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mail this link | permanent link | -Ray, April 11, 2007 (Updated: November 10, 2007)

The Operating System of Society

Building a good government forces us to solve the same problem we face in designing an operating system. How do you safely restrain absolute authority?

First, let's define government. There are many definitions out there but none of the sites I scanned got right to the point: Government is the dominant functional force at a particular place and time. Note that I said 'functional'. A more powerful but purely theoretical force is irrelevant. It's the operating force that counts.

We may persist in calling a 'government in exile' the rightful government of a nation, but that's merely wishful thinking. While it may become the government again someday, it's simply not the government now.

Also note that my definition rules out the possibility of stable anarchy (i.e., an absence of government). People are social creatures and social structures will quickly arise to wield power where there is no government.

While fragmented nations may be said to be in a state of anarchy, there is always some form of government wherever there are people. More properly, the remnant of the nation may not have a single government, but the various local pieces of what was once the nation will have local power structures. That some of those poorly defined and temporary powers may resemble gangs of rogues doesn't matter; they're still the dominant local force.

And that is the essence, the defining characteristic, of government.

Now, how is that like an operating system? Again, a definition.

An operating system (OS) is the program that provides -- and limits -- access to a computer's physical resources. While some application programs are usually bundled with an OS, that doesn't make them part of the operating system proper. The OS's job is to preserve order in the computing environment. The operating system decides which program gets CPU time and can access which parts of disk and which bits of memory, and so on.

In some circles it's considered very bad form to closely integrate a web browser -- or any complicated function -- into the central ring of operating system authority. The OS responsibilities should be simple, well defined, and strictly limited. An operating system should never have to deal with the limitless variation of inputs and real-world hazards that a web browser might encounter. To violate this discipline results in the infamous Blue Screen of Death -- instead of an informative error message.

Like the role of the OS, the absolute authority of government comes with a single paramount responsibility: to control the use of force in the nation.

In a civilized society government's first duty is to suppress the arbitrary use of force.

Ignoring the peripheral functions of government and considering only this single common characteristic, the monopoly of force, allows us to derive the core duties of government:

Government should protect the nation from outside threats. It should be aware of foreign forces and other nations, maintain a sufficient military to protect the nation, and enforce the security of the borders.
Government should maintain peaceful order within the borders. It should enforce laws against the inappropriate use of force against people and property and it should ensure that its citizens can travel safely throughout the nation.
Government should provide for the orderly maintenance of power. It should implement a simple, understandable, and verifiable set of rules for the smooth transition of power.

Those three tasks require the monopoly of force.

The secondary duties of government are valueless -- or worse -- if government fails to properly manage the monopoly of force. When the government becomes too busy or distracted to diligently perform its basic, central role, the nation is moving toward instability.

Other tasks that government may undertake include all the baggage associated with the monopoly of force. Like any other assigned authority, the use of force can be abused. Adding numerous other interests to government not only reduces its ability to focus on its core duties but also adds conflicting interests to this ultimate power. The political, cultural, and financial battles over the minutia of society should be as far removed from the monopoly of force as possible.

Because of its privileged position of power, government should undertake only those essential functions that government alone can perform. If there is an alternative to government garbage collection, for example, it should be strongly preferred. However, if it were to be demonstrated that government alone could effectively perform garbage collection, then the task should be moved as far from the central authority as possible.

The secondary responsibilities to government do not belong within the central ring of authority.

The framers of the United States Government were not operating system designers. However, they built an architecture very similar in concept to a well-structured OS. The central government was largely in charge of only those things that require the monopoly of force. Everything else was delegated down to the states and the people.

The states represented the second ring of authority. By having the less central, nonessential, and arbitrary roles of government reside at the independent state level, the US design created a laboratory of government evolution. Since every state could try a different solution to each problem, we could observe real-life experiments to see the advantages of each method. Citizens could then use that information to decide where to live, where to work, and where to start their next business. Politicians could build political campaigns based on proven approaches.

Note that I have slipped into referring to the US government design in the past tense. Two centuries of political management and increasing centralization have mostly obscured the original design principles from the day-to-day operation of our government.

Without examining the United States Constitution, a casual observer would not notice the careful use of the principle of least privilege in the design we inherited from the 1700's.

mail this link | permanent link | -Ray, April 19, 2007

The Programming Language of the United States Government

A programming language leaves little room for creative interpretation. In a particular environment, a program either compiles and runs correctly or it doesn't. Our ability to create complex programs that work as intended owe everything to the precise definition and implementation of a programming language and compiler.

Without the iron set of rules that guarantee the reliable behavior of each keyword and operator it would be impossible to build these incredibly complicated objects.

Imagine for a moment that a language committee annually reviewed the details of your favorite language and refined and redefined various aspects of the language to suit their fancy. Imagine further that their recommendations were mandatory for compiler writers and that the changes were immediately made and new compilers shipped without so much as a revision number change.

The result would be computing chaos.

Every programming language is flawed. However, consistency is so overwhelmingly important that when we 'correct' the original behavior of an established language we effectively identify it as a new language. Programs written for the old standard are considered unreliable when compiled with the new edition -- if they will even compile at all. They must be modified if necessary and retested before they can be accepted as compatible with the new language version.

Every programmer knows this, of course.

The original parts of the United States Constitution were written in the American English language as spoken and written in the late 1700's. Unlike programming languages, natural languages do evolve subtley from decade to decade -- and change substantially over periods of centuries -- without so much as a new version number.

The working definition of the word 'jury', for example, has changed in the last two hundred years. Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary defines jury as:

JU'RY, n. [L. juro, to swear.] A number of freeholders, selected in the manner prescribed by law, empaneled and sworn to inquire into and try any matter of fact, and to declare the truth on the evidence given them in the case. Grand juries consist usually of twenty four freeholders at least, and are summoned to try matters alleged in indictments. Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict.

[Emphasis added]

The relevant portion of a modern legal definition [from www.nolo.com]:

jury: A group of people selected to apply the law, as stated by the judge, to the facts of a case and render a decision, called the verdict.

When I sat on a jury trying a criminal case, we were explicitly told that our authority was limited to the facts of the case. That is, we were not allowed to judge the law or the applicability of the law. Note that this is inconsistent with Webster's 1828 definition of the word 'jury' but perfectly compatible with the modern legal definition from nolo.com.

Clearly, something has changed in the past two hundred years and we are no longer following the Constitution as it was written on this point.

My intent here is not to pursue this particular deviation from the language usage of that era but merely to cite a concrete example.

The courts do not have the authority to add clauses to the Constitution -- nor are they allowed to remove parts from it. However, if we ignore the language 'specification' that the Constitution was written to, we lose any expectation that we are working with consistent and reliable 'code'.

The language definition used in drafting the United States Constitution, late 1700's American English, is as important to the meaning of the Constitution as the selection of the words themselves.

To a programmer, this should be quite obvious. Most people are not programmers, however, and may spend little time considering such subtleties.

mail this link | permanent link | -Ray, April 17, 2007

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