Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The SUBTOPICS

• The Sociobiology of Liberty
• Memes and Pre-diction
• The Pros and Cons of Our Memetic Essence
• The Foundation of Human Nature
• Free-riders vs. Altruism
• Where Economics Comes From
• Where Hierarchy Comes From
• Drapetomania vs. hierarchy
• The Uses and Dangers of Human Hierarchy
• Agreed-upon Co-ordination vs. Hierarchy
• Living the Dream?
• Memetic Machines
• Why government?
• To Sum-up
• A Few Resources

Ok, So Bionic Mosquito issued a March 20, 2021 challenge to answer "An Important Social / Political / Economic Question of Our Time," based on a column of the same name by Ira Katz.

For those readers who are already beginning to yawn, you'll find this anything but boring. It may give you hope and even tick you off, maybe both at the same time - - -

The headline question from the challenge -- including the bolding -- is as follows:

Is it inherent in the nature of free market capitalism for the most wealthy individuals and/or corporations to capture government power? --Mr. Katz

The two following sentences from the introductory paragraph also caught my attention - - -

I believe hierarchy is a natural and necessary development of a functioning economy and society. But it seems to me most people believe in "equality" and that the dangers I have described are the results of capitalism itself. --Mr. Katz

Except for the "it seems to me most people believe in 'equality' " phrase, I almost completely disagree, and suggest that that notion is not only incorrect but dangerous to liberty.

More specificaly, although it is indeed "natural" in certain limited contexts and circumstances, I disagree that hierarchy is a ... necessary development of a functioning economy and society. Hierarchy is not generally natural or useful for us humans and in fact, if accepted generally it indeed poses serious dangers to us humans, our happiness and well-being.

This is indeed important because, as Mr. Katz points out in the next paragraph, if we are to maintain a free society in the face of the full-court-press in progress to destroy it, "Mass disobedience is critically needed so people must be convinced that freedom is the basis of our civilization and the free market is one of the pillars that maintain it."

As it turns out, most of our human nature is indeed designed specifically for freedom and liberty, as is any advanced, happy, human civilization, with exchange as the absolutely necessary foundation. That's what "The Sociobiology of Liberty" in the title to this piece is about.

A preview: Hierarchy is a primitive "might-makes-right" mating tactic, nearly always unsuitable for entities that count on decentralized information and knowledge for survival. And "equality" among small-group humans refers mainly to "political equality" only. That is, no one has coercive power over anyone else.

OK, I'm probably going to stumble over a couple of sacred cows with my clumsy clodhoppers, but I mean well, so I hope you'll be tolerant - - -

First -- and Ayn Rand notwithstanding -- I don't use the word "capitalism" if I can possibly avoid it. Since there are two different phrases using the word but referring to two almost diametrically opposed systems -- those would be "free-market capitalism" versus "state capitalism" -- the word is often terminally confusing to the folks we want to reach. Especially if we fail to include the necessary prefix.

Further, the current system which is regularly mis-described as free-market capitalism -- and is ass-u-me_d by most folks as the model if the prefix word is missing -- is clearly much closer to state capitalism in practice, especially at the upper reaches - - -

"There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians" --Dwayne Andreas, ADM CEO, Mother Jones, July/August 1995

"Capitalism" of either kind also implies that folks who accumulate and employ wealth should get special privileges. The fact they possess wealth should give them privilege enough. They should, of course, get the same property protection etc. as everyone.

So, thanks to a clue originally from James Libertarian Burns, instead of "capitalism" I use "voluntary exchange."

If you haven't adopted this replacement for "capitalism," you might want to consider it. It's pretty hard -- though not impossible -- to disrespect or misunderstand "voluntary exchange" and so it automatically removes a lot of trash and garbage from the path we hope to get folks to follow.

If you haven't yet, try it, I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

OK, now for the hard stuff - - -

Is it inherent in the nature of free market capitalism for the most wealthy individuals and/or corporations to capture government power?

