Systems Sciences Refute Collectivism

George Rebane

[This contribution is a periodic review of a major stave of Rebane Doctrine.  It attempts to explain to the intelligent reader why collectivist governance and policies are doomed to failure.  The punchline is that they violate the fundamental laws of nature (i.e. our universe) which, of course, includes certain evolved and long established behaviors that make up human nature.  Collectivists’ rebuttals are sincerely invited.]

Fundamental Law from Systems Sciences – The more complex is a system’s transfer function (inputs-to-outputs relationship from control theory), the more rapid and comprehensive must be its feedbacks required for stable operation.  Collectivist systems of governance violate this law by enforcing ever more comprehensive centralized control over large/complex socio-economic systems the transfer functions for which are unknown, and in which feedback loops are lacking, faulty, and operate with grossly large delays (i.e. large time-late).

Corollary of Fundamental Law – You can control only what you can measure in a timely manner.  An added deficit in the human governance of large socio-economic systems is that we still don’t know exactly what needs to be measured or when or how.  As witnessed by the continual miscalculations of economists and other elite experts, the best we can do is obtain time-late data from processes that we know are at best pitiful proxies for what we really want to know when.

The Disfunction of Organizational Feedback.  Timely and accurate feedback to correct operational errors is lacking in poorly structured and managed organizations.  In such organizations agents at all levels overwhelmingly seek to secure their own position and futures, rather than serve the overarching mission of the organization that employs them.  They do this by focusing their efforts to please their supervisors, rather than to benefit the organization’s customers/clients.  Government bureaus, agencies, and departments exhibit the quintessence of such organizational deficits (e.g. ‘the deep state’).  Non-profit institutions and for-profit corporations are not immune, especially those that have forsaken competitive capitalism for corporatism – partnering with corrupt government to obtain favors that only government can bestow, assure, and deliver.

Comprehensive centralized control is profoundly unnatural in the sense that it is not found in any aspect of ‘nature’.  Nature stabilizes its required complexities by operating in modes of highly distributed knowledge and control.  Control is always hierarchical in that the higher levels in any given natural system impose ever coarser, infrequent, and generalized control signals on their immediate subsystems, which iteratively then repeat the process to their lower-level subsystems.  The same is affected with feedback which also gets coarser and more abstract as it is passed to the higher levels of the system’s structure – higher levels don’t need to know the details of lower-level operations.

This is especially true in living systems that range from individual cells to human beings – they ALL function with a hierarchy of distributed control and maximally localized knowledge.  And natural social orders from hives to herds function similarly without need for central controllers and planners.  It is the recently evolved perversion in humankind which has begun using its advanced communication skills in attempts to establish and govern centrally controlled societies.

Centrally controlled systems and systems with little or no feedback to the controller require perfect/accurate knowledge, not only of the system’s transfer function (input-to-output relationships), but also an accurate prediction of the system’s environment over the desired future control horizon.  This is clearly difficult to impossible for socio-economic systems, and immediately explains away the failure of centralized control policies that remain in force and be sustainable over extended periods.

In governance, a policy is sustainable only to the extent that its implementation does not require an ever-increasing share of the nation’s ongoing wealth generation.  Collectivist (e.g. socialist) governments hide/disguise unsustainable policies by reducing the amount/quality of deliverables of a policy as they attempt to keep the cost of such policies from increasing faster than their supporting economies.  However, this approach works only for a limited time as the people become aware of poorer services, more futile regulatory controls, and inevitably higher taxes.  Depending on the compliance of their dominant cultures, governments often forego the former, and immediately revert to higher taxation and other means of wealth extraction and redistribution.  For almost a century now, America has subscribed to the latter approach.

Nature’s answer to such systemic failures has always been evolution to more distributed knowledge and control with short responsive feedback paths.  This is why natural systems have no ‘central controllers’ per se, and achieve stable operation over indefinite intervals over which they can adapt to changing environments.  Humans have copied nature to develop and operate their manufactured systems, from the simple to the large and complex, using distributed control and knowledge, and robust, rapid feedbacks.  For reasons explored elsewhere, collectivists do not connect the dots between human and machine behaviors.  No child knows the transfer function of a bicycle, yet they learn to ride it by implementing a simple control law (continually turn toward the tip-over side) made possible by continuous feedback simply of the bike’s dynamic attitude (i.e. tip-over angle and rate).  Hierarchies of such simple control laws applied at various levels of a complex system assure its stability (i.e. sustainable satisfactory operation).  In governance, this translates into maximizing local control, or what our Founders implemented as constitutional federalism.

Collectivist governance (socialist, fascist, communist) is intrinsically not sustainable.  The power elite must continually extend the control of government over the nation’s faltering socio-economic institutions and processes.  This is achieved by ever more comprehensive regulatory controls, the implementation and enforcement of which require ever higher taxes (draining a nation’s productive wealth) as the state enlarges its participation in and control of the nation’s economy.  Of such examples, history is replete.

