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March 29, 2006
Thoughts : Power and unintended consequences
Everyone has some set of ideas in their head for “how the world should work”. These range from opinions on deep moral issues governing how people should behave to practical matters like store return policies to mundane things like how words should be pronounced. Some of these ideas are informed by our religious or philosophical views. Some are informed by our sense of logic and efficiency. And some, whether we admit it or not, are informed by self interest (enlightened or otherwise). The result is that our separate visions for the “ideal world” are all different. Common ground can be found between groups of people; but differences always exist. This is a problem for governments that consider themselves benevolent because there is no one set of policies which will satisfy everyone.
What’s more, our natural tendency is that to the extent to which we have control of our environment, we try to order it to conform to how we think things should be. This is often not a matter of conscious plotting and conspiracy, human nature leads us to do it subconsciously. The manager who is a morning person schedules key meetings in the morning. They do so without the intent to “make” everyone else morning people, they just act in accordance with their own internal view of how thing should work. It takes an individual with extraordinary self awareness and restraint to avoid using their opportunities to reshape their environment in this way.
Thus giving an individual power often has unexpected consequences as they consciously or subconsciously take the opportunity presented by that power to reorder the world around them. Thus giving someone power almost always results in unintended and unexpected consequences.
Lord Acton is noted as saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”; but I think that is a misrepresentation of the true scope of the problem. It is certainly true that to the extent to which an individual’s view of how the world should work is driven by self interest; that given power, they will use that power for their self interest. However, in my observation it is just as likely that an individual’s view of how the world should work is driven by religious or moral opinions and that they will use that power for what they at least would view as the general good. They may not do this as a deliberate, conscious act; but rather their natural tendency to want to see the world be a certain way will lead them to actions which have that effect. The problem of course is that only a minority of people will agree that the result of these actions is in fact a better world.
It is for this reason that we must be very careful what power we give to the government. The agents of any government are likely to be a diverse collection of individuals whose ideal visions of the world will reflect that diversity. Given the opportunity presented by power, most will lack the self awareness and restraint to avoid using that power to make the world conform (to the extent their power allows them) to their vision. It does not take conspiracy or even deliberate intent for this to happen, just human nature. The result is that giving power to governments always results in unintended and unexpected uses of that power.
Give government the power to detain people without due process, and people will be detained for reasons other than what you intend. Give government the power to examine private communications and communication will be examined for reasons other than what you intend. Often these reasons will be well meaning, intended for what the agent of the government sees as the general good; but there will always be agents whose sense of the common good is different from the view of the majority of citizens and there will always be agents whose view of how the world should be is driven, at least in part, by self interest.
This effect can be limited by constraining the power and how it can be used, but it can never be eliminated entirely. Given the nature of the problem, the best possible constraint is to require several diverse people to agree when power is used. Given that their opinions on how the world should work are unlikely to be the same, the chance of agreement to use power in an unexpected way is small. This is why rules like judicial review and writs of habeas corpus are useful limits on government and dangerous when waved.
It is for this reason that the current situation in the US concerns me. Too much power is being given to the government with too few checks and balances. It is inevitable that this power will be misused – not as part of some vast conspiracy, but by individuals who subconsciously see the opportunity to make the world closer to what they think it should be, whether for reasons they would see (if they were conscious of what they were doing) as the common good, or personal interest. It is in my opinion a dangerous state of affairs.
Posted by Steven at March 29, 2006 11:13 AM
