There have been various forms of political orders researched and executed over time; discussions have ranged from people-centric to individual-centric, both essentially the same, and all have failed miserably, to say the least. But then it's probably that none were fine enough to work with something as delicate as human nature.
The modern form of preferred government structure has been democracy. Another structure of managing humans and expectations on a large scale has been organizational and customer management in large companies. If happiness or satisfaction quotient were alone the deciding factor, there would be little doubt companies far outdo their counterparts. But then, one could reason that governments are faced with tougher problems such managing the military, health and education standards. They have to think about all shores of the society and even work with legislative standards to ensure that no-wrongdoing happens, in fact a good case could be made about the fact that it is in fact the government that helps sustain the ecosystem of companies. Given this, it would be safe to say that a government's job is more legislative than executive. In fact it could be easily seen that whether it be the execution of healthcare, education or even military, most of the achievements in the field, research or execution have not been made by the active government anyway. So they are in effect a system that prevents somebody infringing upon the rights of another, misappropriation of resources, again a legislative body.
Now let us judge both these systems of organization over the following counts.
agility - This implies how quickly does an organization respond to change (pardon the usage. i am after all a software guy :P); change in requirements, change in perception, change in climate. A product released by the company has a fault. Judge the occasions when this happens and how the company responds to this. Within days there are product callbacks, advertisements apologizing for the mistake, the service desk on their feet, response teams, a new replacement and money back schemes available within days. And how does this work with a government, given their product is essentially a rule/law. Firstly, it is not clear to anyone what the law is about anyway; let's face it there is no help manual. It is written in english, at best victorian to a few, and greek to the rest. It is a while before few people actually get down to it's flaws (with a product, there would be reviews even before the product has been launched.) By the time there is debate over it, few people know what it is really about and there is nothing but adulterated debate over talk shows. Rarely if it hurts the masses, there is big enough criticism to bring about a painful change to it, which in most cases is rendered useless by the time change takes place anyway. Talk to them about the value of change at the right time. Governments could learn a lot from companies, and a lot from software companies as well. How to make things that are complicated, simple for people (Want an example, how easy was it setting up your computer, phone or mail account today). How to make a rule that helps not just the majority, but others too. How to audit processes, and do them fast.
free market - The term is pretty self-explanatory. Is there really a free market for governments. How long does it take for the customer representative to be fired or fired at when he isn't satisfactory (5 mins, by the way). In governments, the employees could abuse you and you wouldn't have a say. How long does it take for a VP/CEO to be fired when his division fails (1 quarter). How long does it take for a sports team manager to be fired when his team doesn't perform well (3 losses in a row). In governments, we have a 5 year tenure by default. In companies, you're the king as long as you're doing well, and you're out if you're not. You're measured by revenue and profits, which is directly linked to the consumer. Where is the measuring stick in governments? It works in a collective. You either get one or the other, the devil or the deap sea. Who says a bi-political party is good. Companies cannot exist without the people. History shows that governments exist without the consent of people. People say we elect the government, but do we really have much choice. What governments do not talk about when they say they were chosen by the people is that they didn't have much of a choice to begin with. Again I choose a term used by startups; "barrier to entry" - this is one of the things unusually high in politics. I mean 99% are not going to have the right kind of background by default anyway. You have to choose a party to be in the game, which essentially means that you'd have to dress funny, among other things. But once you do manage to enter a party, which generally has to be done to gain traction, begins probably the most arduous and autocratic journey up the ladder (which is anyway capped). So i'm not buying that they are the elected ones anyway. There is more to people not voting than just irresponsibility. Companies are expected to provide results to their stakeholders with maximum transparency (not really there, ponzi after all), but at least they are better than governments in that. I can't recollect the last time they printed a concrete result. Focus on distribution machinery in the tier-3 segment in low tech tools helped a productivity gain of .5% nationally in agriculture. Simple.
