Biological Model for Politics and Economics

Human Society as Neural Network

A truly democratic political system would provide opportunities for citizens to share their opinions (information) about what they believe to be acceptable levels of pollution, rates of depletion of resources, extent of paving or monoculture, etc. As members of an advanced technological society, we have a collective duty to share in deciding limits to harmful impacts on the environment. In a democratic society, opinions about what limits are acceptable would be conveyed to the economic actors (e.g.: corporations; consumers) who produce the various kinds of impacts on the Earth. This information about what people want would be conveyed in a way so as to affect the behavior of business planners and consumers.

If most of the people polled in a random survey express the opinion that there is too much of some type of pollution or too-rapid depletion of a certain kind of natural resource, then industries should change the amount of the pollutant they emit or the rate at which they take the natural resource. A democratic society could use a system of random polls to gather opinions on the whole range of different kinds of impacts on the environment. (The random poll is a practical alternative to an impossible policy of asking all people for opinions about all kinds of human impacts on the environment.)

In an economic system, information is conveyed and value is represented by money. If the signal that the people want to send to industry is that we value clean air and water so much that we feel it is necessary for industries to try harder to avoid fouling the air and water, then the most efficient and fair way to communicate this information is to attach a fee to those actions that are causing the detrimental impact. If most people responding to a survey feel that a particular pollutant should be more strictly limited, then imposing a fee or raising the fee charged to those who emit that pollutant would give a signal to industry and would provide an incentive to try harder to reduce that kind of environmental impact. The expressed will of the people would be borne out in reality.

If a random survey shows that most people feel that a particular kind of pollution is not a problem and that it would be OK to allow more of it, then the associated fee should be reduced. Reducing or removing the fee would send a signal to industry that they need not try so hard to limit that type of environmental impact. When pollution or resource depletion or noise or other potentially harmful impact is not a problem, then a lower fee or no fee makes sense. Attention and resources can then be turned toward more pressing concerns.

A fee is a straightforward way for society to manage pollution and the taking of scarce natural resources. Alternately, free market auctions of a limited number of natural resource user-permits could be used as a way to make industries pay a price when they cause adverse impacts on the environment.

The auction price of user-permits (or the appropriate fees) would make environmental impacts cost what society collectively decides they must cost in order to cause industry to put the necessary amount of effort into conservation and pollution prevention. 'Necessary effort' is the amount of effort required to bring overall impacts to levels that most people find acceptable. Permits offered (or the fee amounts imposed) would reflect the "supply" of environmental impacts, according to what most people are willing to allow--what average opinion consents to.

In a society that respects public property rights, each person would receive a monetary payment equal to their share of the value of natural resources taken by corporate interests in pursuit of economic gain. Fee proceeds would go to all people, to each an equal amount.

Biomass is increasingly being used as fuel. Fuel prices will increase in the coming years, as fossil fuels become more scarce and as governments enact policies to reduce carbon emissions. There will be more pressure to convert meadows and forests (what is left of them) into cropland to produce biofuels. Also, some farmers who now grow food will switch from food crops to fuel crops. These changes will push food prices higher.

Higher prices for food and new markets for biofuels will mean more incentive for farmers to destroy wildlife habitat to grow more food and fuel. But a public property rights paradigm could mean less incentive for farmers to destroy meadows and forests.

If we were to decide as a society that monoculture cropland adversely impacts ecological health because it involves the destruction of diverse ecosystems and wildlife habitat, then we could also decide (using a random survey) what limit on the overall extent of monoculture is most appropriate. In a democratic society, we can identify the 'most appropriate limit' as that which reflects the will of the largest number of people. We could charge a fee to landowners who convert diverse communities of life to monoculture cropland (or who maintain monoculture or paving or other impervious cover on landscape that otherwise could support a diverse ecosystem). We could charge such a fee, and we should charge the fee, if most people surveyed feel that disruption and destruction of wildlife habitat has been carried to excess and should be curtailed. The policy would incorporate into the price system the idea that a diverse ecosystem, a healthy community of life, is valuable.

A public property rights paradigm would decrease social instability caused by poverty and wealth disparity. Equal sharing of proceeds from environmental impact fees (equal sharing of the value to the economy of natural resource wealth) becomes a simple and direct way to reduce the hardship caused by rising food prices. Increasing cost of food hurts the poor and dispossessed the most, of course, because they spend a larger portion of their total budget on food and they are scarcely able to reduce their need for nourishment as the price goes up. But an equal payment to all people in the form of a natural wealth stipend helps the poor more than it helps the wealthy. By expanding our respect  for property rights to include public property rights, we make a more equitable society. If we end poverty by sharing (a monetary representation of) natural wealth, there will be no need for a social welfare bureaucracy to decide who is in an advantaged group and who is disadvantaged.

