One of democracy's fatal flaws is its exploitation in population growth, depopulation and disenfranchisement.
Introduction
As a corollary of our thought experiment on the Sea-People’s Citizen Assembly Scenario, we consider how democracy foments population growth races (or depopulation, or disenfranchisement). See for example Northern Ireland, Israel, total war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, Jim Crow, nativism, denial of votes for women.
The outcome of Population Races hangs in the balance
In many cases, there is an assumption that people from certain demographics will vote in a predictably derivative way. Many political parties are set up to represent an interest group, or at least claim to be doing so. This could be a religion, a working class, a racist/nativist group, a pensioners party, a party of (aspirational or overt) riches, and so on. Or a geographical distinction, perhaps with a separatist goal.
By manipulating demographics, if other means like gerrymandering aren't enough, an electoral majority or at least plurality of seats may be sufficient to gain power for a party that represents a segment of the electorate. This could mean a long-term strategy of high birth rates, or disenfranchising opponents, or making use of concentrations or dilutions of population, or moving demographic groups in or out of areas. In the past, various requisites (like property-owning requirements, sex, age, ancestry, literacy tests and so on) have been used to manufacture an electorate, deny citizenship, or deny voters at polling booths.
At the more extreme end, this could mean settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, forced sterilisation, culturecide, ecocide and genocide. All of which have been done in so-called democracies.
Conclusion
Yet another essential flaw in democracy, a political system which can be expressed through contesting populations. This is not a flaw of biocracy, a political system which is fundamentally concerned with how populations can coexist peacefully and fruitfully.
That is, there are no 'Good Guys' as any class, faction, faith, ideology, nation etc.
Introduction
It may be very difficult to build popular support for a movement or party without flattering at least one set of people. And to create contrast, the flipside is often demonising, patronising or ignoring Others.
There are no 'Good Guys'
Valorisation and Heroisation
Political parties, movements, factions, religions, activist groups are typically (and perhaps nearly always) partisan in character.
Nationalists spin myths of their compatriots' glorious past. Right-wing populists imagine their 'pure people'. Religions for the divinely chosen, favoured or rewarded. Class war activists proclaim the virtues of the working class, or on the other side the ruling class. Erotic alliances paint their membership in pretty colours or whitewash. New subcultures emerge with their own positive spins, grievances, othering and supremacy cults. Old established cultures like European imperialists perform primitive ancestor worship, whether direct descendants or not, and their racism reverberates around the world.
Such classes are thus valorised: bigged-up as a group, leading to well-known in-group and out-group tendencies. Mythical pasts are favoured over accurate histories. And individuals from these groups are selected for heroisation: hagiographies rather than warts-and-all portraits. Narratives about victims, martyrs, convenient villains, glorious struggles, national or endemic characteristics are created and pushed.
The Biocratic Alternative
The point of good examples is to abstract from, not idolize.
Biocracy rejects theist and humanist hierarchies in Nature. Humans have learnt to live poisonously on Earth. Therefore humans should learn from other lifeforms how to govern better. These lessons learnt, humans can contribute positively to living planet self-government.
So other hierarchical categories, such as favoured animal 'good guys', 'vermin', 'weeds' and so much be rethought, rejected. We can still keep distinctions between invasive species and aliens which disrupt and degrade ecosystems, often carried by human agency or carelessness. Unhealthy monocultures are the result of human favoritism too.
The aim of biocratic governance, as we have described elsewhere, is the promotion and maintenance of Health at every level. And this does mean defending humans, other lifeforms, their environment and planetary systems from 'Bad Guys' (without justifying collective punishment). It is reasonable to prioritise defence against ecocide and work down from there.
Conclusion
The democratic partisan is reduced to slandering opponents and defending the indefensible, flattering a powerbase with word-bribes and ego-stroking.
The biocratic planet-defender transcends poisonous partisanship and rejects the idea of 'good guys', favouring clear-sighted self-reflection and universalist sciences wherever these come from, in the service of (planetary) life.
This is not an argument that Life has any intrinsic or sacred value. Instead it is an argument that creating value is a function of life.
Life generates value
Thought Experiment
Imagine a barren world on the other side of the Universe where humans will never set foot. Now imagine that simple life appears here for the first time. It requires food: a new value is applied to some material subset of the world. Other values appear as life develops, evolves, complexity and variation increase. As life, and the behaviour of living organisms emerges, so do values.
