January 7

I am intrigued by this TED speech.  Garvis is giving voice to a solution that is akin to my own.

The answer to a better society is using its rules and values.  Laws aren’t it!  We need to use intrinsic societal values. If we work to change values within society, the kinds of laws we need change as well.

One underutilized tool is “shunning.”  A great many societies sent undesirable members away by themselves, with or without tools and food.  Today, and it’s more a high society issue, people get removed from guest lists and that’s a punishment with huge social and financial implications.

The United States is a “melting pot.”  The up-side of a melting pot is more creativity.  The down-side is sinking to the lowest common denominator. Times are even more challenging because now we aren’t just citizens of the United States, we are citizens of the world. We’re drawing inspiration from everyone world-wide. We also sink to the lowest common denominator of an entire world filled with people and their societies. If people from one country can borrow themselves into the next century, someone on the other side of the world will hear about it and decide it’s a great idea that will work for them as well.

Nobody wants to clamp down on tax laws because everybody who cheats $100 on their taxes is afraid of getting caught.  What they don’t realize is that very strong enforcement would probably mean the tax rates could drop a couple of percent and they’d save $500. So, if we aren’t going to enforce a law rigorously, the moral and ethical fabric of those who abide by it starts to erode. Fewer and fewer people obey that laws and many who do resent doing it.

You can’t legislate thought and you can’t write enough text into a law to make people comply with the intent of the law rather than the letter. A better society for all of us hinges on changing societal standards. That requires making people want to comply with the intent – and in that case, you really don’t need a law. We could, in theory, run entire societies without a single “law.”

Stephen M. Covey wrote a tremendous book, “The Speed of Trust.” Once you read that book, and grasp an understanding of the enormous amount that lack of trust costs, it’s hard not to be motivated to the restoration of trustworthiness to society. It can be done – not easily because it requires the silent minority to get out of the middle of the lemming herd – but it can be done!