FUTILE AND INEVITABLE

THE IMBROGLIO OF POLITICAL ACTION

To begin with a brief progress report. I feel like I’m almost ready to begin the next phase in the long and winding road of yet further fleshing out the seminal arguments of A Plea for Time in the Phenotype Wars, with an extended historical case study. But as I’m not quite there just yet, I thought I’d post these meandering thoughts. Just so you can’t say I’ve been neglecting you.

The topic at hand is the question of political action. As the title might have suggested, my scholarship leads me to conclude that political action is equally futile and inevitable. And perhaps in a certain sense its inevitability contributes to its futility. Though, having said that, let us not succumb to the is/ought fallacy. I’m making only what I believe is a valid claim about political action; the truth of that claim has no bearing of course upon whether or not one ought to engage in political action. Indeed, as will be made clear, such analytic judgment is directed solely at political action as effective governance; while it will be made likewise clear that there are other reasons to engage in political action that may be far less futile -- and equally as inevitable.

Such discussion of course invokes epistemological and ontological questions about so-called free will. I’ve addressed those elsewhere on this Substack and will again briefly (indirectly) below. In fairness they probably require a far fuller treatment, possibly even a book. And possibly, in the future, I may indeed produce a book that aims at fleshing these ideas out -- at least insofar as they’re related to fundamental questions of methodology. Though it is true that I’m less interested in theoretical speculation than in at least attempting to ground knowledge claims in the empirical data and arguments of biology, psychology, historical sociology, and archaeology (which of course was precisely what I attempted in my must-read book A Plea for Time in the Phenotype Wars). Still, I’m not sure it’s intellectually sustainable to entirely ignore such questions, however tenuous and tendentious they may too easily become.

In any event, despite an admitted redundancy, as such ideas are constantly bouncing around inside my head, it seems worthwhile to intermittently revisit them, if for no other reason than to reveal whatever incremental change in my thinking might be notable. So, apologies to any long time readers who feel they’ve heard all this before. I am conscious though of here pushing the envelope on a previously employed simile¹: maybe making it a little more of an analogy. And perhaps making it a more emphatic claim.

First of course some clarifying of terms: by ‘’political’’ I should not be misunderstood as implying electoral. Elections, and indeed the resulting holding of offices, are merely one narrow dimension of the arena of politics. That arena in fact includes any action aimed at influencing public governance: e.g., policies to be implemented and the means and rigor with which such policies are to be policed. More precisely, politics is the arena within which differing personality phenotypes work out which of their conflicting values will be manifested as policy, and how those are to be policed. In addition to electoralism: e.g., grassroots organizing, lobbying, journalism, art, academics, public meetings; participation in parent-teacher associations, cooperatives, neighbourhood watch groups, historical societies, trade unions, community business organizations, and conservation groups, can all be venues in varying ways and to varying degrees of political action.

Politics then could become ‘’the political’’ in Carl Schmitt’s sense of that term: the conflict over mutually threatening existential risks. Ideally, perhaps, a system in which there was a rotation of such values-oriented governance positions might help stabilize a society. Systems of elected government presume to provide such a remedy, though of course such provision is largely symbolic -- allowing the interests of specific social subsets to prevail.² But let’s not get too far down that rabbit hole. Though valid, it’s an entirely different line of argument to the one intended here.

To momentarily expand upon a point made above. In addition to being the arena for the practical resolution of phenotypic informed values-conflicts, politics is likewise the podium upon which social prestige battles can occur. Yes, politics can be decisive in influencing the flow of resources to and from different groups. And from an evolutionary biology perspective, which is fundamentally concerned with fitness -- the capacity to get one’s genes into future generations -- control over resources is vitally valuable: i.e., such control facilitates both attracting top quality mates (from a genetic mutation load perspective) and providing the means to optimize the survival and thriving of one’s offspring. But high social prestige can be a proximate means for gaining access to such resources and mates. So, even if one’s failure to ensure a funneling of government resources toward one’s preferred group, simply participating in politics might provide a fitness-enhancing degree of social prestige.

So there are many wrinkles that could be considered in providing further nuance and shading to the matter. For purposes here I’ll focus (almost) exclusively upon political action as attempts to influence the course of policy and policing: i.e., seeing one’s phenotypic values preferences enshrined as a public good -- or at least privileged as a public objective. Toward fleshing out why I consider such political action to be futile, for most people most of the time, I’ll turn to that previously invoked simile -- and attempt to put a little more analogical meat on the bone.

