An Anthropological Case for Limited Constitutional Government:

Understand that my own thinking on empirical economics is deeply informed by antropology readings and sociological ideas as well.  ultimately empirical aspects drive all economic protocols and must be addressed.  For a good outcome.

you also must accept messiness.

The trick is application and this is where we come to all governance.  Understand that we all accept hiearchy as natural and the assumed goto for govetnance. elections just moderate the choice method.

This is why i introduced the rule of twelve and the natural community because i recognized the best person for the task needs to rise on an ocean of consensus.  My own rule of twelve also creates fiat money and credit within the natural community and extends surplus credit  to buy bonds profitably.

An Anthropological Case for Limited Constitutional Government: Part One

https://www.schiffgold.com/commentaries/an-anthropological-case-for-limited-constitutional-government-part-two

People hold a wide range of beliefs concerning human nature, and these different beliefs impact how they view the role of government and the proper prerequisites for society. These beliefs are often left as an unspoken assumption that leads groups to differ in their political beliefs. This article will be an examination of how a free market versus a socialist system would fare if two extremely different assumptions about human nature were true. This analysis will primarily be done through assessing the performance of a private property-based limited government system against a socialized system in societies where most people are strictly self-interested, or strictly altruistic.

In a world where most people can be assumed to be extremely self-interested and untrustworthy, a system of rigid protection of private property and rights holds the edge over a socialist system. In this simplified hypothetical, individuals will only act to increase their own financial gain, and government officials will only act to increase their financial gain. Individuals have two ways to increase their financial welfare: expending energy in the political sphere to increase money from the government or expending energy in “the market” to increase money from “the market.” Government officials seek to increase their financial gain by balancing the positive financial gain of government spending (this spending increases their financial gain by increasing popularity and thus opportunities for gain, along with a salary increase tied to government spending) with the negative financial gain of taking money from the people (this results from their decreased chance of reelection if they tax higher). Each official tries to maximize government spending while minimizing taxation.

The Libertarian government restrictions in this model are unchangeable laws that prohibit:Taxation over a certain threshold

Government debt

Alteration of private property laws

Violation of individual rights or property ownership unless someone has infringed on the rights of others

The Socialist government has a different set of principles:A supermajority is required for distributive changes

The people have a right to politically determine ownership and economic structure

The state has the power to centrally plan and own industries

The libertarian set of principles restricts politicians to maximizing their financial gain in an extremely restricted environment, and the core limitations to government power and spending reduce the private benefit to rent-seeking. This pushes individuals to primarily seek gain through the market, which maximally pushes aggregate financial gain but also some income disparity(far less than that created in our current environment of government-enforced monopolies). If the society truly had no empathy, some constitutional anti-starvation blanket would be necessary to fill in the gaps for those with inability that would emerge if there were no private charity. However, even if everyone within the society cared only for themselves, each citizen would still have a path to the life that would most satisfy their selfishness.

However, in a self-interested society, the socialist system would allow far graver tramplings of rights and abuses of well-being. Through debt, redistribution, and annexation of industries, politicians have an almost unbounded ability to increase spending while minimizing impact to a majority of the population. The slimmer the vote margin required for changes, the less limited the officials will be in their selfish spending and reelection efforts. The huge potential for gain in the political sphere means that rent-seeking will become an appealing choice for a far larger segment of the population than before, and those who will not or can not effectively influence the political system will be trodden upon by those who can. Rather than the removal of a competitive market, socialism creates a market with far less rules than the most laissez-faire society.

However, in the situation with primarily altruistic people, the socialist system becomes much more appealing. The model still describes people’s utility as strictly financial, but now they will vote based upon a personal weighting of aggregate and other people’s individual financial gain. This utility function would vary from person to person, but it would rule out scenarios like killing a random person to increase aggregate financial gain, or avoiding slight inconvenience to one small group of people even if it had huge positive effects for the rest of society. This is being quite generous to socialism, as many socialists do actively wish severe harm to the wealthy so they can increase the financial gain of the middle-class and poor majority group. However, in the model, each individual only seeks their own financial gain in so far as it allows them to maximize their unique combination of aggregate and individual utilities for their country. A personal example would be if someone were to vote based on the principle that the optimal societal outcome results in them with $70,000, the poorest person in society with $60,000, and the average income per person at around $100,000. Political office holders have a similar maximization situation, as they would be trying to maximize welfare for society and individuals within that society, then set a minimum for their own financial gain needed to survive. The government and people’s ability to alter private property laws to best satisfy the welfare of the people would mean that only industries where some benefit could be gained through nationalization would be nationalized. Industries that were benefiting the nation through private operation could continue.

The socialist approach faces two difficulties, even in an entirely altruistic society. Even with utility simplified to money, it is impossible for every citizen to know the assumed subsistence levels of other citizens. The wide range in utility seen as a minimum would vary greatly, and it would be unfair to expect every citizen to understand what the others wanted. This informational problem becomes vastly more complex as real utility is made up of the ability to act meaningfully in a wide range of unquantifiable spheres of life. The second difficulty would be determining which industries to nationalize, as the inherent uncertainty in business requires constant risk taking and experimentation to lead to new discoveries. It would be very difficult for a nationally controlled industry to properly understand the distorted price signals it would receive from a socialist economy, and even more difficult for a government to know whether a privatized industry was in a pre-growth stage or truly “needed” government help.

