CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION

We Americans pride ourselves on having -- or being -- the

greatest democracy in the world. Such statements may be more the result
of a certain lack of humility than an expression of fact. I do not want to
argue the point one way or another. But rather, I would like to use the
alleged superiority of American democracy as a working hypothesis to
introduce the subject of this study which is far broader than American
democracy.

On the one hand our democratic system is claimed to be

superior; but on the other, we know from everyday experience how
imperfect our system actually is. Some have claimed that the democratic
system is a poor way of government -- but that we do not know a better
one. Democracy is a system of governance of a certain human social group
which has a large number of dimensions, aspects, characteristics, and so
on--let us refer to them as attributes. Similarly it is with any social system,
be it American democracy or innumerable other social systems in time,
space or domain of application. If we want to claim superiority for any
system, that superiority must somehow be related to the nature and quality
of these many attributes. To be more precise, to make any meaningful
statements about any social system, a superior or inferior system, we must
be able to

1.specify and enumerate all the attributes of the system;

2. decide on the dimensionality of each attribute;

3. Show how we will measure and/or evaluate these

dimensionalities or attributes;

and, finally and perhaps most important, and most difficult,

4. define some common denominator -- or conversion factor

or scale of measurement -- for all dimensions of all attributes which would
permit us to state whether a given social system, endowed with many
attributes, is superior to another.

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 Thinking in these terms, the present study is a highly
imperfect and incomplete attempt to accomplish these tasks in a general
manner applicable to any and all systems. Like the American democracy,
which is imperfect, but considered by many the best there is, this study is
highly imperfect and incomplete. But hopefully, on its own terms, it is
also as good as any other.

To be a little more concrete and practical, let us step back

and list some of the well known imperfections of American democracy.
Each imperfection can be thought of as one state or situation among many
-- within that attribute -- and since we speak about an imperfection, we
must imply that there are possible states both superior and inferior to the
state observed.

The first but by no means the only cluster of imperfections

has to do with money and wealth:

- The rich have more money to influence the political

process through various channels.

- The rich can better influence the choice of the candidates

by contributing more money to their candidates.

- The rich have more time and leisure, if they so desire, to

work on campaigns or work with candidates.

- The incidence of the poor voting is far less than that of the
rich, statistically.

- The very poor and destitute, homeless and hungry most

often do not or cannot vote at all.

- Candidates in fact are bundles of many issue-positions

which make it very difficult if not impossible to vote for a candidate at all.
For example this writer has a very strong positive outlook on right-to-life
and, at the same time, the issue of help to the most disadvantaged. A
typical American democratic candidate is unacceptable to me [a late term
abortion I would rather see operated on those finding it acceptable than on
an innocent child coming into the world] as much as a candidate of the

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republican party, who may oppose such abortions, but at the same time,
through his/her policies towards the poor and disadvantaged, be the very
cause of abortions for many.

- Not only are many candidates bundles of positions, but

they may be to greater or lesser extent liars, pretenders and falsifiers.

- In general, our democracy and decision making on issues

is highly indirect, even where issues could be dealt with directly.

- Candidates bully their electors in a one-directional transfer

of information and ideas, with very little possibility for dialogue.

- Similarly to the preceding point, education of the

electorate about issues, and a dialogic process permitting to initiate ideas
critically, is minimal or nonexistent.

- By virtue of the "heavy" and indirect electoral system of

participation, electoral decisions are spaced into very long periods of two
or four years.

- Democracy and human participation on a basis of equality

among members of a certain social group pertains only to certain domains
of social existence, and less or not at all to others.

I do not intend to provide anything like a complete listing of

imperfections of the "greatest" democracy of the world. I only want to
point out that each of the imperfections noted represents or pertains to one
or more of the attributes referred to above, and permits of various states of
perfection or imperfection, whether measured [cardinally] in terms of
precise numerical scales or [ordinally] in terms of discrete intervals of
"better" or "less good." It will be one of the main tasks of this study to
indicate in an orderly and logical manner the most relevant attributes of the
democratic process, as building blocks of the unified theory of social
systems.

