I know, I haven't posted in a while, and looking over my prior posts... I had some shitty writing. Not shitty ideas just... really shitty writing.
I had a lot of commentary about a Facebook post I made indicating I was happy that Britain voted to leave the EU. Comments about fear mongering on both sides, the net economic impact, and the legal implications. I thought I'd share why I felt this was the best decision for the UK.
Every organization has a structure by definition, be it a small business, major corporation, non-profit or government. Within these structures information goes up the chain, while the action required for decisions come down the chain. The point at which decisions are made is called the point of "Centralization." There is no point of centralization that is necessarily better or worse, but each yields a different result. The most efficient is not necessarily just, the most just isn't necessarily economical, and the most economical isn't necessarily efficient.
Every organization has a structure. Basic corporate structure we're all familiar with. The board of shareholders, the CEO, and then various divisions and levels of management below the CEO, before getting to the very front line employees. This structure is actually identical to the structure of the US Government's executive branch. Congress is the board of shareholders and the President is the Chief Executive Officer, who pushes down orders to various management levels before you get to grunts like me. Smaller businesses still work the same way, though they may not have a board of shareholders, and only one or two management levels, depending on the size of the business.
Inside these structures, information travels. The front line employees share information about the state of affairs, and management can look on a macroscopic scale as well. But this information transfer is imperfect, and becomes further and further degraded as it travels up the chain of command. It's like a game of telephone, where the message becomes more and more distorted as it travels through people before its final destination. Often times the more levels of management, the more distorted this information becomes.
Within these structures decision authority is typically graduated such that the highest level decisions made on top, with progressively less decision authority going down the chain of command. Decision authority is the ability to make administrative decisions for the business. Keep in mind that Decision Authority isn't a matter of whether or not to award a customer a $25 gift card for some bad situation that the organization put them in. We're talking about decisions about how to run the business. I.e. how many people to hire, what jobs need to be performed, and how do we want them performed? Most of these decisions don't even happen until higher tiers of management. Front level managers are simply there to evaluate and ensure employees do their jobs. It isn't until much higher up that decision authority becomes salient in most businesses.
But that's MOST businesses, not all. There's nothing that says that front line employees can't make decisions about how a business should manage their affairs in any particular situation. This is where information travel within an organization becomes supremely relevant. Those front-line employees that aren't empowered to do anything, have the most information. They're the employees who see the situations first hand, absent any corporate bureaucracy that occurs while information is sent up the pike to those empowered to make decisions. They possess the greatest amount of information about how to improve production processes because they're the ones engaged in those processes. They see how others perceive the organization and possess the most information about how to improve that perception. With that amount of information about the process they engage in with an organization, they can ascertain the ideal solution.
So why don't they have the most decision making authority?
Because there would be little to no organization, and who knows what that employee defines as "ideal." Their "ideal" might not be the best decision for the organization.
By centralizing this decision authority further up the line, you create an organized approach to fixing problems and creating products, and focus the organization on a particular goal. This centralization process is what grants high level executives the ability to structure their organizations by moving this centralization process up or down as they see fit.
There's no one point of centralization that is the most effective however. Depending on your business, it may make sense to centralize decision making authority at a higher or lower level. You might even be forced to. I.e. the CEO of a body shop can't make every quote and parts purchase. Even the shop manager might not be able to and might need to rely on the expertise of a trained auto-body specialist. In another organization, decisions may have such gravity that a high level manager might need to approve every transaction they engage in, with lower level employees simply making recommendations. Car dealerships and investment houses work like this. This centralization process may create environments where questionably moral outcomes are produced. Outcomes that the high level executives didn't necessarily intend. I.e. The housing crisis where bad loans were being made then buried. Much of that happened at a low to mid level.
So the most economical or efficient solution may not be the most just. Like wise, leaving the decision making authority for low-rate mortgages to a group of personal bankers looking to help folks down on their luck is a bad investment model that won't really yield a profit. The most just solution may not be the most economical.
Alright so what the fuck does any of this have to do with the EU Referendum, Brexit or anything?
Well, I said before that every organization has a structure that follows this information path and possesses varying degrees of centralization. The EU (and the US for that matter) is no different.
The tendency of people in power, particularly in large organizations like the EU, the US or a major corporation, is to trend the centralization of decision making authority UPWARD. So taking decision making authority out of low-level hands, and progressing that authority further and further upward.
With government, this centralization process is called "Legislation." We pass legislation that impose rules which restrict the decision making authority that citizens have. At low levels, these are basic criminal and civil laws. You can't kill someone, you can't steal, you can't... etc. At higher levels these are decisions to go to war, and how to spend money administering the programs we've said are valuable. At even higher levels this is reallocating your income - We're taking X amount of your paycheck to allocate to this other function. In effect saying "you must spend these dollars on A, B, C thing, etc."
The EU has established its own bank, its own laws and now has plans in the works to create its own military. It is, as a large governmental body, trending the centralization of decision making authority UPWARD. Britain has 73 elected "Members of European Parliament" (an MEP). This is 73 out of 572. Their votes are weighted by population, but let's say for example, that they're not. Even if a 2/3rd majority was required (it's not) then Britain's entire vote could be numerically discarded... but that kind of doesn't matter. MEPs are simply an advisory board that agrees or disagrees and proposes changed verbiage. They can fast-track a piece of legislation into passage, but rejecting the legislation doesn't really matter. At the points that it does, their influence is nominal at best.
What this does is ultimately take the decisions out of individuals hands (who are the most informed to make decisions in our society) and place those decisions into hands of executives. Money and the decision about what to do with it IS power.
If I'm not painting a clear enough picture, basically what I'm saying here is that EU membership centralizes decision authority out of the hands of its member states.
It's what we see in the US, with the Federal Government. Federal laws are adopted regardless of the decisions made by individual states.
This is really the nuts and bolts of why I'm as Libertarian as I am. It's not simply "I don't believe government should meddle" it's more a matter of "You have more information and are better equipped to make decisions about the right and wrong course of action." Whether that decision has to do with Money, Religion, your Health, or whatever.
Mind you that I'm not an anarchist. As I said before there's some centralization that is valuable to certain standards of conduct - Don't kill. Don't Steal. Don't Rape. No violence, etc. Obviously any yahoo at a business can haul off and cuss out or hit a customer. That can't be stopped outside of physically restraining them, but we can set the standards for conduct and punishment, without removing the benefit of being the most informed to make a decision.
Moving in the direction of placing decision authority in the hands of those with the information is decentralizing. I argue that decentralizing authority as much as possible, is the most just, and typically the most efficient point for an organization like government. The most economical... not always, but if we're pulling on those three points alone, I'd argue that over the long term, this gives us the greatest net wealth on terms of social liberty, and material prosperity. The UK's separation from the EU is a movement toward decentralization.
Many of us who hold the most information about how to engage in our lives are also afraid of making the wrong decision or being responsible for that decision. Because of this fear, they vote in favor of centralizing information further up. This simply feeds the power hungry who seek to promote the trend of rising power. That's the "fear" meant when I echoed Sargon's video below that they "chose freedom over fear." Those who are the most afraid of making these decisions, are also typically the least skilled at making them. Mind you that I'm no expert at making good decisions. I just do the best I can, and would rather die by my bad decision, than someone else's.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
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