Free Will and Our Government

“Once there is a distance between you and your thought process, a new freedom is born. With this freedom, a new perception arises.”  - Sadhguru

My definitions of free and will for this discussion.  

Free – to be unconstrained or without influence

Will – intended outcome

In a recent Raise the Bar meeting where members of our community to come together to discuss topics, I actually enraged another group member by saying that our social, physical and economic environments are a more powerful influence on our behaviors than our individual will.  My statement was based upon reading behavior studies and my observations that our society is exhibiting outcomes such as increasing obesity, higher suicide rates, lower life expectancy, that are symptoms that our underlying environments are not healthy.  He believed by stating this I was abdicating personal responsibility for my actions which I was not. 

In the United States I believe we have two competing narratives of America that underlie our thought processes and actions.   For some Americans their beliefs are strongly rooted in the westward spirit of the pioneers and open spaces.  They believe that government regulations and laws prevent or limit us from exercising our individual choices and that increasing government intervention is destroying our country’s heritage and our free will.   They believe free will is stronger than our environments.

Other Americans, some of whom have historically been marginalized see our social, physical and economic environments limit our ability to individually choose and laws and regulations are necessary to reverse this trend.  They believe they are not free to exercise their own will.  

  

In the second view, Americans perceive that greed and the corporation incentive to increase short term profits is destroying our country and individual freedoms because corporations ignore other stakeholders’ interests.  For instance, if the American government does not enact environmental regulations, companies will not voluntarily reduce pollutants because the equipment or processes will increase their costs and reduce their profits.  Another example is the supersizing of meals and drinks by the restaurant industry.  At some point, a restaurant chain starting introduced larger drinks and to compete, other restaurants followed suit.  Plastics, an amazing invention, has proliferated without considering the consequences to our planet.  Social media has powerful influences on our behaviors, but social media companies don’t want to limit their profits so self-regulation does not occur.  As the opioid epidemic shows us, pharmaceutical companies and distributors and doctors will push a product for profits regardless of the impact on Americans.  These examples don't begin to address the physical and social environment in low income zip codes.

Americans in the first narrative say that when it comes to individual freedoms, no one should control how much sugar or social media we consume.  The problem is, even with whole capitalistic industries devoted to telling us individually how we should eat or that monitor social media, Americans have to work very hard to overcome the systems and environment.  We are losing the battle in our society and it has impacts all of us such as rising healthcare costs and suicide rates by teenagers.  Studies show changing the environment is the solution, not primarily focusing on changing individual behaviors.

Until we really discuss these two different views and come to an understanding we will be locked in a political debate without a resolution.  There is truth in both arguments, but there needs to be reconciliation and collaboration on how to change our social, physical, and economic systems to achieve the outcomes we desire.  This starts with understanding as a country we are very short sighted.  We need our government to work with companies on a coordinated long-term vision and plan for our country and work together to achieve it.  China’s influence and economic power is growing because their dictatorship is driving changes, but our greatness lies in our freedom and our ability to come together in times of crisis.  

Without central goals and planning and individual Americans and corporations committed to achieving those goals we would never have won World War II.  It took a strong federal government.   However, with our government frequently changing parties and the influence of big money in politics, long-term goals set by one administration can quickly be reversed undermining long term goals.  We need to get big money out of politics in order to bring a consensus of the will of the majority to our government. 

We also need to understand a capitalistic system where corporate profits and stockholders interests are primary and other stakeholder interests are secondary, the incentives need to be modified and how we do that needs to be discussed by the best minds. We need to change the incentives within all our systems to align our behaviors with our goals. We also have to acknowledge the strength of innovation and free will that underlies the history of our nation and that we are at our greatest when we aspire to something greater than ourselves.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God (who is love), indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."