During a discussion at the Armchair Generalist, I used the expression “social engineering”. The Sock Puppet of the Great Satan countered by broadly defining almost everything the government does as “social engineering”. At this juncture I raised an eyebrow. Words are supposed to mean something. However, defined as everything, the expression “social engineering” becomes useless. Nonetheless, when I checked Wikipedia, I found Wikipedia defined “social engineering” in a way similar to the Sock Puppet’s preference (here).
Anybody can add to Wikipedia; apparently a fan of Karl Popper decided to add his two cents. What I found most amusing is the distinction this Wikipedia author made between “piecemeal social engineering” and “Utopian social engineering”. So in spite of himself, the author belatedly provided the correct definition.
Let’s discuss “Utopian social engineering”, or as it use to be known, “social engineering”.
Social Engineering in Theory
Some dictionaries still define “social engineering” in the sense I am accustomed to using the term (here).
A term used (often critically) to describe the techniques dominant social groups may use to manipulate the subordinate population. It is typically applied to policies of government that lack democratic accountability; for example, many criticized the manipulative family planning programmes of the Indian government during the 1970s.
When a person or group tries to reconstruct society to suit their own purposes, that is, engineer radical social change, they are engaging in “social engineering”. The people doing this are not acting to defend their own rights. Instead, either they presume to know what is best for others, or they are indifferent.
Societal manipulation by social engineers can take many forms. The most expedient is often brute force. We probably most associate brute force social engineering techniques with militaristic societies (examples include Prussia under Frederick William I, Shaka‘s Zulu Warriors, and Imperial Japan). This form of social engineering seems to occur because military leaders too often prefer to see their empires as armies with a people rather than a people with an army.
However, more subtle, kinder and gentler forms of social manipulation are also common. In our nation for example, many supposedly well meaning souls see public education as the ideal tool for properly forming young minds. Thus our schools teach multiculturalism, provide environmental education, proclaim the virtues of our two-party political system, provide sex education and so forth. To ensure the students are “properly taught”, these noble souls have made education compulsory and every effort to force children into publicly owned and operated schools. So with the exception of the children of the elites and some very determined parents, almost all children attend the public school system.
When education alone does not seem sufficient, social engineers seek a more direct approach. They try to seize control of whatever property they need to achieve their ends. In communist nations, for example, the social engineers usually seize industrial and news media enterprises. This control makes the People dependent upon the social engineers both for their survival and information needs. Carried to the logical extreme, this approach becomes socialism.
Social Engineering in Practice
“I do not rule Russia; ten thousand clerks do.”- Tzar Nicholas 1
In practice, social engineering does not work particularly well. As I see it, the problem is that the social engineers have neither the control nor the wisdom required to execute the task they have set about. Consider the three types of social engineering we have mentioned, brute force, educational manipulation, and socialism.
Brute Force. When a society becomes an army with a people, everything the society produces is consumed by the military. Such a society produces little beauty or anything of intellectual interest. Consider for, example, that the Romans admired the Greeks. Yet because the militaristic nature of their own society, progress in science and philosophy largely skipped the age of the Roman Empire and did not recommence until the Renaissance.
Educational Manipulation. The control required for educational manipulation requires a government owned and operated educational system. Over time, this system begins to serve the needs of the people who operate the system. Rather producing well educated children, the system serves the needs of bureaucrats and influential politicians. Without competition, any monopoly stagnates, and fighting that stagnation becomes the entire subject of educational reform. Consider as examples the objects of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and Virginia’s own Standards of Learning tests.
Socialism. Socialism is merely monopoly carried to its logical extreme. Because of the increasing complexity of modern economies, command economies have become less and less manageable. Consider what we know about the history of centrally managed economies. Consider the most outstanding example. To beat the former Soviet Union, all we had to do was wait.
Private enterprise, a system of decentralized management and control, provides an inescapable virtue. Private enterprise forces decision makers to bear the consequences of their decisions. Thus private enterprise alleviates the need for the government to centrally manage the economy.
The Proper Role of Government
We need government for one reason only, to protect people’s rights. We do not need any law or any organ of government that does not serve that purpose.
The fundamental powers of government begin with the right of government to tax the individual members of that society. From whence does the moral justification for this power come? To exist, to encourage people to produce needed goods and services, every people must recognize some form of property rights. This requires a social covenant that defines and protects people’s rights. We require government to enforce this social covenant. Without such enforcement, property rights and all other rights become meaningless.
Social engineering takes government into realm of the manipulation. In this realm, government becomes the tool of the elite, a device for extending their aims. When that happens, government tramples upon the rights of the People.
When I consider the role of government, there is a expression in psychology I find useful, “self actualization”. The expression come from Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
How we define and how we reach self actualization is up to each of us alone. We can work with others. We can pursue the faith of our choice, but the decision of how we achieve “self actualization” belongs to each us. No one has the right to use the power of government to “help” us reach “self actualization”. In fact, the only reason we need government is protect our right to make that decision our own.