Sharing natural wealth would promote economic stability because a natural wealth stipend will assure every citizen that, even if they lose their job due to economic slowdown or technological change, they will maintain some economic wherewithal in the form of their natural wealth stipend. A complete loss of economic confidence and a precipitous drop in spending on essentials by unemployed individuals (a positive-feedback trap common to economic crises) simply cannot occur under any circumstance in a society where natural wealth is shared among all citizens.

This paradigm that has natural resource wealth being owned by all people equally promotes justice by eliminating extreme poverty and reducing disparity of wealth. It also embodies within the economic structure the awareness that biodiversity is more valuable than biomass.

Within this paradigm, expressions of opinion by the people about what are the most appropriate limits on human transformation of the Earth would directly influence the things people do that affect the human community and that impact the larger community of life. Similarly, signals from neurons in biological brains affect the behavior of other neurons, and they affect conditions in the larger organism. A system of fees on those human activities that people feel are harmful or should be limited would function as an autonomic nervous system for Earth. 

Environmental impact fees could also be seen as a sensory nervous system for the planet, reducing and preventing injury to the Earth. (This view sees a healthy civilization as part of a larger Earth system, and too-rapid depletion of resources as threatening the continued stability of that civilization. So injury to the Earth can be seen in terms beyond whatever stress or damage might be inflicted on the larger community of life.) 

By making prices honest and sharing natural wealth, we become not a cancer on the Earth, fouling and depleting resources beyond what is sustainable for ourselves and for the larger community of life. Instead, we become more like brain cells for a healthy planet, with an economy that functions within limits that the larger ecological system can support. Accounting for externalities in an efficient and fair way would help to maintain a healthy ecological balance.


Neurons, as members of a community, help themselves by helping their neighbors

Natural law requires respect of PUBLIC property rights along with PRIVATE property rights

We should embody moral precepts in practice (Neurons do)

A deep commitment to moral principles will resolve the flaws that produce a civilization that is neither equitable nor sustainable

The Golden Rule requires a strong respect for human rights, which include rights to property. Respecting property rights means respecting the right (and duty) of property owners to participate in the benefits (and responsibilities) of ownership. But we are committing a serious error when we only pay attention to some of the fundamental human rights that we can call property rights. We respect private property rights with the full force of law, while almost completely neglecting questions relating to ownership and management of public or commons property—the natural resource wealth of the planet. 

Legitimate governments must respect the moral principle that recognizes the Earth and natural resource wealth as a shared legacy, a kind of shared property vested in the people at large. Citizens must create... WE must create... governments that function in a way that ensures that commons or public property rights are respected.

Ownership in the Earth, and the benefits and responsibilities of ownership, ought to be vested within all of us equally. We need a paradigm shift– profound and sweeping change in our politics and economics. A society that respects public property rights will require industries that take natural resources or emit pollution in pursuit of profit to pay money to the people when they take or degrade that which belongs to all. The amount paid could float up incrementally, until it is high enough so that businesses have the necessary incentive to change their practices to bring overall environmental impacts into line with what most people think is acceptable. 

A system of random surveys could reveal whether human-caused impacts of various kinds are being kept within appropriate limits. A democratic society would aim at creating conditions (rates of taking resources or putting pollution) that most people say are about right. If most people felt that there should be more stringent controls on this or that kind of pollution or slower taking of natural resources, we could raise the fees charged to industries that cause these impacts. Our political system would serve as an arbiter between users of natural resources (corporations, primarily) and owners (the people at large). As owners, we will share in the benefits of ownership. We will share the rent proceeds from those environmental impact fees. We'll also share the civic duty to help decide what the overall limits ought to be for various kinds of human impacts on the Earth. Perhaps when we receive our natural wealth stipend, we might also answer a few random survey questions about particular kinds of environmental impacts, or about whether funding for this or that public program or service should be increased or decreased. (Decisions about what programs are deserving of support can be decentralized, vested in the people at large, along with the decisions about what limits on pollution or depletion of resources are acceptable.)

Within a public property rights paradigm, a survey question about whether we ought to be more strict or more lenient in our control of environmental impacts is essentially the same question as whether we ought to require corporations to pay more or less money to the people when they take this or that kind of resource or cause this or that kind of pollution. The self-interest of citizens to prefer higher payments to the people when corporations cause environmental damage or degradation will help to promote the general interest of the larger community of life and of future inhabitants of Earth to establish stronger incentives to reduce environmental impacts of various kinds. Corporations seek higher profits, then, not by trying to ever-more-thoroughly externalize their costs onto the larger community (i.e., put pollution and deplete resources) but by trying to reduce environmental impacts in whatever way feasible. The happy coincidence between individuals' self-interest and  the societal interest is mirrored in the relationship between the corporate interest and the general interest. What is better for the corporation (reduce expenses) will also be what is better for the larger community of life (reduce environmental impacts).