I would translate that as - - -

Is it inherent in the nature of voluntary exchange for the most wealthy individuals and/or corporations to capture government power?

My quick and dirty answer is, "It is inherent in capitalism but not so much in a system of voluntary exchange.

That's because in a capitalist system, the most wealthy individuals often become -- and particularly stay -- wealthy because they "capture government power" and use it to stifle upstart competition since otherwise - - -

"Whenever you see a business that's done the same thing for a long time, a new guy can come in and do it better. I guarantee it." --Michael Bloomberg on the cover of Forbes, November 25, 1991

Without that government partnership -- which they now arrogantly and accuratey call "public-private partnership," formerly known as "fascism" -- new guys would keep things under control by coming in, doing it better, and eating their lunch.

There are still difficult subliminal questions there, and after pointing a couple of them out, I'm going to leave them in your capable hands and jump to what I call The Sociobiology of Liberty, which is an attempt to excavate the foundations of what makes us human from various sources and put them in some sort of coherent order.

Partly by coincidence, the results of that attempt shed a lot of light on Mr. Katz' challenge and our current (2022 A.D.) unacceptable circumstances.

The questions that I'm going to duck are:

1. "Are corporations necessary or even desirable?" Their ubiqutous deployment is historically recent. They count on governments to officially ratify their imaginary existence and government courts to accept their reason-to-be, which is protecting incorporated folks from liability. Should there be such protection?

2. "Is government necessary?" If so, should government courts accept and ratify the protections of corporations and wealthy folks from liability? Is that protection really necessary to enable enterprise? How would it change the culture if such protection was no longer legitimized?

Keep in mind J.J. Hill built The Great Northern Railway without government subsidies or protections, in fact, in the face of government interference.

So, in response to Mr. Katz' question, if both corporations and governments exist, it is certainly inherent in that context for corporations to attempt, almost certainly successfully over time, to capture government's coercive power. Wealthy individuals just for themselves too, but usually with less success and fewer ill-effects.

In addition to protection from liability, these entities would also like subsidies of various sorts that often come along with the liability protection package, especially including various kinds of protections from competition -- and taxpayer financed subsidies of various types as well.

This is up to and including forcible suppression of competitors which is extremely difficult to arrange without using government threats and/or its force-wielding apparatus.

This is my favorite example of an entity using government for protection from competition - - -

The Russian Orthodox Church got a bill through the Russian Parliament prohibiting foreign missionaries because Billy Graham, etc. are luring Russians away from the Russian church. Yeltsin hadn't signed the bill yet. --CNN, July 15, 1993 [The bill or a similar one subsequently became law. -lrw]

In fact, this sort of use of government protection -- almost always disguised as "regulation" -- is the rule rather than the exception. You can find a few other interesting examples here: UNCOMMON SENSE: What government regulation is REALLY used for

So I agree in principle with Mr. Mosquito ;> -- the direct answer to Mr. Katz' question is, "If you just must have a government -- and there are reasons -- you can almost certainly take Frederic Bastiat's observation (directly below) as the guidance it will be following over the long run like this - - -"

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --Frederic Bastiat

Can you think of any examples?

Of course, if that government is a well-designed Republic, it has now been proven that it can resist degradation -- OK, well, wholesale degradation anyway -- caused by that process identified by Mr. Bastiat directly above -- for approximately 200 years.

Nonetheless, despite the degradation, in a pure market context, large voluntary-exchange entities -- corporations or otherwise -- are mostly desirable. And, if they haven't tapped-in to coercive government, they're "moral" to the extent that those participating, either with labor or capital, are at liberty to join or leave, usually under contractual obligations and/or less formal agreements. Stock and bond sales are the usual path for the liberty of capital to come and go.

Remember, J.J. Hill built The Great Northern Railway without government subsidies or protections, in fact, in the face of government interference.

But the problem in such enterprises is the damage they may cause which involuntarily involves otherwise non-involved folks and entities outside contractual agreements, including those completely unconnected with the enterprise. Those are traditionally called "externalities." Union Carbide in Bhopal, India, is a classic example.