Implications
As an organism grows, its range of values are likely to grow (up to a point, maybe), and even change over its lifetime, and through its encounters and experiences. The values of a hunting predator are likely to be characteristically different from that of a grazing herbivore, say; of a social animal compared with a solitary lifeform.
But the point is that value emerges from life, not as a theoretical or imposed perspective, but organically and instrinsically, as a natural process.
Conclusion
Life, itself an emergent phenomena, generates value, as an emergent property or behaviour. These values may be simple or complex, stable or unstable, specific or experiential. One could even define life as a value-generating phenomena, although I suspect this would be a problematic reach. As would claiming only life generates value. But as an observation, I think accurate enough.
One of democracy's fatal flaws is its reducibility to a battle of wills.
Introduction
Following our reflections on our thought experiment on the Sea-People’s Citizen Assembly Scenario, we see that democracy pits people against each other in a contest of wills. It does not consider Health at any scale. This leads to Militarism (War as a continuation of politics, not a break from it).
The outcome of Will over Health
Conclusion
Another essential flaw in democracy, that as a political system it elevates the expressed views (or will) of humans, or a subgroup of humans, over all other requirements for living together, ignoring Health. This is not a flaw of biocracy, a political system which prioritises Health.
Philosopher Peter Singer, who specialises in subjects like animal ethics, writes in Animal Liberation Now (2023 version) pp4–5:
Speciesism, in its primary and most important form, is a prejudice or bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species, on the basis of species alone.
Secondary speciesism occurs when, for example, humans favour dogs over pigs.
Singer believes that speciesism (a type of bigotry), is inculcated into small children in Western society (otherwise p245 Children have a natural love of animals), partly to encourage them to consume meat knowing that it is animal flesh.
Conclusion
These undesirable (and unjust) ends are due to an essential flaw in democracy, that as a political system it only takes account of the expressed views (or will) of humans, or a subgroup of humans. This is not a flaw of biocracy, a political system which opposes the speciesist orientation.
How health and will emerge as two interrelated components of governance (self and state) in William Shakespeare's tragic play, King Lear.
Introduction
As discussed before, from the very opening of the play, Lear's Britain is a state with a projected perilous health, yet the solution (neutralising his two eldest daughters who each plot to gain the crown by bloody civil war) is perhaps too unfatherly/impious/legacy-unfriendly/precedent-setting for Lear, who instead engineers a solution to send beloved youngest daughter to safety while the other sisters (literally) duke it out. By retaining one hundred knights and doddering between them, Lear can even Yojimbo-like take the weaker side until both Albany and Cornwall are exhausted and Cordelia can return with powerful French backing.
King Lear ruminating on the future health and division of his state
First, we will review an extensive series of quotations from the text (included partly because some are frequently omitted from productions of this very long play), with brief notes.
Then we will consider significant ways Health and Will are represented, and how they relate to Governance (both of self and of state).
Finally, we will try to understand what Shakespeare's play is really saying about the nature of Health and Will in Governance, and whether that leads us to reject some political systems in favour of others.
Key Quotations from the Play, with brief Notes and Scene Summaries
A play which takes from 3 to 3½ hours in theatre, says director Richard Eyre of his television movie of Lear, can be cut down by omitting whole or partial scenes, lose 'complicated plots' and compress dialogue, and so on. The full text is a better guide to the issues under consideration, and I cannot recommend any particular production/performance. However, the BBC's version with Michael Hordern as Lear is worth the watch, though it is not my current interpretation of the play.
Act 1
A1s1 Lear suggests his health is failing and he wants to prevent future strife. Cordelia considers love as riches. Lear speaks of
The vines of France, the milk of Burgundy, which indicate the health of the states of Cordelia's two suitors.
Lear’s wilfulness (express our darker purpose) has the effect of granting Cordelia a love match and a safe haven, with Kent banished for future team-up. The sway goes to Cornwall and Albany.
Kent: Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow upon the foul disease.
Lear’s sentence overrides his nature To shield thee from diseases of the world with the kind banishments of Kent and Cordelia with those infirmities she owes.
Regan: ‘Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he has ever but slenderly known himself.
Goneril: the unruly waywardness that infirm and cholerick years bring with them.
A1s2 What is a healthy relationship between parent and child to the Glosters?
Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue?
A1s3 Lear's knights riotous, king upbraiding.
A1s4 Steward’s contest of will with Lear.
Fools whipped. Ungrateful cuckoo chick.
Lear’s sterility curse on Goneril. A dotard in command of dangerous knights.
