Information, The Social Contract and American Democracy
(Part I of III)
The social contract is a product of its environment. Born of the enlightenment, the prescriptive arguments for the contemporary Social Contract typically imply that individuals consent to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to state authority in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order. That relationship between the people and the government was built on assumptions of reason, consent and reciprocity, elements crucial to the freeing of the individual from the clutches of nefarious monarchial forces. During the enlightenment, by embracing these assumptions, social contract theorists modernized and updated how legitimate political authority could be obtained and maintained. Ultimately giving rise to the idea of popular sovereignty. Yet, we are far removed from the state of nature that informed much enlightenment thinking. But, just as reactionary impulses shaped the modern social contract, some two centuries later there might be an similar opportunity to reflect upon the the social contract as it exists in a social state.
Perhaps the current political malaise tethered to the preponderance of misinformation and its apparent destabilizing effect on American Democracy is not an exception to the rule. But rather, the current management of information is merely a form of political control misapplied or taken to an extreme that defies historical precedent. If that is the case we can look at our contemporary conundrum at having to process fake news, interpret misinformation and re-evaluate the idea of expertise as a reaction to the information asymmetry inherent in our political relationship taken to an extreme. If we embrace that interpretation of information manipulation as a symptom of an unhealthy market, we are afforded an opportunity to look at the social contract not exclusively as an exercise in rationality but also as a information problem befitting information age solutions.
By looking at the social contract in terms of an information problem with an information solution, there is an opportunity to embrace a fundamental shift in the definition of the social contract. Looking at the contemporary scenario in terms of an agent principal relationship in which self interests and information asymmetry reign supreme is a different take on the traditional interpretation of the social contract steeped in enlightenment virtue. As an information problem, we can engage a range of new assumptions that are radically different from those informed by the enlightenment. Exchange replaces consent in a competitive environment in which self interest is as important as collaboration. Influenced by the metaphor of the market, equal access to information is replaced by the premise of information asymmetry. Embracing the transactional facilitates a configuration of problems with solutions not just theories to be observed.
Within a new context of the information age, we can explore how information has historically and fundamentally been deployed as a commodity of control and influence. We can now explore the impact of different bargaining tools (Agenda formation, Screening and Signaling) within the social contract that extend beyond the Lockian fairness sought via Rawls hypotheticals and the rationality of Nash’s equilibrium. Taking an information centric approach prompts not just an opportunity to engage the theory of the social contract through a new lens, but also to fold the tools and processes of the information age into the relationship between the people and its government. Processes that can be traced back to the very origins of American Democracy.
Like propaganda and mythology the Founding Elites deployed overwhelming political knowledge not for deliberation but for control of truth. The optimistic style of political leadership assumed by the Founding Elite’s, was predicated on having an expertise shaped by experience, information and education required to navigate the treacherous political waters of the time. An expertise that rested on resources and experiences not available to most citizens. That expertise which so admirably supported their efforts as colonial rebels was re-deployed when they became American rulers. It was so effective, the founding elites established the precedent and processes upon which subsequent generations of elites and leaders have managed their relationship with the people. They put together a political calculus built on control of signal, screening and agenda formation that continues to work to this day. In essence, the owners of signaling and screening control the political reality. Knowledge is for the powerful to remain in power.
We are afforded an opportunity to look at America’s social contract as an information problem in part because of the seminal work of Stiglitz, Spense and Akerloff. Their analysis into markets and information asymmetry are quintessential studies into the relationships and transactional processes of the modern information age. Because of their intellectual curiosity, we can embrace the social contract not just as a moral consideration but also as mechanisms of political control and influence in an agent-principal relationship. Elites used information to achieve their self interested goals in three parts. They managed the agenda, they controlled signal and tempered screening.