What do you do about those?

The Sociobiology of Liberty

OK, now that I've ducked those questions - - -

The Sociobiology of Liberty (SBOL) is relevant to Mr. Katz' observations because, among other things, it illuminates just what role hierarchy played in human evolution and whether it's useful or not today, and if so, in which form.

To start with, SBOL identifies why, unlike for nearly all other members of the animal kingdom, hierarchy -- and thus "might makes right" -- is nearly always inappropriate for us humans but nonetheless permeates and shapes so much of modern societies.

It further provides a Big Picture of a huge percentage of why we are as we are and a relatively clear, though not necessarily easily traveled, pathway out of the mess unnaturally large imaginary groups of individuals such as nations, corporations, etc. get themselves into.

I'm pretty sure many readers here are already well aware of much of what follows but stick with me, I suspect the way it's stitched together will surprise you, in most cases, pleasantly - - -

Memes and Pre-diction

Unlike nearly all other animals, we humans count on our mental and symbolic capacities and communicating and sharing them -- rather than on brute force or some variation -- for our survival. We can call that our memetic capacity.

That phrase is taken directly from Richard Dawkins' trail-blazing presentation in his "The Selfish Gene," introducing "memes" to the world as the mental equivalent of transmissible genes.

While closely related to the 2020 A.D. era pop terminology, the two don't quite mesh: Prof. Dawkins expected memes to be successfully tested against reality -- as they were with our ancestors -- before winning wide circulation, not to be merely the result of random internet bloviation.

In particular, using our memetic capacity -- in non-bloviation mode -- to anticipate the short and long term future -- and often sharing the results -- is its main survival value and is largely what powers our survival success.

Organisms from trees to squirrels count on anticipating the future to survive.

Trees? The deciduous ones, anticipating winter, drop their leaves and withdraw their sap to their roots. Squirrels hide nuts, dogs bury bones, bears gorge so they have enough fat to hibernate.

Although we rarely think of it that way, using our memetic capacity, we just anticipate better, more flexibly, and much more often. We call our refined mode of anticipating the future, "pre-diction," in that it usually involves the meme-system we call language: Pre--DICTION, that is, speaking of something before it happens. And acting on that pre-diction, sometimes preparing for it.

But of course, as seminal quantum physicist Niels Bohr, seminal Austiran-school economist Ludwig von Mises and seminal baseball catcher Yogi Berra all put it, "Pre-diction is very difficult, especially of the future."

The Pros and Cons of Our Memetic Essence

The next important point is that, nearly all other members of the animal kingdom inherit most of their operating behaviors. We don't. For example, while most hoofed animals can walk a few minutes after birth and run shortly thereafter, it takes us approximately three months to just learn to crawl.

In fact, since we don't inherit them, we have to learn most of our "operating system" and programs -- which are mostly memetic. The advantage to this is we are extremely flexible in how, and therefore where, we live -- which is why we humans populated nearly all ecological niches all over the earth well before the dawn of civilization.

So Madrigal knows which herbs help heal wounds -- and how to find and use them. Muckluck has a knack for finding the safest thin-ice for fishing holes. Gaud can always find that hidden water-hole during the semi-annual desert crossing.

The big down-side is that that memetic operating system, programming -- and each individual's accumulated experience and knowledge -- are, since they live in individual brains, perishable.

This was a serious problem among our ancestors. In other words, our ancestral operational programming and essential data-base were learned, de-centralized, and distributed among all those around them. This imposed two requirements - - -

The Foundation of Human Nature

1. Since the young had to learn the survival etc. ropes that most animals inherit, memetic-based survival requires a long childhood and a lot of help for the young to learn. "It takes a village to raise a child," etc.

2. We had to keep each other alive. If something happend to Madrigal, Muckluck or Gaud, it could endanger the whole group. In fact, since everyone had unique -- and often essential and irreplaceable skills, knowledge, and experience. Before the printing press and internet, every individual was an essential and irreplaceable repository of often original knowledge and information.

