What is the ideal governmental system?

And how to analyze this question from a Christian perspective...

Last week I went to a First Things event in Chicago where Editor-in-Chief Rusty Reno debated with New York Times columnist and Catholic, Ross Douthat, about the interplay of Christian Faith and Political Power.

After digesting the experience, here’s how I would think about the related topic of which governmental system is best:

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1. Does this question even matter?

Well, the question matters enough that we’re asking it in the first place. But the point here is for us to assess: In the final analysis, to what extent should the topic of “ideal governmental system” matter?

At least from the lens of a Christian worldview, one could argue that we shouldn’t really care about what the kingdoms of this earth look like, since we should dedicate our full heart, mind, and soul towards building the kingdom of God.

Further, Jesus Christ didn’t come to overthrow Rome, much to the disappointment of many followers. His mission was relentlessly focused on the spread of the Gospel, and its practical encouragement to Love God and Love Others.

This kind of message is different than one focused on political power, which would have needed to include components of “we need to replace current leadership” and “we need to change certain laws” in order to be characterized as such. Instead, Christ’s message seemed to be: “Independent of what the laws and structures of society currently allow, this is how you should live your life.” He provided a model of perfect social relations, separate from any temporal system of commerce or citizenship.

At the same time, despite Jesus’s message not being explicitly political, it nonetheless drove dramatic political change, shifting the trajectory of Western Civilization for the next two millennia.

Could Jesus have intended such political reform as a primary, ex ante objective or was this disruption a natural byproduct of what happens when people collectively “Seek first the Kingdom of God…” ? I’m inclined to believe it’s more of the latter, where seeking first the kingdom of God with 100% attention necessarily produces better outcomes in other spheres, even if one isn’t consciously caring about those spheres.

Still, even if such political reform were merely a subconscious after-effect of spreading the Gospel at scale, it’s worth considering how Christ’s message might lead to political action. By what mechanism would spread of the Gospel “cause” political reform?

In theory two methods at play would be:

A) A critical mass of the general population embraces the key pillars of Christianity / Judeo-Christian ethics. These principles would then be implemented upstream into law either by vote (in representative systems where citizens elect their leaders) or by a leader wanting to be liked by his or her constituents, thereby choosing to espouse the views that the people want to hear

B) The leaders themselves are converted into the faith and consequently begin to rule according to a new set of values and priorities.

I don’t know enough about Early Church history to have a strong view on how the Christian principles spread through the various political spheres, but I imagine it was some combination of both.

Regardless, there’s one more distinction I want to make with regards to whether this topic “matters”: There is a difference between “caring” about what your system of government is (as far as having a preference for system X over system Y) versus investing active passion and effort into influencing and promoting system X over system Y.

The opportunity cost of the former is negligible, yet the opportunity cost of the latter can come at the expense of promoting the kingdom of God.
e.g. the more I focus on having Republican vs Democrat conversations, the less I’m able to focus on Christian vs non-Christian discussions, or the interpersonal sharing of lives and matters of the heart (the true substance of Life).

So then, to what extent should we care about determining which political system is best?

I’ll come back to this question again at the end. . .

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2. How do we determine what makes one system better than another?

Let’s assume for a moment that we should care about which system is best.

By design, the purpose of any “system” is to facilitate an optimization problem or increase the likelihood of achieving some result.

Which system is “ideal” depends on which optimization problem we are seeking to solve. Some possibilities:

• maximize subjective happiness (minimize perceived suffering)

• maximize average wealth

• maximize average lifespan

• minimize variance in outcomes (maximize lifestyle homogeneity)

• minimize risk of violence (maximize “peace”)

• maximize number of souls in relationship with God / maximize “Love”

  Etc.

We can see how different systems along the Socialist ←→ Capitalist, Open ←→ Closed, and Totalitarian ←→ Free spectrums address these problems both in theory and in practice. For theory, pay attention to what the people promoting System X claim they will solve (or read some books by the system’s thought leaders). For empirical outcomes, look at GDP per capita, happiness surveys, income inequality, crime rates, etc.

What does the American system seem to be about? Well, per the Declaration of Independence, the system seeks to optimize “Life”, “Liberty”, and the “Pursuit of Happiness”. That’s the theoretical intention, and historically the American system appears to have delivered relatively more on these goals compared to other world powers, even if it falls short from bring us to the ideal. Empirically, the system (or at least its capitalist components) seems to have historically optimized for increases in average wealth and lifespan, albeit while also producing variance in outcomes via income inequality (though breaking down reasons for this can be complex, and these conversations can end up being about multiple systems interacting — a system of systems).

Compared to some of the more measurable goals above, you may notice how the variables of '“Life”, “Liberty”, and the “Pursuit of Happiness” are particularly abstract, or at least difficult to specify.

“Life” is almost an infinitely encompassing word that can capture the entire experience dignity of the human person, spread across different tiers of richness.