Ignoring these fundamental principles of governance as translated from the laws of system sciences has always reduced the wealth generating capacity of societies and its members’ quality of life.  History has witnessed the end of collectivist policies over the millennia, and more visibly and frequently since the French revolution at the end of the 18^th century.  The latest evidence of it has been the collapse of the USSR and the Chinese Communist Party relaxing its grip on China’s economy to allow distributed and local efforts to devise their own ways of generating wealth.  The conglomeration of such relaxed central control policies has made China into the second largest economy with untold increase in its citizens’ quality of life.  However, such economic freedoms inevitably begin reducing the power of the central controllers.  Today’s reversal of such policies by China’s fearful collectivist elites is predictably causing a reversal of the country’s economic performance and prospects as centralized control is intensified.

American and European socialists understand none of these fundamental processes, and continue their fruitless efforts to over-manipulate economies the policy responses (i.e. transfer functions) of which they are ignorant.  Today the citizenry of these western developed countries have been ‘educated’ to believe that collectivist policies - disarmingly simple to explain and for simple people to understand - will result in the greatest good for the greatest number.  And all this proceeds even though there is no supporting evidence that any such policies have ever delivered sustainable benefits to the people.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

Interesting the left has no answer.

;-)

[scenes]

"Interesting the left has no answer."

No need. There's always an elegance to centralization until you actually try it.

I've always wondered what sort of hand waving goes on in meeting rooms as communications and power systems become more explicitly controlled in the interest of 'efficiency'.

[Paul Emery]

George

Can you list three or four countries that have come closest to enacting the principals you describe in this post.

[Don Bessee]

Again the ponytail of ignorance has nothing to offer @224. #posadfool

;-)

[bossniglio]

Posted by: Don Bessee | 26 January 2022 at 02:46 PM

He's playing radio interviewer again.....

Ask an open ended question.....head out to the parking lot for a smoke while the guest rambles on for 10 minutes!

An old DJ trick!

[George Rebane]

PaulE 223pm - I think you meant 'principles'; principals are usually people with agency in an organization or in a transaction/deal. I assume you mean countries that don't embrace the principles of nature and/or system science. A few that come to mind are - Red China, USSR, 3rd Reich, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cambodia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, today’s Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), almost every African country, Argentina, Albania, … . Another good source is checking the Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index. There you can check countries on both end of the spectrum of collectivist governance.
https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2020

[Paul Emery]

Thanks for the correction George. Always get those two mixed up What I'm interested in are countries you feel have embraced the " principles of nature and/or system science" you refer to. I will check out the Cato link but I'm more interested in your opinion

[Don Bessee]

Says the guy with no opinion just talking points a la cnn @349. LOL

;-)

[Scott O]

Can you imagine Paul in the later 1700s in the British colony in North America?
Paul - "Can you show me any countries that embrace these principles that you describe, George?"
Mr Washington - "No - we'll be the first."

[George Rebane]

ScottO 523pm - Over the years it's become clear that in PaulE's world nothing can be done that hasn't been done. That is one of the immutable tenets of the liberal Left who also claim to be progressive while not having shown any evidence in that direction. With such mentality firmly in place in 1775, the American Revolution would never have taken place. What's even more alarming is that the unionized teachers are teaching these sclerotic principles to our kids.

[Paul Emery]

George

Checking out your CATO link I found this:

"The HFI is the most comprehensive freedom index so far created for a globally meaningful set of countries. The HFI covers 162 countries for 2018, the most recent year for which sufficient data are available. The index ranks countries beginning in 2008, the earliest year for which a robust enough index could be produced.:The jurisdictions that took the top 10 places, in order, were New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden (tied in 9th place).:"

Are these countries whose policies you would like to see us emulate? For example all have very sophisticated national health care programs which you oppose for us. Can you explain that?

[scenes]

"very sophisticated national health care "

Switzerland doesn't have a national health care system.

Also, keep in mind that decentralized control doesn't mean you can't have federal highways.

[Bill Tozer]

Netherlands just dumped all covid mandates

[Bill Tozer]

How did I know that by Punch's first post he would end up taking it to health care.

Hong Kong has no capital gains tax.

[scenes]

"How did I know that by Punch's first post he would end up taking it to health care. "

Part B will be 'healthcare in Denmark'. It's all so tiresome.

Looking through the original post, my take is that the tendency in the West will be to strengthen control systems as the whole deal gets tippy. Of course, the final result is more disastrous.

I was thinking in terms of automation of large organization behavior, much stronger surveillance and guidance of employees. The sketchier things get, the more you turn the crank. A world where senior management can see an employee's individual keystrokes (or their software can), generals give orders to privates via satellite, central bankers merge with the equities market, etc. is no bueno.

[Don Bessee]

@608 Still having those comprehension issues eh.

;-)

[scenes]

"@608 Still having those comprehension issues eh."

I think it's a fair point to look at 'free' countries.

Of course, the highest entries are always small countries with homogeneous populations, in fact they tend to have ethnicity that rhymes

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country

My guess is that Paul is making the point that you can have a fairly high degree of government interference in life as long as it's a place filled with white people.

Do I have that right Paul?

