The answer to this question is simple – most people are not competent to make the right decisions. But that’s just the first part of the answer. The second part is that, in the long run, no one is truly competent to make serious strategic decisions. No one, except for prophets. And there are no real prophets, only those inflated by propaganda.
Ants are dragging a tasty beetle to their anthill in a chaotic manner. Each one is pulling in their own direction. Their efforts are uncoordinated, and the beetle moves slowly, statistically receiving the majority of “votes” from the side it needs to be pulled toward. The beetle could be dragged faster if the work were coordinated and organized by a leader. But if there were a leader, they would be one of those ants and would have no more “knowledge” about where to pull than the others. As a result, the beetle is likely to be quickly and efficiently dragged past the anthill. But humans are not ants. They have leaders and coordinated, purposeful movement. Moreover, everyone (or, insidiously, the democratic word “majority” creeps in) is confident in the correctness of the path.
The thing is, people relate to social animals of a different kind. They form what are called reputational communities. Ants treat each other equally, expect the same reactions from one another, and are equal among themselves (the democratic word “equality” slyly creeps in). Humans, like a pack of monkeys or wolves, form communities where each individual relies on their own experiences of interacting with their fellow tribe members. In such communities, leaders emerge, outcasts are formed, and a hierarchy is established. However, the size of such a community is limited by the cognitive abilities of its members. It cannot exceed a certain size. This is now referred to as “Dunbar’s number.” For humans, this number typically ranges between 200 and 300. Additionally, of course, the size of the group is influenced not only by the average “Dunbar’s number” for the group but also by the personal Dunbar’s number of the leader. There are legends about great commanders who could remember all their soldiers’ faces.
In reputational communities, interaction is effective, and altruism is encouraged as it enhances reputation The activities for the benefit of the group imply preferences in reproduction. “Oh, he’s so generous, I want him!” But people in their communities have long surpassed Dunbar’s number, which they have achieved through meta-reputation – a culture and a set of default expectations (what Fukuyama referred to as “trust” and wrote a beautiful book about). They have ceased to be effective as a group. However, reputational mechanisms continue to operate, but only in our minds, and this is being exploited. If we can know no more than 300 individuals around us, then a large portion of them will be occupied by brands, celebrities, and politicians. There will be almost no real friends left. This means a practical reduction in the effective Dunbar number for each of us. Currently, a working or project group is effective if it consists of no more than 10 people. The rest of the space is taken up by family, friends outside of work, and yes, brands and politicians. Our brains perceive Coca-Cola as a pack leader to whom we must submit. We are turning into ants. Into an anonymous community. Into a crowd in the subway, in a traffic jam, in a stadium shouting “goal” or “Sieg Heil.”
At the same time, we constantly try to apply reputational principles in an anonymous community. We believe in the effectiveness of a leader, the effectiveness of the majority, equality, and brotherhood (after all, we remember that ants of the same family are sisters). Based on these rather questionable principles, we attempt to resolve dilemmas about what is better—leadership or democracy, authoritarianism or anarchy. The truth is, nothing is better. You cannot apply a reputational approach to managing a society when it is beneficial for each or at least some members of the community to avoid paying taxes, not to take out the trash from the forest, to vandalize the elevator, run a red light, and so on. In an anonymous community, it is advantageous to be a parasite and a freeloader rather than a magnanimous leader or altruist.
The leaders we know today are nothing more than drones who merely claim to be leaders. So, should we be like ants? But that’s inhumane. We can’t imagine a system where decisions are made statistically, at the cost of enormous sacrifices. After all, we are human.
Before deciding which form of governance is more convenient, we need to solve a simple problem: to bring society back to reputational relationships. To relationships where everyone knows everything about everyone else and accordingly shapes their expectations. And this is no longer a utopia. It is the internet, social networks, and other similar “nonsense” that make this possible. They serve as a “prosthesis,” an extension of our ability to remember people. This is precisely the crisis facing the modern system of power. We instinctively feel this when we realize that democracy is not working, but neither is monarchy or totalitarianism—both are evils. This is what Fukuyama sensed when he wrote the article “The End of History.” http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/Buduschee-istorii-15456 ), who has a deep understanding of trust, culture, and reputation. The world is changing right now.