In a more libertarian government situation with a fully altruistic populace, people’s altruistic senses could operate with a level of situational knowledge that would not be possible in socialism. They could directly donate to individuals and causes that would bring the world closer to their ideal state. There is a risk of some people falling through the cracks, that would have been served in a socialist environment, but for the most part people’s specific needs would be met by private patrons with far more understanding than in a governmental welfare system. However, even within a libertarian environment, government officials seeking to maximize the aggregate and individual welfare of society would still have space to create limited welfare to prevent cases of true poverty or starvation. The far more limited level of government spending would mean that welfare would be utilized primarily in the most dire situations, and the great majority of the budget would constitutionally have to go towards protection of rights and property ownership. The aggregate welfare would be far higher in the Libertarian structure, as a result of the greater accessibility of information to both entrepreneurs and philanthropists as they acted. The individual welfare would be higher in almost all cases, as every need that was known of by private citizens would be taken care of in a deeply relational and individual way. If that failed, the inclusion of space for limited government welfare would mean that on the aggregate and individual level, the socialist system underperforms the constitutional free market system, even in a society of perfect people.

An Anthropological Case for Limited Constitutional Government: Part Two

November 26, 2025・

While in the last article, the extremes of two completely different ideas regarding human nature were considered. This article will examine the pros and cons of both systems of government when dealing with the reality, which is a wide continuum of various dispositions with regards to selfishness. Some people are extremely benevolent to the point where it harms their own well-being, as others gleefully trample over the rights and dignity of others. Some business owners return their profits to the employees and gradually give away their ownership to dedicated employees as others viciously attack and replace employees who ask for any sort of recognition of their work. Some private citizens devote most of their time to philanthropy and choose careers primarily on how well they imagine they can benefit the world. Others form a strictly numerical decision about the financial returns of any given career path. The limited government system has already been shown to strictly perform better in situations of extreme selfishness. The limitations on government and associated decrease in potential returns to rent seeking lead to equilibrium with limited infringement of rights even by an extremely selfish populace. For the Socialist system, some gains were made through easier coordination for an entirely altruistic populace. However, the greater allowance for relational and situational knowledge to be used meaningfully in charity meant that the limited government situation performed better in that situation as well.

In a world where some people are altruistic, and others are self interested, a socialist system provides far more ability for abuses of rights than even a fully selfish world. Of course, socialism’s best performance would be in the prior hypothetical where everyone cared more for the welfare of the nation and the other man than for themselves. However, the reality in which a wide range of selfishness exists would allow people in the private sphere and government to take advantage of those who are less self-interested. In government, self-interested politicians and altruistic politicians would be maximizing different conditions. Mathematically, it would be a complicated situation in which to reach equilibrium, because altruistic politicians would simultaneously have to maximize the good of the nation while also maximizing their chances of winning elections against potentially dangerous self-interested politicians. The contradictory nature of these two goals would give some electoral advantage to the selfish politicians. The results of those elections would be decided by a combination of the aggregate balance between self interest and altruism, and the ability of various groups to form coalitions. Without going into the political game theory too much, if a majority coalition was ever formed that could benefit greatly from violating the rights of a minority, the socialist system would essentially self-destruct. Whether from a social contract perspective or even just a desire to avoid tyranny, the underlying moral makeup of the people is critical to the long-term success of a socialist government. The large amount of cultural and historical factors that create a people’s character means that the success of socialism is far too risky to attempt unless one can be certain of their people’s virtue.

To start by handicapping the capitalist system in this hypothetical, we will assume that the populace has a super majority of self-interested people with a minority of altruistic people. Just as in the other forms of government, altruistic and self-interested politicians seek to maximize payoffs in the same way, but the spending and constitutional caps limit the extent of their impact. The large coalition of the self-interested people would still try to influence political action, but with far less incentive or effect than in the socialist system. Their inability to tamper with property rights or government spending would lead to a much lower return to rent seeking. In all cases, the return to market energy would be higher than the return to political energy, and some suboptimal outcomes might emerge. The sympathy of the altruistic people could be taken advantage of by groups of the self-interested people, but as long as the flow of information was not restricted, none of these abuses would be able to persist indefinitely. Altruistic people who had been taken advantage of one too many times might primarily stick to giving to people they trusted, which could lead to worse outcomes for the poor, as they often benefit from giving with near anonymity. This situation is one where a limited government safety net is very important, as it stands to prevent the worst case scenario outcomes. However, the government limitations, long-term innovation, and informational discovery allowed for both altruistic and self-interested people would lead to better outcomes for both. This would result from both business innovation and the high incentive to revealing hidden information that emerges in a market. Anyone who could provide clearer informational pathways to charity would benefit from the business of the altruistic people, and the competitive market process would squeeze the best commercial innovations out of the selfish.