A1s5 Lear: O let me not be mad.
Act 2
A2s1 Edmund cuts himself to support his lie.
Gloster: my old heart is crack’d. Regan: waste and spoil of his revenues.
A2s2 Kent: anger has a privilege.
A2s3 Edgar mortifies himself as poor Tom.
A2s4 Fool says falling leaders stink.
Sickness excuse not to meet Lear.
Lear: “Infirmity doth still neglect all office,
Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves,
When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind
To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear;
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos’d and sickly fit
For the sound man. Death on my state!”
Regan: “If, sir, perchance,
She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,
‘Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.”
Lear wishes lameness on absent Goneril.
Lear imagines Goneril both flesh-and-blood and a disease in his flesh.
Regan: “What need one?”
Lear: “O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest things superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm was gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st, which scarcely keeps thee warm — But, for true need,—”
Cornwall: ‘Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.
Gloster protests king lacks storm-shelter.
Regan: “O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters: Shut up your doors;”
Act 3
A3s1 Lear reportedly contends with storm while even hungry predators cower.
A3s2 Lear calls on the will of the storm sulphurous and thought-executing fires to punish himself and others, spilling all nature’s seeds:
Lear: “let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man”
Lear: “My wits begin to turn”
Fool: “tiny wit… fortunes fit”
A3s3 Gloster and Edmund discuss the savage and unnatural. Excuse of illness.
Gloster: “If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved.”
Edmund: “The younger rises, when the old doth fall.”
A3s4 Kent: The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
For nature to endure.
Lear: When the mind’s free,
The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind.
You houseless poverty Lear to Fool (another indication that the play originally intended the Fool at this point to be Cordelia in disguise).
Lear: “O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physick, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may’st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.”
That is, redistributing wealth is both healthy and just.
Edmund/Poor-Tom is tormented and cold, blamed on vice and the foul fiend?
Gloster: “Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer
To obey in all your daughter’s hard commands:
Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet I have ventured to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.”
Gloster: The grief hath craz’d my wits.
A3s5 Cornwall: I will have my revenge.
A3s6 Lear, apparently losing touch with reality, convenes a trial of absent Goneril and Regan. Friends rally round him.
A3s7 Regan, Goneril and Cornwall mean harm to Gloster, approved by Edmund; loyal knights have taken Lear to Dover.
Cornwall: Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice, yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who's there? the traitor?
Gloster: You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.
Unnamed servant of Cornwall intervenes to save Gloster’s remaining eye, fatally wounds Duke in fair combat and is fatally backstabbed by Regan. Cornwall finishes blinding Gloster. Remaining servants are appalled by the wilful acts of their ‘betters’.
It is worth noting Gloster's earlier hypocrisy in calling Cornwall 'fiery' when Edmund has so easily stoked Gloster's wrath towards Edgar.
Act 4
A4s1 Gloster: I stumbled when I saw, and As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for our sport. wanton here is equivalent to wilful. Gloster, humbled, now sees redistribution of wealth as key to health, reducing the diseases of rich and poor alike.
Gloster: “Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough.”
Gloster asks Poor Tom (son Edgar) to lead him to high Dover cliff (and leave him).
A4s2 Goneril: Conceive, and fare thee well.
Edmund: Yours in the ranks of death.
Albany upbraids wife for monstrosity even before hearing of Gloster’s blinding, Cornwall’s death-by-servant and Edmund’s treachery. Albany: Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: Filths savour but themselves.
A4s3 Kent and Gentleman discuss Cordelia’s state on hearing news.
A4s4 Cordelia’s description of Lear suggests latter has been self-medicating with wild herbs.
Physician prescribes rest and sedatives.
Cordelia fears Lear’s ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.
A4s5 Regan regrets letting Gloster live, as his injuries attract sympathy.
A4s6 Edgar: Why, then your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes’ anguish. (a deception).
Edgar: Why I do trifle thus with his despair,
Is done to cure it.
Gloster: “Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit,
To end itself by death? ‘Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage,
And frustrate his proud will.”
Lear appears wreathed in flowers.
Lear: they told me I was every thing: ‘tis a lie; I am not ague-proof.
Lear wants general copulation to provide him with more soldiers. Lear seems to have been energised by partial loss of wits and reconnection with nature away from toxic courts.
Steward sees Gloster’s life and death merely means for own advancement.
A4s7
Cordelia: “O my dear father! Restoration, hang
Thy medicine upon my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!”
