Chapter 22 
No Leaders

In 1887, Lord Acton made a now-famous pronouncement: ÒPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.Ó Less famous but perhaps more insightful is what he said next: ÒGreat men are almost always bad menÓ [Acton 1887]. In case youÕre not a history buff, this thesis has been confirmed in psychology lab experiments [Bendahana 2015].
The notion of ÒleadershipÓ never gets questioned in our society. Differences between US Democracy and Communism lie in how leaders are chosen, but they both agree on having leaders in the first place. 
As we argued in The beginning of history, leaders are just a holdover from Feudalism. And Feudalism, rooted in making decisions by power and violence, isnÕt going to help us get to a positive future. 
All leadership processes in large organizations have the same pattern. ThereÕs a zero-sum process of Òselection of leadersÓ (be the criteria military victory, elections, or commercial success). Strict, multi-level hierarchy ranks people (military rank, government rank, caste, corporate ladder, first class and business class plane seats). Succession is self-perpetuating (hereditary for Feudalism, political parties, corporate boards). Then we grant the Òdivine rightÓ to the leaders to make arbitrary decisions that lower ranks must obey without question. 
Sometimes there are processes for removing leaders when they get out of hand. This helps to clean up after the worst excesses occur. But it doesnÕt help prevent them in the first place. 
Meritocracy
Meritocracy is a heuristic that improves the selection process for leaders. Instead of choosing leaders by hereditary, personal connections, or raw power, the idea is to try to select leaders based on their ability to make decisions. You Òtry them outÓ first in low-stakes situations, then if they succeed, you can promote them to higher levels where they have more power and responsibility. 
Not a bad idea. It advanced us from raw Feudalism, to todayÕs Capitalism and Democracy. But it has some bugs. Like Feudalism, itÕs still power-based. After the leader is selected, we still grant the leader the right to make relatively unquestioned decisions. (Unless theyÕre so egregiously bad that they trigger the leader removal procedures.)
We should certainly respect expertise. If someone has a track record of being intelligent and making good decisions, it pays to listen to what they have to say. But not to have it go unquestioned. Even the smartest people and their best ideas are improved by critical feedback. 
The problem is that leaders are only human. So, no matter how good the selection process is, you get a mixed bag. Some people get high positions by luck, gaming the system, or by aggression, and their decisions are probably worse than average. Others may be smarter, in the sense of raw intelligence. But putting them in a defined Òleadership roleÓ may tempt them to use their intelligence for their own good and not for the people theyÕre governing. 
The concentration of power in such a small group is itself a tremendous temptation for corruption. Sometimes, simply the pressure of having so much dependent on a single person simply exceeds the capacity of any human being to cope with it. 
No time?
One argument for ÒleadersÓ is that they are necessary to make time-sensitive decisions. These can crop up on the battlefield or in business, but generally speaking, important decisions donÕt need to be made quickly. 
Even decisions about whether to go to war generally donÕt need to be made on an emergency basis, since troop buildups take months. Post-WWII, the US Congress has largely abdicated its role in declaring war to the President, so Congress can claim that the decision was made in the heat of an emergency. This provides convenient cover for Congress, especially in the case that the war turns out badly. War always turns out badly. 
We can often predict what kinds of important decisions are likely to need to be made quickly, then carefully construct rules of engagement. These are principles that give guidance for various kinds of time-sensitive decisions, to streamline the decision process when it needs to happen quickly. People can specialize in certain kinds of situations, and responsibilities can be distributed. 
For the exceptions, thatÕs what phones and other immediate communications technologies are for. Put the few decision makers on speed dial with priority rings on their cell phones. A mistake in bombing a village is forever. A consultation between several people can take minutes no matter where they are in the world. We neednÕt continue to act like electricity has yet to be invented.
No President?
We contend that a major effect of having a head of state is increased chance of war. Commanders-in-chief are just plain prone to exercising their might because the process for selecting heads of state also happens to select for aggressive personalities. If heads of state were pacifists, how many wars would have been averted?
The politics of fear encourages presidents to cause war. It works like this: Fear is the strongest motivator. So if a president tells the public that Òthose guys are deadlyÓ, the public gets upset. Then the president provides a solution for the fear he caused by saying ÒLetÕs bomb the bad guysÓ. Then he wraps himself in the ßag and magically he gets support for being a true patriot. After 5 years of war and a bunch of citizens are killed, the public starts questioning the wisdom of that pointless war in the first place. But by then the election is over, or term limits kicks in, and the president is safe from public sentiment. If a president doesnÕt seize the opportunity to promote fear, a competitor will and likely win the next election. This is just one of the ways Democracy promotes war.