Those two rather obvious observations are not only the foundation of The Sociobiology of Liberty (SBOL) but also, as I think you'll come to agree, the basis of much of human nature.

Especially keep in mind that our ancestors' key knowledge and information was de-centralized and distributed amongst those around them and often unique to each individual, making everyone essential to everyone else.

Free-riders vs. Altruism

This was a situation Mother Nature -- some prefer to call HER "The Process of Biological Evolution by Natural Selection" -- couldn't ignore and so SHE gave us a set of instinctive behaviors we normally call "altruism" so we would be sure to keep each other alive.

However "altruism" comes with its own problems, one in particular. It's what folks in various branches of academia call the free-rider vs. altruism problem.

Feeding the hungry is the easiest part to understand. If you give food to others, you're less able to feed yourself.

Free-riders are those folks who would have a tendency to take food hand-outs etc. without giving anything in return and they would be more likely to survive extreme conditions than would those unconditionally helpful altruistic folks. That is, if they really were unconditionally helpful and altruistic.

The obvious theoretical outcome would be that over time, altruistic genes would, essentially, commit suicide.

Where Economics Comes From

So Mother Nature gave us economics. Yes, SHE really did. Research shows that toddlers as young as three years old don't forget a debt.

So, as the above research uncovered, we come equipped with a little subliminal accounter that automatically keeps track of things. You give me some cream for my strawberries today, I give you some huckleberries to go with your cream tomorrow.

With reciprocal trade in place -- or as some left-coasters like to call it, reciprocal-altruism -- and our little subliminal accounter on duty, any potential free-rider is quickly recognized as taking but not giving back.

What? No huckleberries?

A shirking soccer mom finds herself out of the car pool. Harry -- who never buys a round -- finds himself drinking alone.

On the other hand, we don't mind buying drinks for Donald who just lost his job. We don't expect him to buy but know when he gets his next gig, he'll try to make good.

This is quite obviously the essential genetic basis of trade and all levels of what we call "economics."

Where Hierarchy Comes From

But there's "hierarchy" in the ointment - - -

Hierarchy comes directly from "might makes right" which is still almost certainly Mother Nature's main evolutionary mating tool. SHE wants the biggest, baddest alpha homey on the block passing the genes that make him the biggest baddest homey on the block on to the next generation.

So SHE wants the biggest baddest alpha male to breed because "might makes right" is what makes his genus and species "fit" -- as in "survival of the fit" -- and best able to survive.

Except that doesn't work for us humans who count way more on our memetic capacity and especially using it to anticipate the future. In it's most formal configuration, we call that "pre-diction," remember.

A little bigness and badness is still good but it's been seriously deprecated in favor of not injuring or killing-off those essential parts of our operating systems and data base which exist in each person's brain and mind with dangerous hierarchical dominance behaviors.

If Gaud gets killed or injured in a drunken brawl or fight over Madrigal, how will we find that water hole? And if he's injured, we have to keep him alive which takes time and resources. Ditto his opponent.

Drapetomania vs. hierarchy

Since everyone has pieces of the puzzle, it's also important not to have the biggest baddest homey dominating everyone. That would regularly prevent the appropriate knowledge from being deployed in the appropriate situation -- and cut off imaginative and creative new behavior as well.

That's clearly where the absolute necessity of free-speech comes from - - -

That quiet little nerd just figured out how to create a fire-god in piles of dry leaves using that hard arrowhead stuff - - - but Bruto, Zuck and Google are trying to shut him up!

So to make sure we didn't get taken over by one biggest baddest dominant hierarchical viewpoint, Mother also gave most of us a dominance immune system, sometimes called drapetomania or, as it's been negatively mis-labeled by the psychiatric guild and would-be controllers, O.D.D. or Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

That is, although we'll co-operate under appropriate conditions, we humans seriously dislike being told what to do without our consent, especially by so-called Authorities. Our ancestors simply wouldn't put up with that at all.

