How can we change motivations to improve governments? | Estimated Read Time: 5 mins
01/03/2024
I am a student studying Computer Science/Machine Learning and have limited expertise in political science/economics/government. The ideas presented in this blog are my personal opinions and speculative thoughts, not rooted in extensive academic research or professional experience in these fields. My intention is to contribute to the ongoing conversation by presenting a unique perspective. Having been taught in American schools my whole life, I also realize that my perspective on things like communism is likely biased. I also hope to not come across as very pro or anti communism as I do not have very strong opinions on the matter. This was just a random idea I thought had merit :).
Reward is at the epicenter of our behavior as agents in this closed feedback loop we call our universe. Reward serves as a reinforcement signal in driving behavior, providing further motivation to pursue an objective. It’s from this perspective that we will analyze the flaws of communism/governments and use it to consequently propose a potential solution.
When I first started learning about communism I thought it was a beautiful idea. The concept of a utopian society with no inequality/inequity and where everyone has equal opportunity appealed to my idealistic nature. So what was the catch–why was/is the U.S. government so against such an ideology?
Throughout several lectures on other communist governments the teachings of U.S. schools began to answer this question for me with a cold hard reality check. It hasn’t worked well.
So why has communism failed to live up to its potential?
One of the most common issues for the failure of communism is a corrupt government. When officials get in power, rather than acting in the best interest of their citizens, we have often seen that they act in their own self-interest. This can be linked to the ultimate driver of human nature–‘reward maximization’–and people experiencing that acting with personal interests in mind (i.e. money) maximizes reward much more effectively than acting selflessly.
We know that personal gain is among one of the biggest reasons for communist governments not succeeding, so how can we eradicate this motivation to make people act in a selfless manner?
The most obvious solution to me is to erase any sort of potential gain from all leadership positions. In practice, this would look like ensuring that the bank accounts, personal assets, and overall wealth of anyone in political power does not exceed that of the average citizen during and after the position of power. By imposing this limitation, the hope is that people in power no longer have motivation to act in their own selfish interest as the best thing that could happen is to earn as much as everyone else. To enforce this, people’s bank accounts, expenditures, transactions, and assets would need to be watched to ensure politicans do not profit.
I can also imagine an even more extreme version of this idea where politicans are forced to live humbly in a small cabin in the woods after maintaining a political position. At this point, serving as a politician would become ‘the ultimate sacrifice’–a position that one serves knowing they will not experience personal gain from. Being elected would become a selfless sacrifice to the citizens of a country. This selfless sacrifice, in my opinion, is what serving as a politician should have always been. Nothing more than doing what’s best for a country without ones cares in sight.
This idea also has merit in systems like capitalism or socialism in reducing the corruption of high rank political officials. I can imagine a world where the president of the United States has to agree to live humbly in a cabin after presidency in order to ensure he does not personally benefit from the position. This could also of course be done for other high-up officials.
The biggest drawback to this idea that I can think of is the fact that it requires politicians in power to approve of it. What corrupt politician would want to vote for something that limits how they could benefit financially from a political position? Thus, I think reforming an existing government to employ this idea, especially when an existing government has a high rate of corruption, would be very challenging. Perhaps the best way to employ this idea would be to restart with a completely new government in place of an old one 1.
Another drawback is practicality. Implementing and enforcing this system would be very challenging. Many politicians already find ways to bend rules, so enforcing the rules in this system would need to be a top priority. Additionally, it would require many changes to the structures in existing governments.
One potential drawback, that I believe is also a potential benefit, is the challenge in attracting qualified candidates. If this system was implemented, and the rules were enforced as stated, who would want to serve in such a sacrificial position? Would this result in many capable candidates not running for political positions?
I see this as a pro and a con. On one hand, this may reduce the set of capable candidates pursuing a position, therefore increasing the probability of a poor candidate landing in office. On the other hand, it could result in the filtering down of candidates to only those who are truly selfless. Additionally, the sacrifice associated with becoming a politician could attract more people who are selfless.
It’s possible that politicians, knowing they will live humbly after serving in office, would adapt their approach to developing and approving policies. I also see this as a pro and a con, as it has the potential to make politicians care more about the lower class, but could also result in politicians focusing more on short-term objectives.
Huge thank you to Sion Kim for helping me come up with this random idea during a lunch! Thank you to my mom for helping me brainstorm as well!
Or maybe, if a country’s citizens were really fond of this idea, seeing how politicians respond to the idea could provide insight into which politicians are corrupt :). This could help determine which politicians to elect to promote this idea. ↩