Even in ostensibly pacifist countries like Japan, pressure from a President can increase the possibility of war. Japanese President Shinzo Abe has proposed to ÒreinterpretÓ JapanÕs pacifist constitution, [Blum 2014] which outlaws war as a means of settling international disputes. You can guess what ÒreinterpretÓ might mean. Despite majority opposition from the Japanese people, and its potential to pave the way for the next Pearl Harbor, Òtop US officialsÓ encouraged it. 
A drastic solution would be to not have heads of state. But without other changes, having no President would put a lot of undeserved responsibility on the Congress. In US Democracy, legislators are pro war because they are paid to be by the Military Industrial Complex. Or they feel the need to use the politics of fear to get re-elected. Or they believe that killing stops killing. We donÕt propose axing the president without changing Congress. The chapter on Reasonocracy will supply more details. 
No bias?
Another problem with having leaders is that they often have the power to appoint or personally inßuence the selection of other leaders. Due to the cognitive bias of homophily [McPherson 2001], where people tend to select other people like themselves, it can amplify racial, ethnic, sexual, and other kinds of discrimination. Male leaders can be biased towards selecting other males; white leaders select other white people. 
Recently, after the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, her white male VP, Michel Temer, appointed, for the first time in that country, a cabinet consisting solely of white males, causing an uproar in this highly multicultural country [Koren 2016]. 
[Pellissier 2011] explores the notion that having only women in government would decrease war. The article and the numerous comments following it make interesting reading about human nature, genetics and culture. Regardless, a more equitable gender balance is likely to improve decision making. 
In the chapter on Reasonocracy, we suggest that representatives be chosen randomly, like jury duty. Random selection pretty much guarantees weÕll have a representative legislature. There will be roughly the same number of men as women. WeÕll get a proportional number of gays, including closet gays. WeÕll even get a proportional number of some minority that most do not even consider a minority. We also get rid of political parties, one of the worst features of US Democracy, because they prevent politicians from thinking for themselves.
No psychopaths?
A psychopath is someone who lacks empathy and is good at hiding that fact. Like most of us, they strive to get ahead. Unlike most of us, they are not self-constrained by treating others fairly and so have an advantage. Many think this results in a higher percentage of psychopaths becoming leaders than are in the population at large, which is maybe 2%  [Freeman 2012]. 
Psychopaths tend to make poor decisions for those they oversee. One theory holds that villages of old, ostracized, or even killed, their psychopaths. Larger civilizations donÕt do that. One reason is that its hard to detect psychopaths without extended intimate contact because they are so good at superficially befriending people (in order to take advantage of them). In a larger society, its easier to Òmove onÓ or Òßy under the radarÓ of most people, which isnÕt true in a small village. We may be inadvertently creating a higher percentage of psychopaths due to modern societyÕs rules (promoting and voting vs killing the unwilling). 
A leader can cause an outsized amount of damage to a society. Restricting psychopaths from certain jobs (police, legal, political, managers) would probably overall be a good thing. There are tests for psychopaths, though we should be extremely careful how we apply them. This is an area that could use a lot more research.
Ideas should lead, not people
The alternative to having ÒleadersÓ is to make our deliberation and decision-making processes be about ideas, not about people. LetÕs have ideas compete with each other, not people competing with each other. Even if the ideas should compete, the people should cooperate. The role of people is to consider a wide variety of ideas, and try to consider the pros and cons of each idea. 
ThereÕs a big difference between competition between ideas and competition between people. Competition between ideas has an important role to play. Competition between mutually exclusive ideas helps you explore the ideas and their consequences, in parallel. In science, the purpose of doing experiments is to evaluate competing hypotheses, gather evidence, understand underlying principles, and of course, design new experiments.
However, when you tie individuals strongly to particular competing ideas, objectivity, balance and perspective tend to go out the window. If particular ideas win or lose a debate, thatÕs great; either way everybody learns something. If we make people live or die by the success of their ideas in a debate, people get or lose jobs. ThereÕs tremendous incentive (read: Temptation) to push your idea by hook or by crook. Mostly by crook. 
Even worse, we tie groups of people with similar views to each other (in so-called Òpolitical partiesÓ) so that deviation from one idea risks disloyalty to the group. Maybe you present a one-sided view; maybe you attack the opponent; maybe you dismiss contrary evidence; maybe you donÕt lie, but you exaggerate and distort. That doesnÕt enrich the debate. It makes it a game of LiarÕs Poker. 
You might think that, if we say ideas should lead, then maybe we should have Direct Democracy, that is, voting directly for propositions, not people. While this eliminates the problems of leaders, it doesnÕt eliminate the problems of elections. WeÕll have more to say when we explore solutions in the Reasonocracy chapter.
So weÕre with Bob Dylan: DonÕt follow leaders. Watch your parking meters.