———
Cordelia: “Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire;”
———
Physician: “the great rage,
You see, is cur’d in him”
Dogs are mentioned a great many times with notable inconsistency in King Lear, but this comment links to a previous quip by Cordelia-Fool. In this case, even the health of a biting dog of an enemy is valued. Rage here is Will-linked, ungoverned; and pacified Lear is no longer giving commands, but regaining health and sense.
Act 5
A5s1 Goneril: I had rather lose the battle, than that sister,
Should loosen him and me. on Edmund, who plots his ruthless upwards path.
A5s2 Edgar tries to raise spirits of depressed father again.
A5s3 Lear tells Cordelia they can be happy enough in prison.
Edmund: “At this time
We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost friend:
And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs’d
By those who feel their sharpness”
Goneril poisons love-rival sister Regan.
Gloster has reportedly died of joy and grief by Edgar’s nursing revelations.
Goneril reportedly dies by her own knife.
Edgar kills Edmund in challenge, who has just enough time to warn…
Too late, Cordelia has been murdered by hanging in cell, Lear killed her murderer.
Lear: And my poor fool is hang’d!
Lear faints and dies.
Key Concepts
Will
See also Weather, Tyranny, Gods, Sport, Revenge, Excess, Want (there is a double meaning in Want, which can be Need — ie Health — or Desire — more like Will).
Will is associated with emotions, but which ones in particular does the play foreground? Rage is a common theme; Lear, Cornwall, tyrants and storms rage to inflict their will; Kent claims anger has a privilege. But rage seems an enemy to good governance, and in each case threatens health: Lear's exposure, servant mortally wounds Cornwall, Kent is stocked. Lust, in the competition between Goneril and Regan for Edmund, and Edmund for land, leads to the wilful deaths of all three. Grief can also 'craze wits'. Fear (of growing old, becoming sick or injured, or mad etc) is another, linked partly in the play to aging and loss.
Wills can sometimes change like the weather.
Health
See also Need, Nursing, Beasts, Wholesomeness, Disease, Nature, Justice, Mortification, Bastards.
How does loss of health (physical, mental) in one affect others? Edgar as Poor Tom mortifies his own flesh, copying beggars; Edmund cuts himself to support a lie; and as we have seen, Regan says Gloster's injuries attract sympathy. Yet many of the characters also wilfully injure others, or at least plot their deaths.
How does loss of health in oneself affect how you see others? Lear has apparently been oblivious to his subjects' health until the night of the storm awakens empathy. But it can also turn yourself inwards, narrow your concerns.
Cordelia-Fool also describes the political sickness of a falling leader, something which might harm followers if they stay loyal. Political sickness can be catching.
Edmund, who considers disinherited bastards like himself healthier than legitimate heirs, rails at a perceived injustice imposed by the wills of a dynastic ruling class. Although rational against convenient superstition, Edmund's will is also a source of injustice.
And what of a healthy society or political system? Gloster’s blindness during conflict shows that ill-health or impairment is multiplied by a sick society, but therefore made more comfortable by a healthy society.
Redistribution, Lack and Superfluity
It is Gloster who, when injured and humbled after willingly risking his life for Lear, attributes the cause of harmful poverty to the vices of the rich and the injustices of an inequitable political-social-economic system. This is loaves-and-fishes communism. Lear had argued that without superfluity, human lives would be worth those of beasts, but his mind changes focus during the storm towards alleviating the poverty of his subjects.
Haste
Haste can be interpreted as unhealthy or desperate will-driven speed. Gloster makes a hasty misjudgement of Edgar. When speedy action is required at the end of the play, haste is too little too late to save Cordelia.
Wisdom
One supposedly-requisite virtue of rulers, wisdom, is treated in various interesting ways in the play. Albany, dividing the factions and own marriage into good and evil, says wisdom is repugnant to the vile, which as much to say wisdom implies a healthy conscience. Gloster talks of the wisdom of nature in a sense of natural laws (perhaps opaque to the science of the time, more transparent nowadays).
The relation of Health and Will
Lear makes a distinction between sick in mind and sick in body, though when bodily sickness diseases the mind, we are not ourselves. Ill health can sometimes make us despair, or retreat upon ourselves; yet it can also create empathy with the misfortunes of others, and look outwards (as Lear does in the storm, recognising at last his lack of care for his subjects). Sick minds can will ill on self and others.