Here's how our undiluted genetic drapetomania takes care of inappropriate hierarchy in small ancestral groups - - -

There was a "minimum necessary force" sort of approach to discouraging those who were disposed to try to dominate others outside the family.

The first and simplest tactic was gossip followed by criticism and ridicule. When that didn't work, the next step was to just simply ignore directives or potential commands. Here's an example:

"Briggs (1970:55-58) tells us in detail how religious services were conducted in iglus [igloos] and how Inuttiag (in the role of religious coordinator) tried at certain points to get his tiny congregation to stand. The community initially conformed, but then more and more people began to disregard his orders until the majority were ignoring him. At that point, he simply stopped trying to command them."(Boehm 1999:54)

This also illustrates just how sensitive members of small ancestral groups are to being manipulated or told what to do by others. Is it really a big deal to stand on cue for a church service? It was for our ancestors.

I'd bet you have that same built-in drapetomania?

If you're dubious about this, you can find a robust presentation in The HI-JACKING of Civilization, Chapter 3, Hierarchy and Leadership? Not in MY Group You Don't!

The main purpose of that 14 years of government-form, Prussian inspired so-called "education" -- particularly the "hidden curriculum" -- is to train that drapetomania out of us when we're kids so we'll make docile little "human resources" when we grow up. You can also trace a significant part of that government curriculum to the infamous "Indian Schools" which originated with the disgraceful Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian Industrial School.

But despite the current misguided pro-hierarchy cultural bias, as you now know, drapetomania is a good thing not a bad thing and should be cultivated and appreciated.

The Uses and Dangers of Human Hierarchy

None-the-less, remember, Mother Nature built hierarchy deeply into the genome of the animal kingdom and we haven't been spared that gift. There are useful functions for it, even in us humans, but it's also hazardous.

The most obvious place it emerges is in mating behavior and family ecology, which, when done right and gently, works just fine. There's also a much darker and related form that can emerge, rather shockingly dramatized in the series, "Outlander" for example.

But there is one important hard-core use for "hierarchy" that, while important, is also what makes it hazardous for us moderns:

EMERGENCY!!! The essential characteristic of an emergency is that most folks don't have the BIG picture viewpoint, memetic tools or resources to understand, anticipate, or deal with what's happening RIGHT NOW. But maybe someone does.

If someone does, they should tell us what to do, demonstrating by an authoritative manner of speech and posture, their confidence in their "read" of the situation -- and we should temporarily suspend our drapetomania and follow someone's authoritative suggestions and orders without hesitation.

The thing is, immediately after the EMERGENCY! is over, there should be no more "orders" and our healthy drapetomania should immediately reassert itself so all that diverse knowledge spread out among us -- and new and imaginative behavior -- is free to emerge and come into play.

Emergencies aren't supposed to last, if for no other reason than other folks come to understand what's going on too and it's no longer appropriate to have only one person calling the shots and limiting responses.

However, quite obviously, folks who have an urge to control others like emergencies and may want to linger in control and even manufacture a few if and when they can. And if they can take over or create a "government," well, hog heaven! It's much much easier to take one over than to create one.

Agreed-upon Co-operative Co-ordination vs. Hierarchy

Despite perceptions to the contrary, for us humans in most cases, hierarchy is clunky and extremely inefficient, even, if not especially in warfare. -- and, especially given our nature and memetic abilities, there's a much more effective alternative: agreed-upon co-operative co-ordination.

Although there's an extremely important difference between agreed-upon co-operative co-ordination versus hierarchy, to us very seriously over-hierarchied and emergencied-up moderns, especially after being subjected to 14 years of the "hidden curriculum," that extremely important difference probably seems subtle. We may not recognize it at all. It's obvious, however, when you know where to look - - -

We can find iconic blueprints and examples of how centralized control among us humans -- more accurately described as co-ordination rather than "hierarchy" -- is best done by observing quarterbacks, fire-chiefs and chief surgeons.

They may guide things but they rarely demand because that triggers drapetomania and messes-up the flow of information. So, of necessity, folks co-operate rather than take orders.