On a thoroughly populated planet, neglect of basic moral principles can make a world of grinding poverty and environmental degradation inevitable. Neglect of public property rights means that extreme poverty can exist alongside great opulence. Neglect of principle means that environmental damage and depletion of resources is more profitable than what would be the case if industries had to pay fees in proportion to pollution put or resource taken.

If citizens of a free and democratic society decide to live and act only in ways consistent with moral principle, we will see a shift in voting patterns toward green and libertarian alternatives (or left-libertarian). This will combine the limits to government action implied by libertarian principles  (no first-use of force or coercion by government) with a program agenda that will allow us to fulfill our responsibilities to one another and to the larger community of life on Earth.

Healthy societies require that members give due regard to the interests and concerns of their fellow members. If we look at a collection of neurons as a community or society, with members in communi-cation with and interacting with one another, we may see patterns that bring to mind some basic principles or rules of social interaction.

Because of the kind of molecular quantum-machine entity that it is, a neuron has the tendency to 'want' to be either in a resting state or in a state of steady activity. A neuron is no more likely to want to remain in a state of being somewhat active than a ball is likely to 'want' to roll along the mountain crest between two valleys. Neurons make adjustments in how they interact with their neighbors so that, if they are operating at a pace that is a bit slower than their most comfortable steady pace, they will increase their connections to their more active neighbors. They will then become more active themselves and thereby approach their ideal steady pace. Conversely, if a neuron is nearly quiet, it will want to decrease connections with active neighbors so that it can achieve a more restful state.

But a neuron may not make these discernments and adjustments only with an “eye” toward what will improve its own state. It is a decision machine. It decides based on what it perceives of its neighbors' states. A neuron may try to make its adjustments in a way that allows it to meet its own goals while also aiding its neighbors in achieving their goals. There may be several ways that a neuron could adjust its pattern of connections with its neighbors that would improve its own state. The neuron may try to make those adjustments that most benefit both itself and its neighbors. (This would, in turn, benefit the entire community.) Otherwise, any attempt by one neuron to improve its own state might interfere with or frustrate the efforts of neighboring neurons in their efforts to improve their states. By trying to discern which of its neighbors are trying to become more active, and which are trying to move to a state of rest (then acting accordingly), a neuron improves the efficiency or functionality of the neural network and the quality of its output.

[Within each neuron, there are a multitude of microtubules that can connect with and disconnect from neighboring microtubules to create, from a large number of possibilities, specific pathways for ions to travel. Which pathways are chosen determines which synapses will send neurotransmitters to neighboring neurons. Both the tips of the tubes and the molecules that make up the walls of these tubes are in a peculiar state of oscillation between quantum and classical realms. There are recurring moments when the precise orientation or location of the tube tips are in quantum super-position. It is as though the tubules were simultaneously connected to several of their neighbors (and those neighbors to several of their neighbors, and so on) and were sampling the various possibilities to see which pathway provides the best 'fit' for the context. The continually-renewed sampling is a consequence of the oscillation or vibration between quantum and classical realms. (A similar thing happens in a chlorophyll molecule to find the best path through which to transfer the energy of a photon.)]

For a neuron, the golden rule says to make your decisions about how to interact with your neighbors in a way that aids them in achieving their goals of reaching a more comfortable state. Likewise for members of human society: We must follow our own Golden Rule to ensure the proper functioning of our society and civilization. We must act in ways that show concern for the interests of our fellows. Maybe brains function only because neurons follow their golden rule. So too should we follow our Golden Rule, if we seek to establish justice and sustainability as the foundation of a properly functioning global civilization.

The Golden Rule requires that we not use government as an instrument to initiate violence or coercion against any person. We would not want others to use government against us in this way. We should not support policies that involve government agents initiating force against peaceful people. Private behavior within private spaces should not come within the purview of government.

When we learn that our systems of governance are at odds with our most basic moral precepts, due to our failure to adhere to principles relating to proper restraints on the use of force, and to principles relating to the sharing of natural resource wealth—when we learn that our inattention to basic principles is the cause of abject poverty and furthermore that it results in a situation where industries profit by squandering resources and degrading environmental quality— we have a moral duty to take steps to remedy the situation. A different way of thinking about the power and responsibility of government (and of citizens) could ensure that our political and economic systems will serve as a foundation for a sustainable and just civilization.

What responsibility do our religious communities have, if any, to address questions of public property rights, to ensure a sustainable and just civilization?

Where are the voices challenging us to exercise our moral sense as we form and participate in our political and economic systems?

Natural law requires respect of public property rights, too