The Lonely Centrist

COMMENTS ON GOVERNMENT BY AN ENDANGERED SPECIES, A POLITICAL CENTRIST

THE MODEL

One way of understanding the endless wars waged between those who advocate different styles of governing (governance) is to conceptualize all the arguments as manifestations of a basic struggle between competitive and cooperative styles of governance.  Seen from a Psychological view, humans compete with each other and cooperate with each other.  Humans’ band together to create governments.   These governments compete and cooperate with each other.  Governments regulate competition and cooperation between the governed.  

The extreme of cooperative government is the forced cooperation of dictatorship.  In so far as the dictator is successful, those he rules cooperate with him and each other by obedience to the ruler's rules.  The extreme of competitive government, or non-government, is anarchy.  There are no rules and regulations.  The desires, skills, and wills of individuals rule.

Democratic capitalism is a compromise between competitiveness and cooperation with a tendency to lean towards favoring competition in contrast to democratic socialism which combines competition and cooperation with a greater emphasis on cooperation.

THE APPLICATIONS

A.     Politics

Politics in these two styles of governments is the art of finding solutions to real problems facing the country and creating political alternatives that protect the synergy between competition and cooperation.

Competition leading to monopoly which destroys competition is a classic example of an economic event in which cooperation (government regulation) helps maintain competition.  Government regulation, a form of forced cooperation, can support competition or stifle it as exemplified by large government bureaucracies regulating imperiously, efficiently and stupidly.

My centrist view is based on the model I have just discussed and supports cooperation (frequently government intervention) which enhances competition and competition (often private enterprise) which creatively enhances the welfare of the whole country by providing wealth accessible through jobs, taxes and the spread of ideas. 

When Romney and Gingrich turned against the Universal Mandate that all Americans must participate in health care, they undermined an interesting experiment in combining government cooperation, the demand that all cooperate by enrolling in health insurance, with insurance companies competing for the client.  With no Universal Mandate, universal healthcare, which is inevitable, will be supplied by a large inefficient government bureaucracy.  As a centrist, who believes in neither pro government nor anti-government rhetoric, I am able to look at political behavior through a lens which magnifies the results of actions rather than the ideological purity of actions. 

Santorum’s religious emphasis, if realized, would stifle competition as it is stifled in countries with no separation of church and state.  Ron Paul’s libertarian views, if realized, would remove protection for the 50% of the population with average intelligence and below from the wiles of the 50% of the population with above average intelligence.  Obama’s fascination with the power of government regulation does competition a disservice. 

What is a centrist to do in an election year when so much is polarized?  I will vote for Obama because the right and the left see him as soft.  This suggests, as I believe is actually true, that Obama neither supports endless expansion of government bureaucracy to the detriment of competition or the destruction of government to the detriment of those less gifted at competing in a modern capitalist society.  I believe that of all the candidates, Obama will be the most skill full at muddling through the middle. 

B.      Endangered Species

One creative solution to protecting endangered species with a balance of cooperation and competition was created by a Texas landowner.  The landowner imported endangered animals and created an animal sanctuary on land that was similar to the animals’ original homes in Africa.

 Finances were provided by allowing hunters to hunt for a fee.  Twenty percent of the animals were sacrificed to hunting for the survival of the whole community of animals.  This is a superb example of cooperation (the animals sanctuary) together with competition (hunting for a price) combining to address an environmental problem.  Hawaiian land owners who rent out land, kept pristine, for weddings or other social events is another good example of cooperation (keeping the lands pristine) combined with competition (renting out the lands for special occasions) to deal with an environmental issue (over development of natural resources, in this case land).

Unfortunately, an ideologist who hopes she can force death to cooperate is suing to stop the killing of the animals and thereby destroying the financial resources needed to keep the animal sanctuary going.  This is an example of a naive idealist forcing cooperation and eliminating competition in a destructive way. 

C.      A Centrists Looks at Gender Relationships

The movie, Separation, documents the effects of a cultural attempt to force cooperation between the two genders by subordinating females.  The hooded garments that symbolize female subordination and forced cooperation inform the movie with a visual intensity.  The movie also documents the not so underground system of bribery (competition) referred to in the movie as a relic of a tribal system of blood money.  Bribery provides a context where the inequality between the sexes can be addressed to some degree by a woman with money. 

The movie shows how when competition is restricted by cultural values, competition goes underground and reemerges as bribery or worse.  The end of the movie illustrates the emergence of a highly destructive competition which ignores the demands of the culture for forced cooperation and subordination of self by women.

D.     A Centrists Looks at American Marriage

A good marriage in America involves an honest realization and discussion of the inevitable competition for resources of love, attention and material goods.  This realization and discussion must be combined with the willingness to find cooperative solutions to the openly acknowledged competition.  Solutions may be as simple as taking turns, trading resources or as complex as both parties exploring childhood influences on their emotional responses. 

Bad marriages deny the reality of competition for resources: the partners compete in covert ways for resources.  Such covert competition can vary from moral persuasion to violence and the threat of violence. 

The Lonely Centrist