In U.S. football, the tight end tells the quarterback he's been getting two steps ahead of the other team's safety (defensive back) and the quarterback calls the play. The fireman inside the burning building rescuing the little girl radios the fire-chief that he needs water on the right side, the chief tells the hosemen. In the operating room, the chief surgeon listens to the anesthesiologist who, because she monitors the patient's vitals, guides the operation. Etc.

So I'd respectfully suggest to Mr. Katz that it's not hierarchy that makes modern culture and enterprise work -- if you really want to suggest it IS working -- it's this kind of agreed-upon, often contractual, voluntary co-operation that still marks the most successful organizations and mostly enabled J.J. to build The Great Northern.

Which style you're dealing with -- voluntary co-operation or coercive hierarchy -- is pretty obvious in the style of communication: Gentle co-operation which is often de-emphasized or even unnoticed vs. barked "orders" and variants where, as in an emergency, being noticed is the most necessary part of the package.

But there's also the subliminal coercive content that permeates modern cultures. The most hypocritical and revealing is when a LEO (Law Enforcement Officer -- no longer a Peace Officer) asks if you're going to "cooperate," by which he means "follow my orders."

"Ok," tell him, "Co-operate means 'work together,' so let's co-operate. You tell me your name, where you live and show me your driver's license then I'll show you mine."

We moderns are only slightly aware of these congenital chronically inappropriately hierarchical folks and their inappropriate coercive behavior and intimidating subliminal pressure. We've been conditioned to think it's normal.

On the other hand, our small-group ancestors, with their drapetomania in tact and deeply incorporated into their culture, were completely aware of these folks, wouldn't tolerate their behavior, and sometimes even had special names for them.

Certain first american groups call them "Wiindigo." A Yupik group calls them "kunlangeta," and when asked what a tribe would do about a "kunlangeta," the answer was, "Somebody would have pushed him off the ice when nobody else was looking."

We pale-face also have a name that sometimes fits: "Psychopath" -- or, a little milder, "sociopath."

And in fact, there are about 1% of us who indeed have this urge to control, and, since we're great imitators, there are others of us who learn to mimic this inappropriate hierarchical behavior. They're sometimes called "situational psychopaths."

And some of us end up acting as situational psychopaths because we're threatened and conned into a military where we kill, not to protect the state but "to protect our brother soldier and thus the state." And if we non-psychopaths, situational or otherwise, get involved in the violent part of psychopathy, we often pay a heavy life-long emotional price, now recognized as PTSD.

Because, remember, we are designed to keep each other alive to preserve our essential distributed operating system and data base and killing is in direct opposition to that goal. In fact, Mother Nature equipped most of us with an automatic anti-violence "immune system" which makes it very difficult even to train us to kill.

Living the Dream?

The difference in living in modern coercive hierarchical societies versus our natural, genetic -- of necessity voluntarily co-operative -- ancestral cultures is difficult to explain but the results aren't - - -

Happiness is more generally and equally diffus'd among Savages than in civilized societies. No European who has tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies. --Benjamin Franklin, 1770, Images of native America in the writings of Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine

Mary Rowlandson was taken captive [by "indians"]...There were a number of women captives who either defended themselves, negotiated, or, extraordinarily, about a third of female captives actually chose to stay with their Indian captors, preferred the Indian life. --Author and Social Critic Susan Faludi, Democracy NOW!

I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 16 Jan. 1787

Maybe this from American Indian Activist Russell Means, which reveals a major difference in subliminal outlook on life, can help put that in a more modern context - - -

By then, I was beginning to form an opinion about working in America. Most of my jobs were fun and there were many wonderful people among my coworkers, yet so many of them were unhappy. They couldn't wait for the whistle to blow at the end of the day. Too many of them absolutely hated what they were doing, and griped about it incessantly. Everyplace I ever worked, what most people wanted was their paychecks and the weekends off, plus holidays and vacations. Mostly they did just enough to keep from getting fired. ... I thought, what a weird way to live. --Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread

Not to insult us humans, but based on the above, the following unexpected development in Dr. Robert Sapolsky's experiences studying a particular Baboon troop may provide an extremely useful gestalt in understanding our current chronic modern situation, involving as it does, massive inappropriate hierarchy - - -

Memetic Machines

There's a familiar but usually less than fully appreciated aspect of our memetic capacity that has momentous consequences at many levels. For convenience, I call those phenomena "memetic machines."