“Liberty” is also somewhat ambiguous, though we can potentially estimate its proxy by observing the number of meaningful decisions the average person is permitted by the State to make (the number of accessible choices one has), as well as the average importance of those permitted decisions. e.g. acknowledging difference between choosing which socks to wear vs which career to pursue.

“Pursuit of Happiness” is interesting to me, because it’s different than merely maximizing happiness itself. There is a “pursuit” that is being promoted, which we could consider to be a participatory maximization of “opportunity”. And based on the prior point, increasing opportunity (available options) necessarily increases the exercise of Liberty (for true liberty requires options), and ultimately a good “Life”. This philosophy is drilled in further with the language of “pursuit”, since that implies voluntary orientation and action an after some desired goal.

The originally intended principle behind the American system seems to be about having freedom (lack of arbitrary State interference) to both define one’s goals and to make decisions (choosing between multiple options, each of which come with a set or risks) in service of those goals (as constrained by a “Life-promoting” moral framework of social relations, which was historically rooted in Judeo-Christian ethics). Further, in these words there seems to be the idea that happiness is not something that can be maximized directly, but rather that it would be a secondary byproduct of maximizing opportunity to exercise one’s own free will.

In sum, assuming we care about the system, we need to first be clear on what objective we are optimizing for, which brings us to the next point.

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3. Which societal objective should Christians deem most important?

At the very core, Christians are called to love. What does it mean to love?

Let’s note the following sample of ideas:

• St. Thomas Aquinas: “To love is to will the good for another.”

• The Greek word for unconditional love, agape, can properly be understood as “charity”.

• Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia describes agapic love as “generous self-donation without concern for reward.”

We can also consider the opposite. Christians are called to avoid sin, which is essentially the antithesis to love. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sin as “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods.”

So then, the Christian’s desire for society should be to maximize love and minimize sin (failure to love). From a systems or regression perspective we would seek to maximize love/minimize sin by manipulating the variables that can contribute to more or less cumulative love.

Consider reframing the variables from section 2 above (e.g. average wealth, distribution of wealth, happiness, etc.) in the context of love maximization and sin minimization. You might notice that the effects of some are more obvious to infer than those of others.

e.g.
Obvious: “Minimizing violence” ≈ Minimizing a severe form of sin
Not so Obvious: “Maximize Average Wealth” = ? . . . On the one hand, lifting people out of poverty should reduce envy-related crimes such as robbery and burglary. On the other hand, accumulation of wealth can lead to pride and forms of selfishness. (Check out Proverbs 30:8-10 ’s “give me neither poverty nor riches” idea)

We begin to see how various problems creep up when we attempt to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete:

• It’s easy for us to recognize that whatever we do, we need to maximize love and minimize sin. However, since the variables of love and sin can’t be manipulated directly, we are instead stuck trying to affect these indirectly through politically measurable mechanisms like wealth, crime, and surveyed “wellbeing”. I would call this the problem of estimation. The concrete parameters are an insufficient representation of the abstract ideals that we are seeking to optimize. i.e. It’s not entirely clear what economic policy X does to promote Love vs Sin (though imagine what could happen if we started to measure society’s pressing issues in such a way. . . could it be transformative for our discourse?).

• Every policy introduces tradeoffs. It’s rare to encounter a decision that has 100% Pros and 0% Cons. Any political issue can potentially encourage more Love in some areas, while creating more occasion for Sin in others. Assuming we could estimate these impacts with reasonable accuracy, we would still need to impose some sort of hierarchy of values in order to choose between options. This is the problem of prioritization. e.g. If you were able to, carte blanche, eliminate the sin of stealing vs the sin of adultery, which would be better for society?

In sum, it seems to me that a Christian’s “systems” objective should be to maximize love and minimize sin. However, these intangible forces of the human heart cannot be directly controlled by the State, so at best we can only evaluate the State’s ability to change the external circumstances that promote behaviors of love and discourage occasions of sin.

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4. The Gospel for me, the Government for thee

When we talk about “governmental systems”, we are really just talking about things (laws backed by threat of State violence, monetary incentive structures, etc.) that affect how other people behave. When it comes to ourselves, we tend to think about behavior differently.

As a devout Christian, you might say that the reason you choose to pursue the Good, as opposed to Evil, is because you want to Love God, express the Imago Dei, get closer to realizing the Beatific Vision, participate in God’s Divine Will, respond to Grace, etc.

The fact that human laws say “don’t commit crime XYZ” might have absolutely no practical bearing on your disposition, as you may be so fully consumed with the Gospel that lower levels of moral consciousness are far from your daily purview.

Alternatively stated, you may be so intrinsically dedicated to the pursuit of virtue that the status of current society’s laws is irrelevant to your personal choice of action. You will Love God and Love Others, regardless of what social container you find yourself in.

