Building a Better World
I read an article by Guy Standing, where he makes the case for a Universal Basic Income. This isn’t really a radical notion, Elon Musk has talked about it, Andrew Yang campaigned on it, and even the Expanse—a fictional science fiction series set in the future of our solar system—acknowledges that a universal basic income is necessary for societal stability.
I have been thinking a lot about what a better world will actually look like. Well … actually … I have been thinking about why a better world is so hard for us to achieve. Let me begin with the Universal Basic Income idea. It makes perfect sense. Like universal health insurance and universal education, these are things that will ultimately lift mankind and create a more just and fair society across the world. And yet, in light of where we are today, these things appear to be further away than at any other time in our lifetime.
So what is a Universal Basic Income? In short, it is a concept where the government pays a set amount to every citizen that lives within the country. I won’t spend too much time on what it is or why it makes good sense, because I think Guy Standing does that incredibly well in his piece. If you haven’t read it, please take the time to do so here. My focus is why something like this will be so hard to reach in our lifetime. It is hard to reach because we are a society that, by design, is built on basic rules. Not a society that is built on basic principles.
From the earliest days of the formation of this republic—along with many other constitutional democracies in the world today—human failings got in the way of our ability to create a world that, I would argue, most people want. If you read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, (note: I am an American at the point that I am writing this, so I am going to take a very American perspective) you will see that they both begin with principles. The Declaration of Independence states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And so does the U.S. Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I am not a constitutional scholar (took a few classes in High School and College where I learned about aspects of law, history, and government), nor am I a historian. But I think I am on sturdy ground when I state that many of the Founding Fathers of the United States probably spent a great deal of time talking about the principles upon which this country should be built. Because we see some of their own limitations (the lack of any female, indigenous, African American, etc. voices or perspectives in the shaping of what it meant to be an citizen of the United States) in how they wrote the document that now serves as the basis for how our society functions. These limitations of the world view of an 18th century white male prevented them from building a society based on principles. What do I mean? Well in the Founding Father’s version of both the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution, rights and equality are the domain of white men only. Over time, Americans would modify these ideas to include women, indigenous peoples, African Americans, and others as it tried to establish greater equality for ALL Americans.
In short, the white men of the 1700’s were limited by their context to pursue a society and government that was founded on principles of equality, rights for all, and fairness. Because women and African Americans, at the time, were considered property. The native peoples of North, South, and Central America were considered threats to the security and safety of those same white men. My ancestors—my mother was born and raised in Colombia, and is descended from the native tribes that inhabited that part of South America—were something to be “wiped out.”
Photo by Agung Pandit Wiguna from Pexels
Because of this fact, the Founding Fathers decided it was best to make the “Rule of Law” as the foundation of society and the government. And that, as Robert Frost would say, “has made all the difference.” But not in a good way.
My argument is that it is now time for us to take a step back and begin to evaluate the laws, rules, and conduct of our citizens—not from the perspective of the rule of law, but rather from the perspective of guiding principles. The spirit of the law, if you will. We have reached a point, where I think it is time to seriously challenge the notion that our country is governed by a set of laws. Instead, I would argue, it should be governed by a set of principles.
Let me give you an example:
Most of us would agree that nobody should go hungry, nobody should have to sleep one night on a cold sidewalk in the middle of winter, and nobody should have to make a choice about if they can afford to see a doctor or to get medicine to treat a medical condition. Those are principles of fairness, equality, and justice that all of us, or at least most of us, can agree upon. And those should guide the decisions we make about laws and also inform if those laws are still up to the challenge of doing what they intended over time. Through that lens, a Universal Basic Income makes perfect sense. Again, Guy Standing does a much better job of making the case. The Universal Basic Income and, perhaps, Universal Basic Healthcare are must-haves if you operate under the principles that nobody should go hungry, be homeless, or have to choose not to get healthcare because they can’t afford it.
Since 2000, America (the whole world really) has been in a state of change, which only seems to be accelerating. This pace of change is essentially leapfrogging our outdated systems of governance, law-making, and justice through the courts. The change needed becomes almost impossible to imagine, because the laws, systems, and people that are currently in place cannot fathom changing and uphold these rigid institutions. You can argue that they have a investment and strong personal interest in keeping things the way they are. Because they were told, from their earliest days in school, that we live in society based on rules and laws.
The fatal flaw of our government, which was so badly exposed by Trump’s ascension to the top of the Republican party and will continue to play out long after he leaves office, is that the people in power are able to exploit the notion of rules and laws for their own benefit and, in many cases, significant gain. You only need look at the somewhat sad and comical farce of the Supreme Court appointments rammed through during Trump’s presidency—supported by a Republican Senate with a slim margin of majority—to see what I mean. The spirit of what the Founding Fathers intended with respect to the Supreme Court was not what you saw with the nominations of Garland (Obama’s appointee who was rejected by Republicans), Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. It just wasn’t. Presidential primaries, gerrymandering, the electoral college, a court system that only works for the rich and mostly white … the list sounds like a terrible death march to anarchy and chaos.
I have spent over twenty years working in business. Mostly technology. And guess what? Most businesses are flawed in exactly the same way. The focus on rules rather than principles creates organizations that are playing a finite game when they should be focused on the infinite game (to learn more about finite and infinite games, check out Simon Sinek). But that discussion is for another time.
I recommend that we all take a step back and re-think the WAY we want to make the world a better place. A better world will be one that has governments and organizations that function on principles, not rules or laws. Rules and laws will be the outcomes of our principles to help us maintain and support them. Every rule, and every law, should be evaluated against the guiding principle or principles that informs it. In a principle based society, that would happen regularly. We would be a world where change is not something to be feared, but something to be embraced. Something that can make us all better—lift us all up.
If we can do this, there will be a large number of people who will be very uncomfortable at first. But I guarantee you, if we pick our principles right, we will have societies that function better, are more peaceful, are places of equality, and are places that will harness the best of human nature to go to new and amazing heights. Isn’t that something we all want? The last four years are have been a preview of what we don’t want. It is time to take a new approach.
-M
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