Society 101: First Principles

Starting from the basics

In many discussions of politics and civics, we get so far along in arguments over various social theories that we lose sight of the core ideas of why we have societies and communities, and what the goals are. There are all sorts of political debates that would be moot if we started from first principles.

The groupings we use to describe political positions have often become so broad as to be nearly useless. In some cases debating various political positions are ignoring the fundamental anti-society nature of these ideas, and legitimizes them as idealogies worthy of consideration.

Socialism, communism, conservative, libertarianism, liberal, alt-right, antifa, leftists, progressives, horseshoe theory, right wing, left wing are all broad labels. Let’s set aside these labels and their baggage, and see if we can establish an understanding of common values. Then we can use those values to evaluate the ideas, goals and effectiveness of these positions.

It’s helpful to start on the same foundation, so let’s look at the core ideas that form a society.

1. Our universal human experience
   Our desire to survive, to feel safe, to be validated, and to be fulfilled are universal human desires, regardless of political or religious positions.

2. Humans are social creatures.
   As a species we form groups built on mutal self-interest to realize those desires. Our odds of survival, and often our degree of fulfillment, improve when we work together for common goals. Collaboration helps us survive at it’s core, and helps us thrive in it’s ideal.

3. We pool our resources for our mutual benefit.
   We all benefit from pooling our resources to build roads, build electrical grids, create communication networks, trade goods, build defenses, enforce fair rules, help vulnerable members, sponsor art, etc.

4. Every group requires some rules
   It’s difficult to have a mutually beneficial group without creating rules against theft, violence, fraud, etc. So we create these rules, and ways to enforce them.

5. Delegation is needed in larger groups.
   As a group grows, we find it more efficient to delegate responsibilities to others, and give them power to do the things we collectively agree are important. At a city/state/nation level, these groups are governments. We give these groups power to collect money, enforce rules, build infrastructure, reduce fraud, build safety nets, etc. At non-governmental levels, we do the same thing in companies, civic organizations, churches, etc.

6. Every group gets to decide for themselves which things are in the collective interest.
   Whether that’s pooling money to build roads, or provide a financial safety net for seniors and disabled folks, or for our collective defense. Some things we leave to personal interest, and some things we decide are important enough to be in the collective interest.

7. Every group regulates it’s priorities
   From the perspective of a civic-level group(city/state/nation), the political and economic systems are a unique blend of the things we agree should be left largely unregulated, things we think should be heavily regulated for our safety or mutual benefit, and those things which should be managed for the collective interest by the folks to whom we’ve delegated governance.

8. Every group gets to set their own priorities
   These systems/governments are built on social priorities, and most partisan disputes revolve around those priorities. These are questions every society must continually ask and answer, and for many of which there are often no one-size-fits-all answer.

   1. Who should benefit from society?

   2. Who should be protected?

   3. What is more important, personal ambition or our mutual survival and thriving?

   4. What norms do we want to promote?

   5. Which ideas do we not want promoted in public spaces and in public discourse?

   6. What actions do we want to prevent in our society?

   7. Who gets to decide these things?

   8. How much power do we want to give to our delegated government?

We try to bucket systems into neat categories like capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, or libertarianism. But it’s often painting with too broad of a brush, to the point of being almost meaningless. A country with a capitalist/”free market” economy with low corruption, limits on corporate greed, and strong safety nets is going to be vastly different in outcomes from a capitalist country rampant with corruption, unlimited hoarding of resources, and few safety nets. Lumping them together brings us no closer to truly understanding capitalism. The same could be said about any broad political or economic system.

That doesn’t mean these designations aren’t useful. But we should recognize the limits of only engaging with broad idealogies, especially when everyone has a different idea in their head about what those idealogies mean and their ideal implementation.

To be more useful, let’s look at core principles and evaluate them. That will help us to better understand the broader ideas in the context of the core principles under their umbrella. If you define things as having a different set of core principles, you’ll still be able to apply the relevant principles to your definition.