Is Another Sequence Possible?

It is not possible for political development to start anywhere except where the brute reality of power in society lies: elite powerful groups.

The explanation is circular: The groups are elite (i.e. privileged, high status) because they have power, and they are powerful because they are elites.

In short: political life must start from the primitive pluralism organized by existing privileged and powerful groups. Political power may appear through chance, cultural demands, or use of brute force by an ambitious leader.

Political history exists of course. Powerful personalities come and go, doing good or evil. However, «in the beginning» no-one can imagine political power operating in any other way than via the existing elite groups and their leaders who dominate via the exercise of some sort of power.

Some authoritarian governments try to develop society. But their aim is primarily to manage and strengthen society as a whole—not to develop political sensibilities and responsibilities within the populace—at least not any faster than they are forced to by mass movements.

Powerful elites can engage in business (e.g. the PLA in China), and they can attempt to deal with social problems more or less scientifically.

Nevertheless, legitimist values and institutions, loosely referred to as «democracy» or «human rights», remain the only means by which the populace can be genuinely engaged in politics.

Without legitimist enfranchisement, with meaningful property rights and enforcement of contracts, enterprise is just too risky for most people. Elites (politicians or their gangster friends) will simply confiscate the wealth. This was evident at the turn of the 21^st century in Russia.

In centuries past, Chinese political leaders viewed businessmen with distrust, took their money, and drove them out of the country.

So the first step in political maturation must be to the legitimist mode.

Much of the promise of achieving a legitimist ethos cannot be realized without wealth. Services to reduce injustices and improve opportunities are too expensive to develop for the population as a whole.

It is just a fact of life that tackling everyday social problems like illness, education, or unfortunate accidents costs a lot of money. It is irrelevant whether the public or private sector dominates, because only individuals create wealth. Governments have to extract it from individuals somehow.

For a government unable to build wealth through plunder or massive foreign aid, there is a pragmatic need to enable domestic prosperity. Prosperity demands individualist values.

From a political perspective, most people are not happy living in poverty or prevented from bettering themselves.

Pluralist-legitimist states which embrace socialism commonly depend on their natural resources, soft loans and foreign aid. Such countries in the past tried to limit travel and communications to keep the population ignorant and content. This is now harder with globalization.

So the second step in political maturation must be to the individualist mode.

There is no appetite and little money for rationalist political principles without prosperity and a degree of personal freedom.

As explained earlier (see tragedy of the commons), serious and damaging side-effects to the environment are inevitably generated if industrialization and free enterprise are allowed.

Handling man-made disasters effectively demands rationalist values and institutions.

So the third transition, coming as soon as possible following the individualist mode, needs to be to the rationalist mode.

Cycle-1 modes deal with progressive sophistication in the choice of values and purposes, while Cycle-2 modes deal with a progressive willingness to be responsible for government. So the mixing of these modes is unlikely.

• Conventionalist principles resist change and require a positive willingness by most people to accept a shared responsibility for society—that's asking too much in Cycle-1.
• Transcendentalist principles, being idealistic and self-centred, require an effective socio-political infrastructure and widespread awareness that people must be politically responsible before they can be applied; and
• The Communalist mode is a focus of hope during Cycle-1, probably because it is the natural end-point of the maturational process. However, its demand for the responsible handling of power by the people en masse needs much preparation of the ground.