The problem of philosopher king and the nature of power

[Tietäjä]

The problem of the philosopher king and the nature of power

The Oxford dictionary offers a long list of definitions for the noun "power". The type we're discussing here is of course the one that has to do with the ability to exert influence over the decisions of others. In this brief essay, I seek to formulate the consequences and implications of manifesting such power, and the limitations of it. The approach will be that of Plato's (in this case a singular) philosopher king, thus the ideal leadership of a nation, as discussed in Plato's the Republic. The subject is of course far more diverse than this idea, spanning from modern politics to intimate relationships, thus more or less all human interaction. It is possible to call discussing the subject from my viewpoint reductionist, which is a tag I'm willing to live with.

Let us proceed to defining the problem then. The discussion underlying should not be subjected to criticism concerning of the anti-totalitaristic stance of the Republic. The philosopher king simply happens to be, on the level of ideas, a handy example of a position of perceived ultimate power, which I seek to prove fallacious. By a benevolent dictator (which could of course, equally well be a democracy in this sense), I refer to an entity of decision making for a state composing of a) the utmost power to make decisions, thus unquestioned authority to make all and any decisions related to the state, and b) of perfect wisdom and foresight in what truly is the best for his subjects' well-being (I deter myself from defining well-being here; let us assume an universal measure which considers all aspects of such, and optimizes it also taking into account the fact that short term gains can yield long term losses; in this case, the benevolent dictator is able to determine the optimum solution). We will also assume that the subjects are at least a posteriori always able to recognize the solution as optimal and thus would not wish to deviate from any such decisions.

In her role as a benevolent dictator, the dictator of course, given the definition, always makes the optimal decision for her nation. We would be forgiven to mistake this facade as power, where truly it is little less than an illusion of. While the benevolent dictator retains ultimate authority, her power is always restricted by the preferences of her subjects, thus her nation. She is little less than an extension of Laplace's demon: to maintain her benevolence, she must always make a given decision, and if we presume she is unmistakable, she can never deviate from this. Thus, the benevolent ideal philosopher king is saddled with responsibility, however with no liberty in her decisions.

Responsibility and liberty can be defined economically as a sum. In a steady state of a closed system, and equal amount of responsibility must always follow a given amount of liberty. To put bluntly, the production function must always produce all the items consumed, thus for all consumption of any given item (be it goods or something less tangible), an equivalent of production must happen. This production, the responsibility, is not always a preferential choice (or in fact would rarely be so). Few of us would, for example work, if we'd reach a position of some Taleb-esque flâneur. Thus we could deduce, that the work of the benevolent dictator is likely to a large degree be the responsibility; this means that in a closed system, those relieved of responsibility would be her subjects. An increase in the responsibility without an equivalent gain in liberty is like an income transaction: it's uncomfortable for the giving party, and comfortable for the recipient party (no matter it's importance on a system wide level in terms of for example, sustainability of the system; we are of course discussing an infinitely sustainable system).

In short, responsibility is an uncomfortable item we must cope with in order to obtain liberty we desire. We could equally well define, in economic terms, liberty here as consumption, and responsibility as production.

This leaves us with an uncomfortable problem. The benevolent dictator is presumed to have infinite power, however is always shackled in her decisions, and thus has no liberty in those decisions (beyond whatever happens outside office). In an efficient system of course, there should be a reward, a wage perhaps, for such a benevolent dictator (a premium set on the responsibility), however let's assume she would function more like Jose Mujica of Uruguay. In this system, the philosopher king is able to extract no personal gains from her power, however she needs to bear the burden of the responsibility. The beneficiaries are, of course, her subjects, who are liberated of the responsibilities she assumes. If she were to make a mistake (unlike a quantum enhanced Laplace's demon), the responsibility would be hers.

It is easy to see why (how I would interpret) Plato would consider such arrangements to, in a world of idea, to be optimal. However, the philosopher king - or queen here - may beg to differ. Ultimately, I have here described her as a beast of burden: she gains nothing from her power, being unable to exert any of it for personal gains; she is shackled by preferences of her subjects, and bears the responsibility of the nation. It sounds like an antithesis of power; in fact, it seems that the subjects here enjoy ultimate power through their preferences, and the benevolent dictator is simply a responsible authority for optimizing these preferences. The facade of power she wields is simply a burden.

