The history and development of the United States form of democracy illustrates the idealism and pitfalls of a 2nd Stage Democracy. The evidence that the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution poured their lives and their best efforts into those documents reveals itself in the permanency of what they created. They established the first and longest lasting operational democratic government, society, and culture since the Grecian classical period.
1. Lack of a clear intention to become self-sustaining.
One of the omissions of the Declaration and the Constitution was a lack of a clear intention for their new nation to become sustainable into the far distant future. Most new efforts of organizations overlook this, too, but for us today, we must now write an intention that brings future generations into a sustainable future. I cannot think of any established democratic nation that has a clearly written intention for it to become self-sustaining into the distant future. None were founded with an intention to become sustainable. Not one was designed to become sustainable, either materially or socially. All have taken it for granted (assumed) that their nation would perpetuate itself into the far distant future.
2. Quantity-Object Based Interpretation,
Quality-Value Based Interpretation.
Much like a perennial plant or tree, our traditional form of democracy can only grow to its design limits — particularly when that limit is quantitatively defined in the historic interpretation of the word “equal” in that most famous of sentences from the Declaration of Independence. The emphasis is on the world “equal.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Until now, the word “equal” has been given only one interpretation. The historic interpretation of “equal” has been limited to a quantity-object based interpretation, (See Illustration, LINK). In this interpretation, and in view of the difference between material and social sustainability, citizens are valued no differently than so many tons of iron ore, board feet of timber, or a number of cattle. In this highly limiting definition of “equal,” each person, as a quantity of one, is as equal as any other person, even a monarch as a quantity of one. Being created equal as a quantity of one, each person has an equally valid right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the king. It is tragic that those ideals of democracy have been defined to the narrow limits of the quantitative interpretation.
Quantitative equality was fulfilled to its inherent limits by the end of the 20th century with the passage of the last “equal rights” legislation. This is evident from the detailed record of voting rights expansion from 1790 to 1965, as example. 31 The conclusion we can gain for quantitative voting rights progress from 1790 to 1965 is that the quantity-object based interpretation of equal in the Declaration has been explored to its fullest extent and completes the 2nd Stage of Democracy.
Qualitative equality. What we have not realized for the last 240 years is that a quality-value based interpretation is as equally valid as the quantity-object interpretation. The error that has short-changed the social evolution of every democratic nation is that the word “equal” assumes the unspoken word “value” as a quantity.
It is painfully ironic that our democracy does not as conscientiously give citizens the same quality-benefit as we give our sports figures and ballet dancers. We give high value to individuals who express higher qualities to what they do, whether they are artists, comedians, skilled workers, accountants, judges, or teammates on a sports team. It is the quality of participation that gives people greater or lesser value, individually, in every other setting of life. Why not also in the democratic processes of governance?
In a fully effective democracy, citizens are valued as a quantity of one equally to every other citizen — and, also valued for the quality of their participation in the democratic process. If a person does not vote, then the quality of their voting potential drops to zero. As this has been interpreted, as a quantity of one, the quality of a citizen is either 100% or 0.0% depending upon whether he or she votes or not.
The whole point of the Declaration was to declare [people] as having equal value as the king. What was not made emphatic was the interpretation of the word “equal.” The king had the quantity of one, and the quality of one!
- Because there is no emphatic interpretation of the word “equal” in the Declaration, we can assume the qualitative and quantitative interpretations are equally valid. Only the quantitative interpretation, however, has enjoyed its complete development in the American representative form of democracy.
Because the first interpretation deals only with quantities, it can only be taken to its quantitative limit where everyone enjoys equal representation. Regardless of race, gender, religion or property ownership everyone today is represented equally, i.e., one person, one vote. By 1965 the quantitative criterion of equal representation had nearly been fulfilled. The fullest outcome of the quantitative definition had been expressed. We are now at a dead end with it.
One set of outcomes. The great difficulty of using only one interpretation is that it allows for only one set of outcomes. Using both interpretations would allow two outcomes to come into being. The difference of possibilities by empowering both definitions is much like the difference between having musicians in an orchestra simultaneously playing or not playing one note on their instrument, louder or quieter. Compare that to musicians playing a full range of notes with all the variations that orchestral music is capable. When we think of citizens voting or not voting, compared to adding the quality of their participation to democratic processes in local, state, and national venues, then it becomes very clear there is a striking and dramatic difference the two interpretations provide. Which would you prefer?
A culture of quantitative equality. The object-based interpretation of “equal” has so filled the minds of Americans in all social strata that it has become the interpretive method of valuating everything about life. Today that measurement is particularly egregious. We see this in the acquisitive nature of millions of people caught up in materialistic lifestyles. More is better, rather than better is more. Our society has come to give object-value to individuals according to the measure of their financial and material wealth, even to the mere appearance of it, whether it exists in fact, or not. The value and worth of an individual, whether a corporate CEO or a janitor, has become monetized and measured in terms of how much they can contribute to the profitability of the organization. Non-profit and public organizations have monetized the worth of their employees as the least expense for their presence! Monetization has come to infect almost all aspects of our American social, commercial life, and culture.
