Democracy – Rational-Understanding.com

The Risks to Nations of Leaders with Dark Personality Traits

Sectors can influence the general culture of a nation. Ronald Inglehart and the World Values Survey have identified two independent variables that define national culture: firstly, traditional vs. secular rational values, and secondly, survival vs. self-expression values (Inglehart, 2018). According to this perspective, the starting point for the cultural evolution of a nation comprises traditional values based largely on religion, and survival values due to the nation’s relative lack of wealth. At this starting point, the religious sector is the main influence on national culture, and this is still the case in many parts of the world. With industrialisation, the industrial and science sectors replaced religion as the main influence, and this resulted in a shift from traditional to secular rational values. More recently, in the West at least, there has been a shift from survival to self-expression values, with their emphasis on individuality as opposed to group cohesion. This is thought to have been brought about by the commercial and finance sectors and their concern for a lively consumer economy. Finally, we are on the cusp of another significant cultural change which will be brought about by the information technology sector, particularly with the introduction of artificial intelligence. There is much debate about where this will take us but, in practice, the destination is unknown.

Clearly, if influential sectors are led by individuals with dark personality traits, then there will be little concern for the wellbeing of society or the environment. Among the risks are the following.

The risk of one sector holding undue influence over another, through its upper stratum’s membership of the establishment. For example, the ability of the religious and commercial sectors to influence the education of children in their own interest.
The risk of one sector usurping the leadership of another and imposing its own ideology, e.g., the finance sector usurping the leadership of the industrial and commercial sector and imposing bottom line capitalism.
The influence of a sector over government via its upper stratum’s membership of the establishment. This enables a sector to promote its own ideology and to influence government decisions in its interest. This can result in the promotion of the ideologies of powerful sectors and the suppression of more rational views. Examples include the gun lobby in the USA and the international oil lobby. Another example is the economic brinkmanship pervasive in the West today. This is evidenced by the steadily increasing wealth gap and levels of poverty, despite economic growth. This brinkmanship allows low wages and poverty to proliferate to a point where they begin to destabilise the consumer economy, but no further. However, because this leaves no resilience, economic shocks, such as the bank failures of 2008 and the COVID epidemic of 2020, do then impact on the economy.
The potential for a sector to usurp democratic government, e.g., the replacement of a democratically elected government with the upper stratum of a military or religious sector, leading to a military dictatorship or theocracy.
Competition and conflict arising from alliances between sectors and political parties. For example, the Spanish civil war was the consequence of an alliance of the catholic church, right-wing political parties, and the military on the one hand, and left-wing groups and parties on the other.
Governments that suspend or create a false impression of democracy, engage in imperialism, and are corrupt.

These problems are rife throughout the world and, in the next article, I will offer some suggestions as to how to end them.

References

Inglehart, R., 2018. “Cultural Evolution”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108613880

Top-down / Bottom-up Representation

The command component of an organisation can be selected by bottom-up or top-down representation, i.e., by subordinate components or by the command component of parent or grandparent organisations.

Ultimately, each organisation is led by a single individual, although that individual may be beholden to the leader of a parent or grandparent organisation. Thus, organisations have a command hierarchy whose size is proportional to the size of the organisation.

Top-down representation permits greater focus on the objectives of the relevant organisation and its stakeholders, but this focus can be redirected in the personal interest of the leader. Bottom-up representation, on the other hand, allows greater flexibility in selecting the appropriate command style for the prevailing circumstances, but can result in a focus on the personal objectives of subordinates. Ideally therefore, those who populate command components should be selected by negotiation between the two interests, and both should monitor the decisions and commands of leaders to ensure that they are aligned with communal interests.

It is notable, however, that top-down hierarchies corrupt bottom-up democracies. In the UK, voluntary organisations tend to be run “democratically” by committees or boards of elected lay members. They also employ staff to support them. Whilst the lay side is democratic, the staff side comprises a hierarchy with a single leader at the top, much like a typical business. Despite the existence of a democratic lay side and claims that these organisations are run by the membership, in practice, the single individual leading the staff side almost always runs the organisation and sets its agenda. Obviously, he or she controls the staff side, and via leader/ follower trading arrangements, they become compliant to his or her wishes. The staff side also develop strategies to persuade lay members to support their leader’s agenda. They learn what a lay member wants, typically, this is position and status, and use their influence in the organisation to provide it in return for support. In this way, lay members obtain leadership positions which are beholden to the top-down structure of the staff side and bottom-up democracy is diluted or lost.

I have personal experience of this process in two entirely different voluntary sector organisations. One is a trade union. Unsurprisingly, most UK unions have now merged into very large, centrally controlled organisations with highly paid, high-profile leaders. This is a far cry from the original, small, local, and genuinely member led organisations that trade unions once were. The other was a medium sized ethical society where the same process was steadily taking place. This problem is scalable to government, where top-down business hierarchies can influence bottom-up government in a similar way. Bottom-up representation cannot survive contact with top-down representation, unless strong controls such as transparency, and a genuinely policed code of ethics are in place.

Message from the Author

From the examples given in this and the preceding articles, there is no doubt that General Systems theory is potentially an extremely powerful tool for understanding human nature and society. It can enable us to discover the root causes of the social and environmental problems we face and can help in identifying solutions. However, the subject is not as well developed in Rational-Understanding’s area of interest as I had hoped. Much work is required before I can make further posts on the topic.

I will, therefore, now move on to the next topic, “How Organisations and Hierarchies Arise”. In parallel, I plan to put in the necessary work on General Systems Theory and will publish pdfs on the website as this progresses. I will, of course, let you know when a pdf has been published and will provide a link. The links will also be added to the website index page.