Health and Will in Political Systems
Hereditary Monarchy
Shakespeare's panoramic critique of hereditary monarchy suggests it may be the sickest of all political systems. Typically the throne attracts psychopaths, and even the subjects of peaceful rulers might live in terror of whimsy, incompetence, neglect, succession struggles, religious and civil wars, toxic court politics, foreign entanglements and so forth. There is no solution to the problem of succession in Lear, nor an enfeebled monarch, or plotting Dukes, or warring princesses. Shakespeare's monarchs tend to impiously disdain nature, for example in Cymbeline. Lear may fear the storm is partly nature's revenge upon his misrule. Without retirement or timely death, the subjects of hereditary monarchy might spend considerable time under gerontocracy (the current condition of many countries).
Lear’s court is full of contriving theatrical stratagem and deception, which he describes in his last speech to Cordelia. We are taken back to the start of the play, in the royal court, where we might see the opening act of Lear's great gamble, a strategm now almost played out with the ending he strove so hard to avoid, Cordelia's death. Nobody is taken in by the love-protestations of Goneril and Regan, and from that, the interpretation of the play must understand the illusory-theatrical, false-deceptive, deadly-toxic, sharp-elbowed, cunning-competitive nature of royal courts: plots and counter-plots.
Democracy
Shakespeare does not tend to directly represent democracy on stage, but the theatre itself may have been a temporary mini-parliament during his time. Elections are not usually favourably represented; usually townsfolk seem content to elect idiots to official duties they cannot be bothered doing themselves. But as a Will-prioritising political system, democracy is at the mercy of the kinds of flaws of governance in Lear, such as rage and desire, grief and fear. An elderly demographic, the play suggests, may be particularly prone to fears relating to loss, decline, replacement by younger generation, injury, disease, diminishing mental capacity, dementia and death.
An unhealthy society will tend to produce unhealthy policies, regardless of how its democracy conforms to ideals. While a healthier society might be able change and improve its form organically, learning from its old people without bowing to them.
Biocracy
Shakespeare's plays offer some interesting views on natural governance, from the anarchistic idyll of the Tempest's Gonzalo, to Timon of Athens imagining the world better run by beasts, to the gardeners of Richard II, to the horned burgers of the Forest of Arden (As You Like It), to the (some plant-named) fairies of Midsummer-Night’s Dream, all of which have some features of biocracy. The sense is that animals and maybe plants govern themselves on the basis of naturally-defined health rather than will, as indeed in biocracy.
Conclusion
Wills are essentially unresolvable: there is no political solution that pleases everyone. Health is essentially resolvable: there will be a political solution that maximises the health of a population. Wills are often hidden, to better get one over on rivals. Health is usually transparent.
In a theological/hereditary monarchy, or a democracy, Will (whether divine, channeling-the-ancestors or popular) is paramount, so there can be little scope to question a culture of maldevelopment. Only under a Health-based political system like biocracy can social changes be considered maldevelopment as such. Lear eventually realises his realm has been maldeveloped (he takes personal responsibility but it is also the ruthless political system at fault), and reverts to nature, bedecking himself with wildflowers and using animals as models of behaviour.
A thought experiment to test democracy in a non-human scenario.
Introduction
Popular fiction often depicts sea-people as ruled by monarchs (Disney, Marvel, DC Comics) but suppose that our fictional sea-people have the very best form of democracy you can imagine. This could involve citizen assemblies, mandatable recallable delegates, anything you consider to be best practice.
The Sea-People's Citizen Assembly, diversity champions, hard at work
Now imagine a scenario whereby, perhaps in retaliation to land-people dumping waste in the sea, the global sea-people community democratically decide to dump some of their waste on land. This leads to friction, leads to war, all with ideal democratic processes followed perfectly by our sea-people, leads to annihilation of land-people civilization and many living species by weapons of mass destruction.
If you consider this a bad outcome, from an ideal form of democracy, what is wrong in this scenario? Is the problem the extension of democracy to non-humans, even if they are in many ways very similar to us? Or are there any flaws in democracy you can identify?
An enquiry into what form of government we all need today. It's this one.
Abstract
Perhaps the only sane form of government today is a constitutionally-encoded biocracy. Why? Here are some key features.
Introduction
Our planet Earth faces climate change, environmental degradation and pollution, mass extinctions… I will not dwell on the current and future threats, or the failures of current political-economic-ideological systems in countering them. Biocratic government is not simply a necessary response to emergencies, it is a necessary precaution against future emergencies. Specifically: a formal codified constitutional model of biocracy, where proxies representing the living world have a majority in political decision-making, and the global idea communism of life sciences provide the most objective measure available of the health of ecosystems. That is, biocracy may be necessary for survival, of human society at least.