We understand and recognize "memetic machines" on the surface as things like corporations, nations, even large clubs or religions. But, because we ass-u-me they are always run as hierarchies, there's one aspect of these memetic entities that we rarely consider and even more rarely take into account.

I'm going to defer to the following four short video clips and three text clips which pretty thoroughly explain things - - -

"...by the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions. You may find you can get away with virtual presidents, virtual prime ministers, virtual everything. --U.S. President Bill Clinton, 1998 Monopoly Men

George Chapman & Ezra Taft Benson vs. the Mormon Machine

In the early 1980s, George Chapman was the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Utah and an interesting acquaintance of mine. He had become friends with Ezra Taft Benson, Agriculture Secretary under Eisenhower and head elder of the Mormon Church at that time. During that period, there was a lot of Mormon agitation and violence against gays, including at least one suspected murder.

The strongest Mormon doctrine against this anti-gay behavior in George's opinion was "Free Agency" -- forcing someone to be moral is not the way to salvation because they haven't freely made that choice themselves. Further, it is immoral of the person doing the forcing.

George first asked Mr. Benson if he and the other Elders believed in "Free Agency" and if George understood it correctly. Mr. Benson affirmed both points. Then George made his point about attempting to force gays to be otherwise and asked if his interpretation of the doctrine was correct. Again Elder Benson affirmed.

George then asked why the elders didn't issue an edict declaring that good Mormons, in accordance with the doctrine of "Free Agency," should leave gays to seek their own voluntary deliverance and thus clear everyone's path to salvation.

Benson fixed George with his trademark penetrating stare and asked, "What do you think would happen if I and the other elders -- and we do agree with you -- issued such an edict?"

Knowing the anti-gay pulse of most Mormons at the time, George said he knew the answer immediately. "Almost no one would change their behavior -- and the church membership would likely replace you with other elders who didn't take such a principled but unpopular position."

Once again Mr. Benson affirmed.

Clearly, if the Mormon "Council of Elders," can't control the Mormon Church, it is effectively nearly independent of most of the flesh-and-blood individuals involved in it, and we can usefully describe it as an "independent distributed memetic machine."

This effect is especially significant in the case of intensive use of IT . When the World Trade Towers in New York City were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, the management and staff of Cantor-Fitzgerald, a key U.S. Treasury bond-selling firm, lost an estimated 70% of its personnel. Yet when the markets reopened six days later, Cantor-Fitzgerald was back in business.

It's the essential nature of large memetic machines, especially ones that aren't controlled by voluntary exchange, which is the main source of the problems we confront. Sort of like this - - -

One other notable aspect of memetic machines: According to British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar, based on our brain capacity, we're limited to having stable relationships with only about 150 people, which is known as Dunbar's Number. If so, any group larger than about 150 individuals cannot be automatically handled by our built-in genetic social navigation programs. For that reason, I call such groups pseudo-groups and they require a different set of hueristics to deal with.

Why government?

FWIW, from my viewpoint, the main reason you might want to imagine a government into existence -- or allow one to evolve -- is, first, because of that 1% of us who have strong hierarchical tendencies.

"Socrates: And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task. For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight." >--Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, The Divided Line, The Republic, Book 6

Unfortunately, that 1% do love the task and often prove it by "seeking office."

As the theme of the movie and series "The Highlander" puts it, the essence of hierarchy is "There can be only one."

Because governments attract them, if culture doesn't provide "the one" -- or at least a place-holder -- a lot of the inappropriate would-be psychopathic hierarchists will struggle with one another to get into that top position, creating wide-spread havoc.