Signaling theory explains the relationship between the intentions of political elites and their ability to deliver on those promises. Investigating signal is to explain why some signals are reliable and others are not, and that the costs of deceptively fabricating a signal must surpass the benefits of falsifying it. The Founding Elite’s were uniquely positioned to leverage their virtue of expertise to advantageously use strong signal to overwhelm weak screening. As warfare was quickly replaced by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, the Founding Elites soon realized they had to minimize the opportunity for the masses to voice discontent that could undermine the effort to build a political community. Protest poses a dangerous distraction to any political process building an operational framework to manage a plurality. Too many voices can be distracting and difficult to bring to consensus. By simultaneously drawing on elements of traditional, charismatic and legal authority, Instead of responding to discontent, the Founding Elite’s tapped into their unique historical and socio-political position atop a social hierarchy and got ahead of the situation before it became unmanageable. They fashioned an exchange of services between the few and the many that would stabilize the current political situation while affording the masses an opportunity to seek out economic reward in a democratically supported marketplace. The trust was rewarded as the elites delivered on their promises.
Screening is how affected individuals not only detect and fact check the policy in question, but also acquire the information needed to accept or deny the course of action. As vocational experts in government, the founding elite’s institutionalized a process where the many looked to and deferred problem solving and decision making to the elites. As such the people/individual allowed the state to control the tools of violence and agenda formation. Hence, screening was disabled because the many trusted the few to deliver on their promises in an environment not conduce to such an outcome. The founding elite’s understood that control of knowledge and the political agenda was social control. Instead of the masses huddling, collecting and leveraging their advantages to solve and impose solutions, the many relied on the experts found in vertical integration and government engagement. As a result of their ability to leverage high quality signal there was minimal uncertainty or risk of moral hazard. As such there was high trust with the founding elite which ultimately put in place a process of validation that in removing the horizontal collective action problem solving impulses of the people, the founding elites effectively pacified the people.
Our third point of interest is with Agenda Formation. Agenda Formation determines what ideas and interests enter the policy domain and facilitates a transfer of the narrative of the social contract from theory into the transactional. Since the Republics tumultuous birth, the social contract between the state and the people has been shaped by stability and prosperity. In such a relationship, the American state provided political stability in exchange for minimal political participation and economic opportunity. The logic of this exchange was built on the original premise that the founding elites knew how to manage government better than the citizens, who in the early republic wanted to put time, treasure and talent into endeavors other than politics. The state delivered on its part of the exchange with a sustained period of two plus centuries of economic achievement and relative political stability unparalleled in the modern era. Once again, the founding elites put in place the habits of deferring the protection of individual rights to the government. A situation which reinforced the notion that stability not equality/equilibrium was the collective good.
Looking at the social contract as a feature of the information age is to place emphasis on Information as a commodity, a transactional tool to manage competitors, to extoll expertise and exert influence in a political relationships Few were able to control the market and establish order while the many had in the exchange access to economic opportunity. That they gave up the complexity and inconvenience of political participation (outside voting) wasn’t a bad trade off. it was historically a win-win situation. Established the pattern and routines that exist to this day. So, we start at the beginning and explore how the precedent was established and using information as a through line, explore the contemporary manifestation of those tools of signal, screening and agenda formation in the policy realm. The Founding Elites created the rules of American Democracy so as to protect and advance their interests and agendas within the newly formed political community. This initial effort to manage and control the dynamics of agenda formation, by reducing options to a binary, established the processes and practices that exist to this day.
So, with that dynamic in mind, is disinformation, fake news, and instruments of right wing populism merely pushing the envelope of information asymmetry a bit too far outside established best practices. Or, Is it a symptom of decay, of a 200 year old system needing market correction in the form of better screening and a greater assumption of participation by the people. With the traditional hallmarks of American Democracy, Predictability, consistency and stability under threat; If change is afoot, then market health is now in question and while stability and prosperity are powerful elixir’s, don’t confuse those conditions with Freedom. What is different from other populist manifestations of information engineering is that we now have tools of an open government not available in the post Watergate era. With levels of unprecedented transparency we don’t need to turn to the government for permission and access to information. We merely need to learn how to access, process and consume the data, information and knowledge that is around us. Information is still seen as proprietary or secret and access is still a contentious issue. But now there are algorithmic, computational and cognitive tools to level the field and diminish the information asymmetry. A bottom up transformation is possible, if the people want to lean into complexity and inconvenience as a comprehensive play for individual sovereignty.