So, human Parliaments today mostly serve humans, and really only a few of those, and not particularly well, considering. This is pretty messed up, when you think about. Much damage is being done to the non-human world by humans. Therefore, one solution is to add majority-sized blocks of representatives for the non-human world, to make sure better decisions are made. For all of us.
And we need a new word for this combination of human democracy and green authority: call it, biocracy.
—Sleeping Dog, The Lorax Amendment: Retro-fitting Green Authoritarianism to Parliaments
A biocratic world is a healthy world
The argument for biocracy rests upon the proposition that a viable future depends upon adherence to the basic principles derived from the life sciences, as mediated by human values, and tested for their real-life consequences.
A precept of biocracy is the need to understand the factors that make for the survival of peoples, their societies, and their cultures.
A basic bioethical assumption is that, in principle, life is good.
A basic tenet of biocracy is that prospects for human well-being and survival depend upon the validity of popular attitudes toward living nature, especially human nature.
—Lynton K. Caldwell, various quotes from Biocracy: Public policy and the life sciences
What follows is a sketch, not a blueprint. An outline of a model derived from principles grounded in nature. A seed, if you like.
Some biocratic principles
If you don't like these, there are others:
life is a good thing, on the whole
we must respect the primacy of nonhuman life (that is, human life depends on non-human life, but not vice versa)
we should preserve the environment for present and future generations (of non-human and human life)
environment as universal heritage (more of a humanist principle)
non-regression in legislation, standards, policy and practice: don't make things worse, apply highest levels of environmental protection
Concepts from life sciences
First of all, what are included in 'life sciences'? There are many basic and applied life sciences at different levels of specialism and with different focuses, for example biology, ecology, human medicine, botany and so on (and I would include psychology).
Welcome to the Great Hall, designed to represent the Earth's biosphere. That is, the envelope around our planet that supports life, in the seas, on land, in the air, and so on. Each main building complex represents one of Earth's biomes, such as grasslands, tundra, desert, freshwater and marine, and the various forest types. Our human architects have invited in some of nature's own architects, and you will encounter some of their constructions on our tour.
On display are artworks created by children from around the world, on some part of nature meaningful to them. Those marked thus, represent species now thought to be extinct.
—A 21st Century (Common Era) biocracy tour guide
Far from a clockwork universe, life sciences describe complex, adaptive systems with emergent behaviour (of which life itself is one example), capable of regulating states (as in homeostasis), but also experiencing cycles (like seasons) and phase changes. Understanding these allows humans not merely to survive, but to live a good life.
Good life philosophy
It is reasonable to suppose that a biocratic constitution will make reference to one or more good life philosophies, perhaps Sumak kawsay / Buen vivir, ubuntu, or Eudaimonia. These are about living (ethically) well, not having fun. The most suitable philosophies will contain ecocentric rather than anthropocentric worldviews.
In general, the Constitution will prescribe planetary-realistic ideologies for public policy.
Open government
Transparency is essential in the conduct of biocratic government. There is no need for hidden diplomacy, no channels for lobbyists for vested interests, no belligerence, no empire-building. The fundamental position is idea communism: open science, open technology, and the global digital commons.
Distributed authority
Distributed authority is one of key benefits of constitutionally-encoded biocracy. Instead of authority being centralised and claimed by a human elite (possibly on behalf of supernatural beings), authority can be spread beyond national boundaries, to any human individual or group capable of bearing witness, any method of objectively telling the health of ecosystems, and to non-human life. Who or what can tell us how well we are governing and living? All of the above.
Even anarchist Michael Bakunin recognized the authority of natural laws. Yes, you could say that our biocracy is technically an anarchy because we have eliminated the whole human political ruling class. But yes, we have laws, we have order. And in this order, Nature places above Humans, and Humans above Economy.
Nature is our ultimate authority, the great scorekeeper, as we say.
And when it comes to collective decision-making, it is best we recognise that political decisions come in all sorts and sizes and urgencies, and therefore are best handled in separate ways (some technocratic, some democratic, some biocratic, and so on). The design of our biocratic constitution was somewhat concerned with decision categorisation, delegation, prioritisation, integration, 'single source of truth', logjam avoidance, joined-up governance and so on.