Through adequate self-reflection and prayer, you can be aware of your own conscious thoughts and motivations, your own heart and will. But the inner realities of other people. . .? Only God can know those with certainty, and that fact can be scary.

Yet we can see some visible manifestations of the human heart through behavior. And it seems that those who are most politically passionate hope that by managing human behavior externally we could effect real change internally in the heart (leaving aside any Machiavellian or tribal motivations for embracing politics).

So the overall question about governmental systems becomes a question of: What is the best way to have other people be more loving and sin less, using the coercive powers of the State?

Hmm. . . perhaps now we finally arrive the center of the dilemma. What do the coercive powers of the State have to do with matters of love and sin?

Love is a free effort. Fruits of Free Will can’t be maximized directly, or else they wouldn’t be free — they would be deterministic, established by cause and effect. Love necessarily requires freedom, or else it wouldn’t be love. The State cannot legislate love nor “make” anybody will the good of another.

What about sin? On the surface, it appears that we can create rules that deliver penalties for various sins.

e.g. We can have a murderer be physically moved to a prison.

Such penalties and punishments create “reasons” for citizens to avoid certain sins (“I don’t want to go to jail.”). But when we take a closer look, it’s not that laws are encouraging citizens to avoid sins, insomuch as they are encouraging people to avoid socially undesirable behaviors.

Why the distinction? Per the teachings of Christ, sin is fundamentally a matter of the heart. The one who embraces a full-on hatred of another and tells him “F*** You!!!” is just as guilty of sin (failure to love), at least at the level of the heart (Matthew 5:21-26). The externally visible “crimes” are always downstream of a sinful heart, of a broken relationship with God, self, and others.

Therefore, we once again recognize that no configuration of the State (or governmental system) can directly change the condition of a human heart. So then, in what ways could we potentially use the State to promote love and discourage sin, if it can’t do these things directly?

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5. The Mystery of Love’s Implementation

How is Love implemented into the human soul in the first place? And can this process be replicated and scaled?

• Love must first be received in order to be given. We are able to Agape other people, only to the degree that we receive God’s Love for us.

  • This is not merely a propositional form of knowledge, where one mentally says the statement: “God loves me.” It’s something of a more mystical and interpersonal nature, where we can to go to a space with God, feeling and experiencing His presence and loving gaze. We can also tangibly experience God’s Love in the Sacraments.

  • We can also, to a lesser extent, receive an approximation of unconditional love from others (e.g. a child from her loving parents), which can give us psychological “security” to love others for some period of time. Still such sources are often inconsistent and seem to serve more as a means of giving us a taste of what True Love can look like, rather than being the source that can we can fill our cup with.

• Sharing of the Gospel plants the seeds of a worldview grounded in Love. While it’s a mystery to truly understand how the Gospel (and Holy Spirit) takes over a human heart, we can identify at least some of the psychological mechanisms. It goes something like this: Our hearts and wills our broken, and we see that there is a famine of Love (as well as encountering the reality of Death). We learn and accept the “Grand Cosmic Narrative” that:

  • The Creator of the universe, who is Love and Logos, took on flesh through the Incarnation.

  • He suffered, died, and came back to life, “taking on our sins” in some metaphysical way and “proving” the supernatural power of redemption.

  • We can participate in this Resurrection process, which fully encompasses the human person, from the physical to the spiritual dimensions.

  • Ultimately, through receiving this gift of Love, we are able to have an open channel and relationship with the Creator and can subsequently bring Love to the world, doing our part to alleviate the famine, and participating with God in the redemption of all creation.

love isa. free effort… whereas political systems are intrinsically about utilizing the coercive power of the State (essentially using Fear to motivate)
responsibility of the self vs others
Occasion of sin

behavior of the other… since
Gospel…

making things less difficult… easier to live out the Christian life… does God keep average effort to be a Christian uniform across time?

If it’s good that we have police to prevent violence… is there a threshold?
Laws that limit spread of Gospel… (since hearing the words is essential)…
Laws that limit community interaction (social relations are key… Christian life is about relationship… if you were forced to be alone, not good)
Laws that “force” you to sin (at least under threat of prison, material deprivation, and/or death)… though these laws could create opportunities for martyrdom…

Back to anecdote… Marian apparitions…
Still a mystery, perhaps as much of a mystery as the interaction of free will and sovereignty (government system is the hybrid… it’s free will applying sovereignty)

responsibility of the self vs others

To what extent am I responsible or for increasing others’ opportunity to love and limiting others’ occasion of sin? If it’s the case that I’m willing the good of others for their own sake, then it’s possible God may judge my political action of voting or discourse as Love. Yet if such a pursuit would have me falling into a sinful “party spirit” (see the Galatians 5:20 work of the flesh), then it would decrease Love and harden my heart.

Action vs Desire…
optimization problem
Voting… things into law
ability to exercise political power