[Paul Emery]

Scenes

I went to the link George recommended and that's what I found. This was Georges recommendation to me:

" Another good source is checking the Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index. There you can check countries on both end of the spectrum of collectivist governance."

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2020

[scenes]

PE@7:14PM

So taking the list of top ten...

New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden

(Hong Kong? not for long...I wonder why Iceland isn't on that list)

I take your point that small homogeneous white nations tend to be more free, and that they have universal health care among other things (note the word: universal, not national. all those systems are pretty different from each other. Switzerland makes you buy insurance, go figure, and is run mostly at the canton level).

Given your example of white, homogeneous nations, what is the chance that government regulation is simply a codification of rules arrived at organically by the population? Said more simply, if everyone mostly agrees on something, you might as well write it down.

What do you think Paul?

[Bill Tozer]

@ 7:27 pm

interesting to note Ukraine is down near the basement of the outhouse along with Betnie's beloved Venezuel...along with every single Muslim country in the Mid-East and sub-Saharan Africa.

Personal freedom to marry, work, travel, and less business regulations are the key. Remember Gavin's assualt on work and freedom with his independent contractor squeeze? Definity not compatible with a good Freedom Index score.

Seems to be countries with less overeaching Big Brother are far freer than say the southern hemisphere.
Did also note that safety was a component of the Freedom Index. No wonder folks are pushing back on Soros backed DAs in Seattle, LA, Frisco, Chicago (Kim Foxx) NY and Philly. Safety makes one freer, for sure. Ease of starting a business is freedom. Not being censured is freedom.

[scenes]

@8:10pm

Ukraine would indicate that white ethnostates are no guarantee, top of the list is all ex-English colonies plus a swathe of Western Europe. Protestantism (minus Ireland) as common thread? Maybe that's it.

Freedom seems kind of loosely defined in those lists, but no biggie. I don't know what the Romans (or a goldrush-era miner) would make of one of our local planning commissions or drug police, but the modern West constrains behaviors in a million ways.

[Gregory]

Denmark has abandoned mask mandates.

[Bill Tozer]

Does this topic not evolve around central control? Central control is the anthesis to our Constitution. Yes, there are clearly defined Constitutional duties (and prohibitions) on the Federal government’s role in our Republic….just to beat the reader to the punch insinuating that I don’t believe in Federal Government or want to tear it down. With that disclaimer out of the way…..

Take current voting issues as an example. The Feds, through the DOJ, cannot mandate to each state how to run their voting apparatus. That duty is left to the states. Sure, we have the 15 sections of the Voting Rights Act to insure no one is discriminated against or barred from voting, which is the Federal Government’s role as enacted by Congress and signed by a sitting President. That is a safeguard.

Where the Lefties and The Woke get it wrong is the states decide on how to run elections and from the local jurisdictions up to the state level, the people tell the Federal government what they want and what the various states decide. It is bottom up, NOT top down.
Parlay the above paragraph into any current contentious issue that comes to mind. The folks in each state decide how to run things and then, if consensus, the collective states tell Washington DC what they desire and what they want and how they wish to run things. In turn, the representatives from the states on Capitol Hill hear what ‘the people’ want and laws are enacted. Central control outside of defined role of the Presidency is prohibited. Where the Constitution is silent, the states have authority.

The ants mysteriously and uniformly move as an army, but have no generals. Each ant’s role comes from not from edicts, but from within.

[scenes]

"Denmark has abandoned mask mandates."

Didn't they dump any restrictions? You'd think that the whole situation would be an epidemiologist's dream, what with a bunch of semi-similar countries with different rule sets.

I wonder if the county ladies in Denmark yell at anyone coming into their lair wearing a mask. Some things never change.

If occurred to me that since Mr. Paul is a universal healthcare expert, perhaps he could compare and contrast the systems in, say, the UK and Switzerland without resorting to posting links. The relationship between freedom (the topic) and providing healthcare is kind of a loose one, but I think that people have defined freedom as 'quality of life'. A small electrical charge to a brain pleasure center appears to be the ultimate freedom I guess.

[Bill Tozer]

Massive Truck Convoy Crosses Canada To Protest Vaccine Mandates. It May Be Longest Truck Convoy Ever Recorded.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/massive-truck-convoy-crosses-canada-to-protest-vaccine-mandates-it-may-be-longest-truck-convoy-ever-recorded
——————-
MASKS TODAY, MASKS TOMORROW, MASKS FOREVER!

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/01/masks-today-masks-tomorrow-masks-forever-3.php

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/01/masks-today-masks-tomorrow-masks-forever-3.php

[Bill Tozer]

‘Serious Cause For Alarm’: U.S. Economy Plunges Under Biden To All Time Low In Heritage ‘Index Of Economic Freedom’

https://www.dailywire.com/news/serious-cause-for-alarm-u-s-economy-plunges-under-biden-to-all-time-low-in-heritage-index-of-economic-freedom

[George Rebane]

re BillT 1147am - I posted Mr Tozer's link as part of an addendum to 'DHS ratchets free speech'.