth and position are heavily dependent on the forebearance and protection of real sovereigns.
GW,
1. Welcome to the blog.
The argument is about actual power, not about theoretical sovereignty. If Richard Branson can fly to England, what possible claim does the US have over him that is game-theoretic sane? AFAICT, none. And Branson can decamp to Belgium or Singapore as needed. In the case that states need to compete for citizens like Branson (and they do), the distinction is FAR weaker than it looks. Any individual state needs Branson more than Branson needs them...which sets scarcity in motion, and scarcity beats guns.
You assume a necessary pre-condition of your theory here as given: that Branson has a self-enforceable power to freely go wherever he wants. In fact, he does not. Any sovereign that wanted him dead would face few obstacles in making that happen and he doesn't have an independent power of compulsion.
Now, most sovereigns would probably prefer to have him alive, but that's a separate point.
As Oswald Spengler notes in "The Decline of the West": Money is overthrown by blood. Money has power until it doesn't. The sovereign's power is not so constrained, and wealth is subservient to it. Failure to grasp this principle is a major reason libertarian politics has no credibility.
GW,
I hear you...and it sounds plausible, until you run the iterated Game theory, with many players. If sovereigns over-command, and kill, they encounter exit...and they can't afford that. So even if a sovereign wishes to do so, the sane ministers who advise him cannot permit it.
Simple Theory: sovereign can make it happen.
Reality: If sovereign screws with Branson, the costs to the sovereign are MUCH higher than ANY benefits he might get, and the sovereign cannot afford to. And if he's so stupid as to do so...his real power diminishes substantially.
Power=scarcity...and owning a military is a minor component.
2nd argument -- it's the same line as the ability of large countries to take over small countries, or assassinate unpopular small-country-leaders. Theoretical capabilities, that would be insanely costly for a real sovereign to do.
Like most libertarians, you are mistaking a contingent fact (the current equilibrium state of wealth and property where sovereign power is diffuse) for a general fact. It just ain't so. Indeed, Spengler goes to great lengths to point out the error in that sort of thinking. The "equilibrium" is illusory. Rather, the diffusion of power inherent to democratic governance leads inevitably to oligarchy. The end state occurs when oligarchy fragments into civil war ("Money is overthrown and abolished by blood."
You're treating as primary something that is actually derivative, and as stable something that is actually transitional.
GW,
I suspect you're misreading me, or else Spengler is misreading history. When states have to compete with one another...as all of history shows that they do (excepting Middle Kingdom China)...then states have to compete for people. The people being competed for thus gain concessions from the state. This is true of European history since at least the mid-1300s...as Lords competed to have merchants live in their areas.
Wealth is the metric...and you don't get wealth unless you are friendly to folks who create wealth.
Even slaves in Ancient Greece were paid for their talents when expertise was needed. Force will not get a monarch what he wants. It's simple iterated game theory. Monarchs NECESSARILY bargain, just like all other governments (Government with no possibility of exit, as per Middle Kingdom China being the only exception)
I'm not misreading you, but seem to cherry-picking history. Sovereigns gain much from their dealings with the wealthy, but only to a point. That point occurs when wealth acts to compete with the sovereign (i.e. The transition to oligarchy). If Branson ever tried to exercise sovereign power himself (picked up the sword), his wealth would be meaningless. He knows that, and the sovereigns who deal with him know that. It's not a partnership of equals, and it's foolish to suggest that the detente would hold if he tried to act like anything other than a subject is willful blindness.
I'm perhaps not understanding "sovereign".
Branson can up and leave England if he wants. He can settle in France. And he can make a deal with the French that they get so much wealth for his protection. For Branson...switching countries not much harder than switching bodyguards.
My argument remains...IF there are dozens (or hundreds, or even tens of thousands) of folks like Branson who are highly valuable to countries...AND the countries are competing with one another...then there is a simple, easy, stable game theoretic solution wherein the countries do an awful lot to appease the mobile wealth-producers, and attract them. The other stable solution is Middle-Kingdom China...and stagnation, but no (apparent) threat from without, because of size.
A different phrasing: Why would Branson ever want to pick up the sword? He's in so much better of a position, and gets so much more of what he wants, by negotiating with 3 sword-wielders who all want his services than he would be in fighting with any of the 3. Sovereignty is highly over-rated. You can either screw your whole country up...or you can negotiate with folks who have stuff you need.
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