Yes, this means that after the construction of our Constitution we have largely relegated full-scale democracy to a lower division, so to speak, but it still plays a number of important roles.
—A 21st Century (Common Era) biocracy tour guide
Health of ecosystems
Only life sciences have objective methods of determining the health of ecosystems. For example, the ecosystem health of a coral reef might be measured by proxies such as counting manta rays or the percentage of seasonal coral dieback. In a similar fashion, medics may take a human's temperature and count their pulse-rate. There will be some differing opinion, but a great deal of consensus, and questions are likely to be resolved by further research. The point here is rather that biocratic policies and interventions can be tested in the field.
Regenerative economies
You can find a 1.5-minute animated video by Kate Raworth on regenerative economics which gets the point across (and will be the only kind of lawful economy under a constitutionally-encoded biocracy).
In biocracy there is no right to impair health of consumers or degrade public health. It would be logical to nationalise or internationalise life science industries (pharmaceuticals and other medicine related to public health; open-source agriculture etc.)
Rights of Nature (legalism) is not enough…
…but such a framing will be required in our Biocratic Constitution. The concentric circles of the Rights of Nature Model indicates the hierarchy Nature above People above Economy. Current environmental law is dysfunctional, ecologically illiterate and unstrategic.
This necessary step will involve the legal recognition of the Rights of Nature on all levels and a shift from a purely anthropocentric worldview to a more ecocentric worldview that sees humanity as one species within a radically interconnected web of life, where the wellbeing of each part is dependent on the wellbeing of the Earth system as a whole.
—Michele Carducci, Silvia Bagni, Vincenzo Lorubbio,
Elisabetta Musarò (UniSalento-CEDEUAM)
Massimiliano Montini, Alessandra Barreca,
Costanza Di Francesco Maesa (UniSiena)
Mumta Ito, Lindsey Spinks, Paul Powlesland
(Nature's Rights), Towards an EU Charter of the Fundamental Rights of Nature
With a constitutional provision, laws inconsistent with biologically-established fact could be struck down (abortion, tobacco).
Over on our right, the central Courts of Justice are trying some ecocide cases today. Ecocide is a class of crimes that legalises any reasonable means of stopping them; in fact, in this jurisdiction, people are obliged to at once, at minimum informing the authorities. Perpetrators and planners of ecocide are automatically outlawed, with all legal protections withdrawn. There are no legal defences or mitigations, as expressly stated in our Constitution.
Lesser environmental crimes are prosecuted on a similar basis in local courts.
—A 21st Century (Common Era) biocracy tour guide
However, much more is needed than a legalist solution of precautionary and reactionary enforcement. A full political system with roles and responsibilities in research, planning, testing, tax-raising powers, diplomatic service, strategists, administration, education, food security, sustainable living standards, conflict resolution and so forth is required.
It would be necessary to establish publically funded institutions to represent the interests of nature and new courts or other institutions with the sufficient knowledge and understanding to adjudicate conflicts between economic development and nature in order to promote the greater good of the whole community.
—Jan Darpö, Can Nature Get It Right? A Study on Rights of Nature in the European Context
Old-fashioned political nationalism has become one of the principal obstacles to biological sanity.
—Lynton K. Caldwell, Biocracy: Public policy and the life sciences
One elemental responsibility that was hardly mentioned enough in the COVID-19 pandemic was that national borders should be closed to prevent the disease pathogen escaping from each nation (not just entering). Each nation is responsible to all others for global public health, and biocratic constitutions will make this a formal provision, whatever international treaties say, or do not say. We get our core ethics from our biology as a species of social animal, one might say a political animal.
Ongoing research into, and improvement of, human politics
In a rational society, greater effort would be put into scientific study of human nature and environmental relations. This would involve collective self-reflection on human politics (why there are problems of corruption, nepotism, dynasties, power relations) and ongoing research on it.
Human psychology is both the problem and solution. Our power structures elevate psychopaths, the corrupt and the unfit for office; our imperial education system trains and conditions them; our exploitative/extractive economy rewards them; and our humano-centric legal system protects them; our militarism turns them into mass murderers; our established religions absolve them; and our corporate-state poets write hymns of praise to them. We need to apply our knowledge of human psychology and neuroplasticity to grow towards a life-sustaining political system which takes the lead from the non-human natural world, if we are going to survive. I call such a system biocracy, and is the only radical solution that substantially addresses the points of this article that I am aware of.
