The Dictatorship of Rules - (ENG)

There is an idea in system dynamics that has changed the way I analyze politics: a system is not defined by what it says it wants to do, but by what it actually does. This has consequences in groups of all kinds (from a family to a State).

Talking to friends and people from different fields I have realized that many people who say they hate politics and politicians, what they really mean is that they hate electoralism. Let me explain: often these people I talk to are curious, cultured people who, for example, DO like history or the debate between ideologies, but are frustrated by the apparent disconnection between institutions and the ways people live.

I think it is reasonable.

Although, of course, disinterest leads to the system degrading even further, and I believe there are no fair models of society that rely on a disinterested citizenship totally alienated from how the system itself works.

Due to professional deformation, I like to view politics as a branch derived from system dynamics (which is a very scientific and data-oriented view), and there are key mechanisms in politics that explain part of this degradation. In fact, they are often dynamics that can be applied to any group of people.

From Micro to Macro

To start, a person isolated in the world does nothing. All our biology is focused on developing as social beings. Although it is interesting to isolate oneself temporarily (for example with “digital detoxes” as I like to do), there is no social development and there is nothing to agree on when we are alone.

Politics begins at the moment people get together.

Groups are exclusive by definition, and most internal dynamics revolve around consolidating the group as a social structure. Defining the group objectively? Fair mechanisms for including external individuals? These are secondary factors; often they are not the "goal" of the system. (Here I am heavily influenced by Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows).

What is harder to understand objectively is that structural elements are not what we think they are. What characterizes many groups of people is above all an "accumulation" of shared experiences and values that separate insiders from outsiders, and which functions as an entry barrier.

The group itself does not position itself as "exclusive," but at the same time, there is no way to enter the group that doesn't go through "being one of the group," and there are mechanisms that end up being exclusive. Or very hostile towards differences.

The Birth of Rules

The key moment for group dynamics is when a rule is defined. Rules are not only the first sign of civilization, but they also have a very important feature: they make visible a power relationship and, therefore, make it evident. Defining a rule means making visible who commands and who obeys. This, for example, does not happen with groups that are less structured (small groups of friends, family), where there are rules, but they are inaccessible and implicit.

Rules, or norms (or policies), can be defined top-down by hierarchical power or can be agreed upon among a majority, but what is important, again, is that they are explicit and little or not at all subject to contextual interpretations. They apply always and to everyone. And here lies the challenge, because in the social world almost nothing is context-free.

If rules are so useful, why don't they multiply indefinitely? This is exactly what happens in the most democratic societies. The key "trade-off" is that the more a group is "bureaucratized" in a consensual way, the less convenient it is for the individuals in power. And the consequence is not a fairer group, but the powerful seeking extralegal ways to influence it.

The Typical Lobby of the Powerful

In fact, powerful individuals in a group generally function as a lobby so that rules that harm them are not agreed upon (this is a thesis defended by Mancur Olson). As a result, most rules in bureaucratized groups are laws that directly benefit the powerful and the stability of the group (stability being a necessary condition for the power of the powerful).

In practice, the powerful in the group do not want rules that limit them, and in fact, large social groups with agreed-upon rules are a historical anomaly. Often, mafias and repression by a (powerful) minority are much simpler ways to guarantee stability.

This gives us a basis for understanding modern liberal democracies: the laws that can be agreed upon in no way threaten the stability of what constitutes the group, and organically, the things that can be decided by consensus are those that end up having little impact on the configuration of the group as such. The important ones are not put to a vote.

From this point of view, an indicator of a socially mature group is not simply having many rules, but that these rules also bind the individuals with power (here I am influenced by D.Acemoglu and J.Robinson in Why Nations Fail, as opposed to a power that makes rules "only for others").

The Paradox of Rules

The problem with rules or an excess of laws is that socially mature groups are so complex that they lose access to all the information needed to make good decisions, and then end up making bad ones (suboptimal decisions). In the long run, this can make them less competitive against other, more agile groups (this is an idea by Herbert Simon on systems in general that I take in broad strokes, from The Sciences of the Artificial). In the case of public institutions, the problem often is that less complex systems are less fair as a consequence of their agility.

The great challenge with highly bureaucratized groups is the following sequence of events: first the group turns into a system that is too complex, then rules are passed demagogically that do not work (meaning they do not properly regulate social practices, which is what people actually do in the real world), and finally, faith in the rules collapses, which works to the detriment of the group's justice. It is a dangerous loop.

If rules are absurd, parallel non-consensual rule systems can be created, and extralegal systems, mafias, and lobbies gain prominence. Therefore, rules alone are not enough: it is the combination of rules and faith in rules that makes regulated groups work.

Here everyone can apply this framework to their own groups or to their trusted institutional politics. It is often difficult to establish which policies (which rules) are good or bad. But the people I know with a deep view of institutions don't worry too much about whether a law is occasionally unfair, but rather on safeguarding them in a way that non-institutional interests cannot influence them. All of this, in fact, is what is known as "democratic health."