The salaries of teachers in public education are a particularly troublesome example even though teachers mold the minds of the next generations of our citizens. The measure of a teacher’s competence has almost always been in the form of years and tenure, an easily quantifiable measurement. The educational achievement of students is measured in terms of years completed, rather than the quality of accomplishment within those years. If our American social institutions were invested with quality interpretations, salaries would be commensurate to the value teachers add to the quality of our children’s education. Teachers who inspire students to excel and who produce outstanding students would earn more than teachers who do not. This is only one of dozens of examples of the quantity interpretation that has caused our public education systems to be identified as mediocre, or less.
3. The failure to adapt.
It was not an error or mistake of the Founders that they did not include provisions for their new democracy to adapt to changing conditions. It was simply a development they could not have foreseen. Exponential social change soon revealed the primary cause for the failure of mature democracies: The failure to adapt. It was, however, apparent to Thomas Jefferson in 1816.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand and hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinion change, with the circumstances, institutions must advance able to keep pace with the times...." Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816.
A failure to learn from experience. The irony of our desires is that democracies are not perfect, and never will be. Democracies are not perfect because they are developmental social organizations where each developmental stage of democracy provides the preparation to evolve to the next developmental stage. The nature of evolving democracies is to provide an adaptable democratic governing process that maintains the principles of liberty and the right of self-determination by its citizens, without jeopardizing the sustainability of its host society or citizens.
Of all the forms of government, only democracy has the potential to adapt to the organic nature of those it governs. All other forms of governance are static and ultimately UNsustainable. Yet, democracy is not a “one size fits all” type of governance. Because of the nature of those it serves, democracies must emulate the adaptability of our species to become adaptable democracies, which lays the potential to become socially sustainable into centuries and millennia.
Adaptability. It is a truism that only by having the capability of adaptability are species able to survive. The same adaptability is also necessary for all democratic social, political, and economic institutions and organizations because of the existential, organic nature of our species — its citizens.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin
The work of Progressives, then, is to create a holistic system of social, political, and economic systems that work together and adjust to social change of the public to maintain social, political, and economic equilibrium, i.e., sustainability. By adjusting social, political, and economic policies, based on the constancy of the seven core values, social, political, and economic evolution can take place peacefully.
Organizational Adaptability. History is clear, while our species is sustainable, organizations and governments of every type, are not. Fatally, organizations are not socially sustainable because they do not have the four primary values embedded into their “organizational DNA” as it is in our DNA. The four core values have urged us, driven us, to become adaptable to survive and to continue to fulfill the values that have sustained us. Traditional organizations, unfortunately, do not have a “gut sense” of life-or-death situations and developments. They do not have an inner feedback system that tells about the subtle changes that are external to them.
The work of Chris Argyris and David Schön however has revealed how organizations can become more adaptable to survive and to thrive in a world of changing circumstances. They describe two types of learning that is critical for democratic societies and their government’s survival.
Single-Loop Learning. Argyris and Schön describe single-loop learning as “adaptive learning” [that] focuses on incremental change. This type of learning solves problems but ignores the question of why the problem arose in the first place.
Double-loop learning is described as generative learning that focuses on transformational change that changes the status quo. Double-loop learning uses feedback from past actions to question assumptions underlying current views. When considering feedback, managers and professionals need to ask not only the reasons for their current actions, but what to do next and even more importantly, why alternative actions are not to be implemented.
Type II, Double Loop Learning Organizations. Only an organizational system that has double-loop learning processes embedded in its structure is capable of having feedback processes that give the organization, its participants, and citizens the capability of learning from their collective mistakes and from their successes. (Argyris 1985, Senge 1994).
NOTE: Psychologist Chris Argyris and philosopher Donald Schön’s intervention research focused on exploring the ways organizations can increase their capacity for double-loop learning. They argued that double-loop learning is necessary if organizations and its members are to manage problems effectively that originate in rapidly changing and uncertain contexts.
They describe single-loop learning as “Adaptive learning” [that] focuses on incremental change. This type of learning solves problems but ignores the question of why the problem arose in the first place. Double-loop learning is described as generative learning that focuses on transformational change that changes the status quo. Double-loop learning uses feedback from past actions to question assumptions underlying current views. When considering feedback, managers and professionals need to ask not only the reasons for their current actions, but what to do next and even more importantly, why alternative actions are not to be implemented.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978)
Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective,
Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.
“A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. How they can change it.” “…a ‘learning organization’ — [is] an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future. For such an organization, it is not enough merely to survive.” An excerpt from The Fifth Discipline, by Peter Senge, (1994).