—Sleeping Dog
Research has shown how children who have had adverse experiences or are detached from nature can show reduced empathy for the natural world, but equally environments where children connect with nature have a wide range of benefits, including a more ecocentric view of politics.
After our biocratic constitution was democratically constructed and chosen, democracy took a step back and down. Now that our democratic processes no longer deal with life and death issues, the popular will was that default voting age should be lowered to enfranchise schoolchildren. Our schools are now nurseries of democracy, and we expect great things as a result. However, some qualifications on democratic participation were considered appropriate; some collective decision processes have higher age restrictions, some require participation in consultation processes, others by local residence, and some are weighted according to other pertinent qualifications.
Yes, we are aware of the many negative historical examples of disenfranchisement, and are confident we will not repeat them out of ignorance. But ask yourselves if sometimes there was too much enfranchisement, of senile people perhaps. That is a question currently under review here, and extensive research has already been done. We do keep all these rules under review, and again I remind you of our belief that not all decisions are the same; perhaps we are simply a bit more honest about that than in other countries?
—A 21st Century (Common Era) biocracy tour guide
Discipline
As Caldwell writes, open democracies are adaptable but undisciplined. We continually face problems with biotechnology and invasive species.
To believe that the international flow of biotechnology is free from political manipulation, commercial self-interest, ethnic suspicion, and religious opposition would be naive.
—Lynton K. Caldwell, Biocracy: Public policy and the life sciences
Where Caldwell falls short is in taking this to the logical conclusion and building model of a new form of government from a biocratic ideology, because at the time the world was apparently not ready for such a radical move. Well, if not now, when? We can develop a political system that eliminates the ruling class, and personal riches, and leave people with enough for the good life, particularly with communal and digital wealth. But there will need to be a public acceptance of some green austerity borne by all. Like Epicurus, we might learn to be happy with bread and cheese shared leisurely with friends. But many aspects of life will need to be quickly tailored to fit inside planetary boundaries, and that will require discipline, not indulgence. Luxuries will be small ones, footprint-wise.
Our old system of environmental law was weak, disintegrated, largely incoherent, and had a traditional fixation on private property and suing for personal damages. Someone once likened it to a robot babysitter, faced with a child in its care playing with matches, looking through its set of rules and saying: "Please put them back in the box when you have finished." No wonder our house was on fire!
There were so many problems with militarism, biotechnology and invasive species; with democracy and public behaviour; and yes with science itself which is corruptible, sometimes driven by faulty ideology or ego, sometimes irresponsibly and callously carried out. And sometimes put to criminal uses.
The solution was to make everyone, to some extent, a life scientist. Our lawmakers and court officials, our civil servants and professionals; every child gets a comprehensive education in life sciences. And not just in gardening or animal care or nutrition, vital though these are, but in systems thinking.
Yes, before the Age of Biocracy there were some biocratic provisions in governments, local and national, in constitutions and international treaties, that were precursors to (and often inspired) our fully-encoded biocratic constitution. Some claimed specific cultural inspiration, but really it was the common sense of ordinary people prevailing, and you can only shut out sanity for so long. And the consequences of one good example should not be underestimated. Which is why good examples are so quickly targeted for annihilation by oppressive forces. Oh, is anyone here from…?
—A 21st Century (Common Era) biocracy tour guide
A world governed by autocrats, militarists, undisciplined democrats, extractive capital, theocrats (and other undesirables) is an unhealthy world
Opportunity
The opportunity to set a good example in government comes all too rarely. To found a new kind of government based on constitutionally-encoded biocracy will be an option during the creation of a new state, perhaps from a successful independence movement or a unification. Never before has seizing such an opportunity been so critical to the survival of human and non-human life on our planet Earth.
Conclusion
While acknowledging this:
Science is a human artifact and provides no infallible guide to conduct or policy. It may, however, inform human choices and expose assumptions that lead to folly.
—Lynton K. Caldwell, Biocracy: Public policy and the life sciences
the other political systems we are familiar with, theocratic or humanist, are all much more fallible by design and have proved routinely corruptible and now (with weapons and economies of mass destruction) extremely dangerous. Time and again, we see the pattern in politicians and priests that begins with "What's in it for me?" And this applies to many social movements too, confusing self-interest with public interest. With one notable exception: the environmental movement, which places value in nature, and takes the long view of deep time and the survival and thriving of non-human species, ecosystems, and future generations of humans within our living world.
What is healthy government? Only one with the principles of life sciences and the good life at its heart. Choose life. Choose biocracy, now.
