My intention is to take a systemic look at the current conflict over Social Security using the amebocyte/slug metaphor. (Refer to my March 15 entry, "Amebocytes and Slugs: The Key to Just About Everything."
All systems-from your family to your organization to the nation, including even Social Security- survive like the amebocyte/slug, by maintaining some balance between amebocyte/individuation, in which members are turned loose to freely explore the environment, develop and test themselves, and compete with one another, and slug/integration, in which members are connected in mutual responsibility. No system survives on individuation alone, nor on integration alone. This does not stop ideologues on the left or right from persisting in their belief that one process leads to heaven and the other to hell. There are the dedicated champions of unrestrained freedom versus the no less dedicated standard bearers of tightly managed socialism. Was this not the ideological struggle at the heart of the Cold War? History has shown that the pure pursuit of either direction has led to the demise of the system, or its near demise until rescued by its demonized other. Note for example the collapse of the Soviet Union and the near collapse of "communist" China until it allowed in the previously condemned "capitalist road." And note the near collapse of the free enterprise U.S. economy in the 1920s until it allowed in the previously and still condemned by ideologues socialist reforms such as unemployment insurance, bank reform. (For more on this subject that can be covered in a blog, see my Leading Systems: Lessons from the Power Lab.) Data does not deter ideologues. Trickle-down economics continues to be promoted by amebocyte ideologues despite repeated evidence that the trickle regularly accumulates at the top. Recent studies indicate the failures of amebocyte privatized pension plans in both England and more recently Chile. (New York Times, January 27, 2005.) Chile's experience with privatization is particularly illuminating. Note the winners and losers. The government is doing very well since much of the private investment goes into government bonds. Corporations are doing well because of the investments going into corporate stocks and bonds. And the pension funds are doing extremely well because of what are described as exorbitant commissions. So the only ones who are not doing well are the many middle class workers who are finding that the plans fail to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received had they stayed in the old system. As reported in the Times article, one government official, who wisely remained anonymous, described the program as "good for Chile and bad for most Chileans." Still, the amebocyte ideologues persist; The U.S. President has described the Chilean experience as "a great example" and has suggested that the United States could "take some lessons from Chile, particularly when it comes to how to run our pension plans. “The lesson we need to take is the danger of unrestrained privatization-amebocyte without slug, individuation without integration. The potential savior of privatization is the perennial enemy of the privatizer: BIG GOVERNMENT exerting control over pension funds and otherwise focusing the amebocytes on their mutual responsibilities. Maybe in the end we'll call this semi-privatization.
In his biography of John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Parker states "These orthodox men [conservative economists] believed in markets with a faith bordering on religion." Parker states that In 1934 these economists opposed the early recovery efforts of the Roosevelt administration," not on 'political' but on 'scientific' grounds." (See the New York Times review of Parker's book.)
Marxism was based on bogus science, as is trickle-down free market economics, as was slavery, the suppression of women, the exclusion of Asians and East Europeans, and worse. Greed, vengeance, scapegoating, domination all find welcome cover in bogus science.
If it's science you're after, I suggest you dig deeply into individuation and integration, amebocytes and slugs.