But before we turn to our actual analysis, it is desirable in

this introductory chapter to indicate some further basic concepts and
definitions which will be with us throughout the study.

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 First of all, what do we understand by a SOCIAL
SYSTEM? For our purposes this expression is defined as a human
community whose members interact, depend on each other and are
affected jointly by actions of or physical characteristics within the
community. Decisions concerning actions or characteristics can be of any
kind, on a broad scale ranging from absolute dictatorship to an open-
ended state of most perfect democratic principles. It is precisely this
notion of "perfection" (as in the cliche of superior American democracy)
that will concern us in this study; but hopefully in a more explicit, precise
and less superficial and pride-loaded manner.

Next, because we want to develop a unified theory of social

systems, it is imperative to include all systems in all their dimensionality
-- not only in the political sphere. The major spheres or dimensions, in
addition to the political (from which we have started our analysis), are
social, educational, economic, health-related, family-related, affective and
spiritual -- and in fact any sphere involving a social system of more than
one person where some or all of the members of the system function in the
sense stated above. We want to refer to this as the ALL-
INCLUSIVENESS of all SPHERES or DIMENSIONS of human society.

The philosophy underlying this entire study is a concern for the

inner satisfaction, happiness and peace of each individual forming the
society. It is not some kind of counting votes, or dollars expended on the
decision-making process, but a deeply human concern for the
INVOLVEMENT of each individual in various dimensions of society --
involvement as expressed actually or potentially by the member of society
himself or herself.

Another key notion and concept for our discussion is that of

PARTICIPATION. Again, this does not refer to counting of votes or
frequency of elections, but a multidimensional and deeply personal
formation of attitudes and many forms of of possible creation and
transmission with the aim of influencing the social system as defined
above.

The notion of participation just introduced is so important for our

analysis that it calls for -- from the outset -- further categorization. The
first we may refer to as the STRUCTURE OF PARTICIPATION. By this

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we understand all the "static" characteristics of social participation, such
as the solutions answering the questions of who? where? when? how? and
so forth.

The next and second category is the whole dynamics of

participation -- we may refer to it as the PROCESS OF
PARTICIPATION. Because participation occurs in time and involves
interaction between members of society and learning, good or bad, by the
members of society over time, it is desirable and necessary to view
participation as a process, and to study that process if we want to evaluate
its various possible forms.

Finally, and especially in the complex modern times of the

electronics age, it is necessary to introduce and distinguish the METHOD
OF COMMUNICATION -- transmission and possibly social creation of
information -- on which participation is based. Obviously, to participate in
social decisions it is necessary to communicate the results of individual
and social positions or attitudes. There are various and multifarious
methods ranging from suggestion boxes to building of barricades, or
throwing bombs to voting machines, to many modern electronic devices.
And the latest and technologically most advanced electronic method by
no means implies the best or humanly most desirable!

With these introductory observations, let us now turn to our

analysis. The study consists of twenty-nine chapters grouped into four
parts, starting with the theoretical foundations of the unified theory of
social systems in Part I, and then turning to the more empirical and real-
world aspects in the subsequent parts. In Part II we discuss critically our
"imperfect world" in its most significant dimensions and attributes: in Part
III, basing ourselves on Part II, we outline a world more consistent with
social optimality on the basis of not only the theoretical principles of Part
I, but on innumerable insights offered to us by cases and situations from
the real world.

Part IV, consisting of four very brief chapters, may be quite

unexpected and unusual from some readers' point of view. But because
the central objective of the entire study is the search for unified social
optima, including all social dimensions, we consider it absolutely
necessary. It bears on the spiritual and intangible aspects of creation -- or
of the universe -- as they relate to human society. This writer feels that

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this subject which has preoccupied him for many years should not be
neglected, but on the contrary included for the possible benefit of many.