However, if you accept a government as the prophylactic for that situation - - -

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force, and like fire, makes a dangerous servant and a fearful master." --George Washington

"The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence." --Mohandas K. Gandhi

On the bright side, taking the 1971 date that Nixon "closed the gold window" as the arbitrary marker, the memetic machine known as The United States of America has proven that a fairly well designed Republic -- definitely NOT a "democracy" -- can mostly hold the violent evil forces, inherent in government, at bey for approximately 200 years.

The weak spot in the U.S. Constitution turned out to be The Interstate Commerce clause. Can "we" improve things and maybe even do better?

---

To Sum-up

By far the main determinant of human nature is our extensive dependence on our memetic capacity, particularly for anticipating the future. That capacity in turn depends on the often unique and always perishable information that's destributed among those around us and thus, by nature, decentralized.

Because of this, The Process of Biological Evolution gave us "altruism" so we would keep each other alive and thus preserve our distributed, decentralized, data-base.

Mother Nature also gave us an innate little accounter to keep free-riders -- who would otherwise smother altruism -- under control. That innate accounter is the basis of "economics" at all levels.

"Hierarchy" is Mother Nature's ancient might-makes-right mating tactic to see that the biggest baddest homey on the block passes his genes on to the next generation.

Since we survive much more by our memetic capacity, hierarchy is nearly always damaging and inappropriate for human survival.

First, hierarchical dominance behavior endangers the lives of those who engage in it and thus the part of the data-base they carry -- and if injured, burdens the group who must try to keep them alive.

Second, demanding obedience to one main idea -- sometimes temporarily appropriate during an emergency -- hierarchy regularly stifles the use of the decentralized information that's distributed throughout the group.

Even though 14 years of Prussian-inspired government-form "education" with it's "hidden curriculum" attempts to stamp it out, Mother Nature gave us drapetomania -- we'll co-operate but won't put up with being told what to do -- to keep hierarchical memetic dominance under control.

For us humans, co-ordination by voluntarily agreed-upon co-operation is the most efficient way to use our distributed knowledge and information. and how the most successful enterprises -- and societies -- are organized.

Nonetheless, about 1% of us have hierarchical tendencies, and in groups larger than Dunbar's Number, that 1% can overcome our natural dominance immune system, and, over time, shape organizations and societies into hierarchical forms. Which is now happening to the United States of America.

I would suggest that it's the above understanding of human nature that will convince people "...that freedom is the basis of our civilization and the free market is one of the pillars that maintain it" and may thus enable the "mass disobedience" that Mr. Katz suggests is "critically needed."

A Few Resources

Below is a list of a few of the pieces that provided many of the insights and details that led to The Sociobiology of Liberty and this "big picture" synopsis piece.

-What Went Wrong With the World-wide Socialist Revolutions?

-Where "Liberal" and "Conservative" REALLY Come From

-What You Can Learn About the "Green New Deal" from Thanksgivng

-What You Mean "We," Paleface?

-It's Been Morphed Into a "Democracy" So What Else Would You Expect?

- It's the 4th of July! Why Is Democracy Destroying the World?

- Republic or Democracy - LewRockwell

- School vs. the Gateless Gate: Fixing the Damage

You can find a very rough draft of "The HI-JACKING of Civilization," the work that led up to The Sociobiology of Liberty, HERE. Pay no attention to "AT THIS TIME ONLY THE MATERIAL THROUGH CHAPTER 7, What's Wrong With Hierarchy, IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE!!" Even the incomplete and draft chapters are now there as of -March 23, 2021.

Given Cancel Culture and censorship these days, you might want to download a few of 'em.

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HERE for updates, additions, comments, and corrections.

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L. Reichard White [send him mail] taught physics and the philosophy of science, designed and built a house, ran for Nevada State Senate, served two terms on the Libertarian National Committee, managed a theater company, etc. For the next few decades, he supported his writing habit by beating casinos at their own games. His hobby, though, is explaining things he wishes someone had explained to him. You can find a few of his other explanations listed here.