As a sidenote, those who of familiar with the dynamics of the BDSM society, any longer term participant in such communities will always understand that in fact the dominant party has no power. It is a relationship of "do unto me what I want you to do unto me" by the submissive party; thus the crowned philosopher king or the dominant party is in fact often carrying a crown of lead, being shackled by her subject's desires and restricted from using the so called power to obtain her own desires (with the exception of where they exactly align with the subject's). This is why there will always be more submissives than dominants, and more to the point, less benevolent dominants than malevolent dominants.

Thus I seek to define power here as an equation of liberty and responsibility. Any party able to transfer a degree of responsibility to another party (a submissive in BDSM, a child to their parents, a subject to a philosopher king) without being deprived of an equal degree of liberty is enjoying a degree of power. Such entities are able to reduce the amount of output they are required to perform, without an equivalent decrease in input. Of course, in a closed steady state system, such a transfer would shock the equilibrium: a given different entity in the system would have to assume more output, without an increase in their input; thus their responsibility would be increased and liberty remain the same (or of the other equilibria; responsibility would remain the same and liberty decrease), so forth the total identity of the equation to remain constant.

A benevolent dictator is deprived of all true power, and bears all true responsibility of the Republic. The subjects are of course, in this utopia, happy, since they obtain liberty without the responsibility. Is the power to make decisions then ultimately power at all, if you are shackled constraints that deter you from making any decisions that would increase your liberty (of course at the cost of another person's increase in responsibility)? In a somewhat Nietzschean fashion I could perhaps paraphrase and redefine, that the only true philosopher king and altruist, if one ever lived, died two thousand years ago in a fable.

Extending the idea to a system of democracy is not extremely problematic. If we assume a traditional representative democracy such as in the Europe, and extend the idea for the representative to act like a philosopher king, the outcome would be the same. In dynamic systems, if we would open the representatives for error, and the subjects would remain rational over optimal (and less optimal) decisions, and introduce an infinitely short re-election period, any government that would fail a decision (thus, would fail to maintain their role as the responsibility) would immediately be replaced. Similar thought experiments can be used to transfer the idea to other human relationships, such as the BDSM society mentioned above and for me, to romantic relationships.

If we accept the description discussed as power, then we must conclude that only a non-benevolent, thus malevolent (or at least, partially selfish - as discussed with the case of rewarding from such responsibility in an efficient or even steady system without Jesus of Nazareth) would wield any true power. This of course is an outcome not unfamiliar to those who have researched into the branch of economics called public choice theory. Representative democracy can, in the light of above discussion on power and theory of public choice, be described as a struggle towards being able to gain an advantage (for oneself and/or the individuals represented) in the equation of liberty and responsibility - of course at the cost of some other group of individuals.

A malevolent version of the benevolent dictator, thus an entity of unquestionable ultimate authority with the desire to maximize one's liberty and minimize one's responsibility would thus wield true power: importantly, the ability to affect other people's decisions so that they benefit her utility, even at the cost of damaging others' utility - in a Rawls' utility theorem's fashion.

Power thus should be defined as the ability to increase one's utility (in non-Pareto optimal increments) at the cost of the utility of other agents' in the same system. Any agent in the system that experiences more liberty than responsibility, in vague terms, is exerting power to some other agent in the same (closed) system, that then has to experience more responsibility than liberty.

Ultimately, a philosopher king of Plato's Republic is an oxymoron: it is a figure devoid of all power through constraints imposed on it's activities, and if we extend the thought to assume that she could also produce at an infinite, we could simply deduce that in her benevolence she would also, in addition to making all the decisions, produce all output (goods, nongoods, externalities) of the system. The subjects of the Republic's system, would of course through manifestations of their preferences wield ultimate power; lack any responsibility yet enjoy infinite liberty.

Perhaps this is why the history has experienced such a scarcity of wise philosopher kings.






Footnote:

I wanted to write this down somewhere for a very anonymous view, and perhaps feedback, and for myself to restructure my thoughts in search of a more fluid text. I am currently uncertain as to how I wish to present this. I am leaning towards a monologue, but I would prefer a dialogue; perhaps along the lines of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, with replacing the Vladimir and Estragon with characters refering to responsibility, power, liberty, and submissivity. It would then of course be far more extensive, and perhaps in chaptered form, to provide with more detailed discussions on certain characteristics denoted to the level of notations here (such as the ones concerning rewarding in efficient systems, Jesus of Nazareth, and so on). Additionally, I would like to add a discussion of Rawls' utility function's optimization in a closed system of heterogenous agents (by inherent amount of productivty; homogenous by preference functions in terms of utility gained/lost from both production and consumption, thus liberty and responsibility). Mostly because this has interesting consequences if we discuss it in the context of the power as described.