HR practises - This I think is the inherent problem with the way governments function and the way companies function. There are ultimately two things needed at the top. The ability to solve a problem, and the intent to. Ability shall be available with smart people, not just the kind that can do math, but them too. These are people who on occasion trump exams, trump jobs and promotions and trump results in general. It is generally accepted that very rarely the best of minds make it into politics; very few countries have been able to perform decently otherwise. Intent is something as important, but cannot be perfectly measured, poorly measured by past and the only effective method has been results. Companies face the same dilemma, of course they have stringent interviews. I can hardly imagine politicians acing a critical reasoning interview, but the least step that governments can do is reward results. (The appointment of Nandan Nilekani is a very good example, but he had to rise to fame before being considered) How about a formula given to a CEO, given to a municipal leader? Motivation strives on reward. If we are going to wait for a few million evangelists to work two decades of their life to uplift various social sectors for nothing but the satisfaction of their work, I am afraid we are going to be waiting for a long time.
the niche - A very wise man once said "The strength of a democracy lies in how it protects the minority" (I heard it from the director of a play about the making of Sakharam Binder - check it out, you'll understand). It is actually amazingly true. Most governments tend to not just protect the rights of the majority, but also "give in" to them. So if the majority doesn't like what the minority is doing they want to stop that too. That's violation of rights, not protection. In companies, they don't say well we'll just protect the majority users, in fact we like the minority even more cos they are obsessed with us. And in case they're not and they shut the line, there is always a new entrepreneur just waiting for that opportunity. Companies do what people want. period. If there is a niche, there is a company serving that niche. In fact, most of the independent art market thrives on that. People who love it are producers and consumers, and the internet is making it ever easier, and in effect democratizing it. That is how companies serve all people more effectively, because that's the only reason they exist!
the communistic approach - i have a feeling that the concept of marriage and monogamy was created by ugly people. Think about it, in olden times, it was a free market. A guy/girl with skill at wooing the opposite sex would get the best looking of the lot and way more than one. How could other people stand that happening? They wouldn't go about changing their personalities and presentation, of course. And lo, there came marriage and monogamy. Now don't beat me on the analogy here, but get the drift. We have a communistic approach built in ourselves from childhood; it is so fundamentally drilled in, that it takes us a good part of mental puberty to understand otherwise. I mean should money really be distributed evenly. If you had a pond of water, who'd you rather used the pond, a guy who used it for agriculture, or somebody who hedged it fruitlessly for it to evaporate. Shouldn't that be factored into account while distributing, who's going to use it better. Both companies and governments have the communistic approach, the former much lesser in nature.
So as we were talking about the legislation, let us imagine a world where this was the sole responsibility of the government was legislation (and of course seeing people stick to it). How can they learn from companies? How can they satisfy everyone, bring it to everyone's knowledge and most importantly
take feedback and constantly improve Let us take the example of facebook. It has a client base more diverse than any government in the world, and population close to india and china. It does have to legislate on a number of privacy based rules (agreed one simple subset, but let's see what we can learn from them). The biggest take away from facebook is that they accept legislature as a constantly changing puzzle and try to stay on top of things. They accept that people are going to change, and they try to give each person what they wish for. You may say that this is a wrong analogy and a computer setting is different from real life. But you'd be wrong, these rules can be just as applied to real life, and with the systems as powerful and connected in the world today, we have the ability to manage that. For example, governments are probably months behind when it comes to customer feedback and expectations. Companies aren't. They are active to helplines and customer feedback. We know have technology to categorize millions of comments and feedback and present it as a succinct report to the president everyday, all you have to do is listen. Listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about how they legislate. It is a very active problem and how do they solve it, simple. They listen to everyone, categorize it into subset problems, come up with the rule/law, also decide on the default law, empower the client to suit his/her need, explain it to the client in a simple way, and if there is a mistake, they get to know it fast and fix it fast.
I am not saying that governments should overnight function as companies, companies have their own set of drawbacks, and legislation is definitely required to ensure nobody abuses the rights of another, but companies have a way of pleasing users that is unmatched. If we bring agility and similar accountability, I believe we would have a better system in place. The internet is probably the greatest example of democracy in the world; it truly gives people a voice. "all you have to do is listen"
p.s - In fact the success of a company is so accurately a critique to the human race. If Britney is more popular than Bob, then it will clearly be reflected, but as long as a few people listen to Bob, there will be a company catering to that, just a smaller company.