The comparison I’ve made is between political outcomes and the price of apples. The claim is that they’re analogous. They’re overwhelmingly emergent orders. And the extent to which intentional action can affect those outcomes is marginal at best. First, then, on apples: while there are obviously various institutional and regulatory forces that might come to bear, broadly speaking we can say that there is a market for apples. In a certain sense it might be said there are markets for apples, local and global, though these are certainly connected.

Insofar as such markets exist, then, we can say that the rise or fall of demand (or supply) of apples goes toward determining the price of apples. So, as a matter of fact, whether it is your intention or not, or whether or not you’re conscious of the fact: every moment of every day you’re influencing the price of apples. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you are always having an impact on the price of apples. And that’s because at any moment of any day you either are, or you are not, buying apples. I presume it’s obvious that you are having an impact on the demand for apples when you’re buying them, but it’s equally true that you’re having an impact on the demand for apples every one of those vastly larger number of occasions in your life that you’re not buying apples. Withholding your personal demand impacts aggregate demand just as much as personally demanding does.

So, yes, the demand level (and therefore price) of apples is determined by each one of us. And we are participating in that process whether we’re buying an apple or entirely oblivious to such a prospect -- or anywhere in between. Our individual contribution to the global (or even local) apple price, for the near totality of us all, is infinitesimal. In the aggregate though, that totality of choices -- usually entirely unconscious and oblivious to the consequences -- do constitute the price of apples (along, obviously, with the current supply). Most of us, even if we thought about affecting the price of apples, even if we chose to affect that price, would be unlikely to buy enough apples to have any discernible impact on the price of apples, even in our local grocery store.

Undoubtedly, there are people or organizations with sufficient resources who could buy enough apples to noticeably move the price. As a practical matter, following the purchase of a sufficient number of apples to move the needle on demand, unless they were content to squander a good deal of wealth in rotting apples, such people or organizations would probably have to be doing something with them, like reselling to retailers. And that of course would reintroduce a momentarily diverted supply, pushing the price back to something resembling their pre-purchase price.

In any event, the point wasn’t to get overly bogged down in the details of clearing markets and the like. The point was to sketch an analogy for political action. And that is how I see it. All political action is aimed at a political (policy or policing) outcome, and at any given moment each one of us is (or is not) engaged in political action geared toward any particular outcome. And just as in the case of apples, while we’re not engaged in a particular political action-objective -- which is the case for the overwhelming majority of us for the overwhelming majority of the time -- we are having an impact on the potential outcome of that action and objective. If more of us were engaged in such action that objective would have greater political salience and possibly legitimacy, increasing the likelihood of realizing the desired outcome.

Again, undoubtedly, there are those with greater resources who are dedicated to a particular political objective. In such cases, they have the capacity to move the needle on the likely realization of that outcome. But even in those instances there are limits. The issue of immigration is an example which has gained recent prominence. There are some people and organizations who profit from extremely high immigration rate (legal or otherwise) policies insofar as such policies, for example, suppress wages or increase housing costs. For a long time those forces succeeded in gaining levels of immigration for which there was not popular support. The fact that most people were not thinking about such issues, despite being represented in public opinion polling as disapproving of increased rates, meant that failure to be engaged manifested in the policy outcome.³

Just as being oblivious to the price of apples still contributes to the setting of that price, likewise being oblivious to immigration policy contributed to the policy outcome. Now that more people are aware of issues relating to immigration policy, the calculus has changed. The defender of political action may want to argue that such action is vindicated by this example: activism and publicity regarding the issue has caused more people to take note of the policy and form opinions on it. Well, maybe. Such activists and publicists though have existed all through the many decades over which the current situation has unfolded.

A more parsimonious explanation is likely that more and more people have been materially impacted by the down-range effects of such policies, e.g., falling real wage growth and rising housing costs, inclining them to start paying more attention to the aforementioned activists and publicists. (And of course as such people started gaining more attention, there were incentives for more people to enter that political niche.)

Immigration policy, though, in my argument, is the exception that proves the rule. (I know, not for you purists, but that is how the phrase is used these days.⁴) The vast majority of public governance policy is as absent from the minds of the majority of people as immigration policy had been for decades until quite recently. The changes in attitudes toward, and so discourse on, and operation of, immigration policy is the presence of that which gestures to the absence of salience of innumerable policies in the minds of the overwhelming majority of people.

