One of the enduring fallacies of humanity is that systems work. Systems don’t work, so we shouldn’t demonize them. Whether it’s Democracy, Socialism, Monarchy, Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Systems don’t work. They work somewhat, sometimes. They might seem to work at times, even wonderfully. But it’s not that a system works. It’s that people are making the system work.

So when a system fails to work, it’s not the system’s fault. The system may need fixing so that people can work it more successfully. But demonizing the system is usually a mistake.

Example: Attribution Error

Melissa Horton, cofounder of Yabberz.com, put up a post on Linked In to an article on how Venezuela is having trouble with its electricity generation, by Kent Crawford. He says:

Following the nationalization of the electricity generating industry in 2007, mismanagement, ideology and corruption have encouraged consumption at artificially low prices and failed to increase generating capacity to keep up with demand, and diversify generating capacity.

That’s clear. The causes are mismanagement, ideology, corruption, artificially low prices, and failure to increase and diversify generating capacity. And then comes the fallacy:

It seems, on close observation, that the same causal factors are an integral part of the operations of large activist central governments.

The first error is that it doesn’t just happen to big-government programs. Huge errors happen in the private sector, too. In fact, it’s currently happening in Ohio. People make mistakes. Leaders make mistakes. Government and the private sector are different. Private businesses disappear, leaving the public to clean up the mess. Governments stick around and take the blame until they clean up their own mess.

Life is varied

This case in Venezuela isn’t the first time this has happened to a big-government program. But the fact that it has happened many times before does NOT mean it always happens.

Plus, it does NOT happen in many big-government programs. Many avoid such problems. Or they avoid problems for a while. Businesses and industries go through cycles of more and less profitability, more or less pollution, more or less employment, more or less success. The same is true for government programs.

People have to make systems work

The bottom line: Systems don’t work. Rather, people have to make a system work. The same is true of our political system.

We have to make our political system work. As society grows and changes, we develop different patterns. Our current patterns of behavior and communication, including economics, no longer work for our politics. Our political system has decayed. It hasn’t kept up with societal changes. It’s broken.

This is why PeopleCount.org was founded- to improve our political system. Please add your name to our announcement list and join our beta program, starting soon.