The Case for Experimentation with Government

World Maps Online, accessed 1/22/2018

Capitalism is produced through government actions. The laws produced and enforced by the governments of a nation enable the private and exclusive ownership of the means of production by single individuals or groups of individuals who are otherwise not involved in the actual production processes. 

Socialism is also produced by government actions. The laws of a society could just as easily be produced and enforced to ensure worker ownership of the means of production within the regulatory legal environment of the governments' choosing.  This change in government can either be fine-tuned and adapted to the existing needs and wants of people, or it can be used to enrich the few at the expense of the many.  The switch is in government for a more sustainable, equitable, and internally and externally functional social world. It is from government and law that we get the internal dynamics in our economy, and our relations with other people and societies throughout the world.

Furthermore, the choices we make as individuals for public officials, and that public officials make while in government can, in many ways, change the outcomes experienced in the human society for measured improvement or degradation.  The definition of those two opposites is dependent both upon objective, factual physiological and psychological needs of humans in all its diversity and collectiveness, and on subjectively chosen normative values and tastes.  Some individuals are able to discern and realize their actual physiological and psychological needs more effectively than others (think of fast food addicts, or people who abuse substances as an example on the individual level; the same principle of being attracted to unhealthy chemical substances can also be applied to unhealthy attractions to ideas, perspectives, and attitudes as well).

What I have stated are facts, nothing more, but nothing less.  The question is what do we do with these facts? Do we persist in the existing, dysfunction, or do we make an adaptation, mutate, and live healthier and more sustainable lives with others? The choice is up to each and all of you, society. We can eliminate the scourge of people who are currently in place, and institute and operate the political institutions we need and want. Our own Constitution has a process for doing just that, and our government has the power (granted by society as a public trust and privilege that can be revoked) in it to make those changes for the betterment of the whole society. I predict that those societies who stick to limiting government will more likely enrich those who are privately wealthy and powerful at the expense of the many. Government is a constant in any human society (including hunter-gatherer societies where there are rules and logics of government, even if there isn't public works, social investment beyond sharing, or many individuals in number).  We can know how these processes work at this junction in human history.  It's true that government must also be effective, reasoned, and communicated to the public in its execution.  But it is also true that we need governments to support and maintain societies effectively, especially large, complex, diverse, and developed societies that are good places to live for all.  Why continue with what is showing itself to not work?  Why not give this brand of government a try, and try different brands of government to conscientiously see which ones are more effective and efficient at delivering quality services for the public, and producing positive and desirable outcomes in the society in which the governments work?  We already have a ton of data from the historical records we could go through.  Let's learn, and not fail to adapt in time for our own survival and well-being.