Now of course there are people who take deliberate political action. Individually, they’re like someone trying to change the price of apples by buying out the whole apple barrel in their local grocery store. And of course the more of them that can effectively coordinate their political action, the bigger bang they can get for their buck. But just as there are so many unpredictable factors that go into making the price of apples -- poor annual crops yields; improved farming technology; bankrupt wholesalers; bestselling health-oriented self-help books promoting ‘’an apple a day keeps the doctor away’’ -- so too is there an incomprehensible range of exogenous factors that could amplify or suppress the best political action of any person or group. And those exogenous factors are likely to be the result of emergent outcomes arising from action by others with no intent to affect either political outcomes or apple prices.

Of course, there are people and organizations who can bring extremely high levels of resources in pursuit of political outcomes they prefer. Certainly, they can affect policy choices -- if they’re willing to dispose of sufficient levels of resources. I wouldn’t want to understate that influence. The Gilens and Page research cited above suggests that that is precisely the case.

However, even those political actors are subject to the vagaries of exogenous forces. The immigration example, cited about, is a case in point. Whatever influence big employers and big landlords may have exercised in manifesting recent immigration policy, eventually the impacts of such policy changed the political calculus: the status quo political action is no longer sufficient. Either the policy objective must be abandoned, the expended resources increased, or action and resources differently deployed.

What conclusions do I draw then from all this -- assuming for the sake of argument that I’m correct about it all? Political inclinations and outcomes are the product of a massive complex of action and inaction (mixed of course with social and natural context). Just as Hayek observed the impossibility of knowing the most market efficient allocation of resources⁵, so no political actor can ever map the flow of political force. And almost nobody can even influence — much less determine — the actual political outcomes. And even those few who can do so, do so under conditions of chronic uncertainty and at best only passing stability.

Politics, then, to my mind increasingly seems like a force of nature. Anyone who’d imagine they could take action to marshal the course of politics might well imagine themselves directing the course of cyclones or earthquakes. And who knows, maybe if you had enough resources and were willing to spend them, you might be able to marshal the direction of a cyclone. For most of us, most of the time, though, that aspiration sounds to me like the epitome of futile.

Yet, even if everyone shared my outlook, that would do nothing to prevent the continuation of political action. Political action, I suspect -- however futile -- is inevitable. First because, as noted above, successful policy outcome achievement is not the only motive for engaging in political action. As long as such action generates social prestige, in however niche a setting, that proves sufficient in attracting acceptable quality mates, it will remain attractive regardless of governance outcomes.

Plus, of course, however tiny (verging on trivial) the policy benefits of political action may be, there will be those who are willing to invest what they can for the marginal benefits. And no doubt, in some cases, there can be low-hanging fruit, for which the return on investment -- however short term -- is still attractive.

And of course, ironically, it is precisely the fact that, even in the absence of plausible outcome success, many people will continue to engage in political action which means that the cyclonic winds of politics will continue to gust about in uneven and unpredictable ways, generating ever more exogenous and endogenous complications. So that the very inevitability of politics contributes to its outcome-oriented futility.

That’s my take on the matter. At least, the current state of such a take. I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on the topic. I of course could have integrated the ideas in this post with the model of the phenotype wars, but decided to keep it short, sweet, and simple. But, as noted, the next stage in the phenotype wars scholarship will be soon upon us. So, if you want to be first on your block check out that new direction for your favourite Substack, but haven’t yet, please…

And if know someone who’d enjoy knowing about what we get up to over here, please…

Meanwhile: Be seeing you!

1. In fact, this post may be considered largely an elaboration of a brief comment in note 3 from my post contemplating the implications around the shooting of Charlie Kirk (see here).

2. Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspectives on Politics 12, no. 3 [2014]: 564–81.

3. I explored these dynamics in some detail as related to Canada in my book: Michael McConkey, The Managerial Class on Trial (Vancouver, BC: Biological Realist Publications, 2021).

4. Don’t for a moment mistake my willingness to compromise a bit on ‘’exception that proves the rule’’ as indicating that I’m willing to compromise even a smidgen on ‘’begs the question.’’ One has to draw the line somewhere.

5. See, most famously: F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review 35, no. 4 [1945]: 519–30. Though of course his spontaneous order, presented as invisible hand objectivity, entails a concealed bias toward the assumption that allocation conforming with the ability to purchase is somehow a transcendent good in itself. That hardly seems to be so, even if we ignore dubious histories establishing such ability: e.g., primitive accumulation.