Democracy: For the herd during elections, By their shepherds after elections.

The Value Equation of Democracy – When it can’t add benefits, Cut its costs.

Post WW2, nations that opted for Democracy have demonstrated its superiority over Marxism in increasing their citizens’ wealth – monetarily, and in terms of quality of life.

So, Democracy has ticked its “For the People” box, but it cannot tick the “By the People” box. Reason – Every ‘herd’ needs a “shepherd” to guide its path to the prosperity it hopes for. And because life-paths can lead to forks, shepherds, too, need guides to check which one to take, and messengers to convince the herd to follow the shepherd.

These guides and helpers became the bureaucracy of democracy, and the lessons learnt by the entire system along its journey became laws to secure the progress of future generations, enforcing which required a judiciary - another organ in Democracy.

But human herds have mood swings – e.g when they feel their journey is not good enough, democracy provides them the opportunity to elect a different shepherd – one who promises a better journey ahead, often along a new path.

Elections are thus a check-and-balance vital for any experiment, e.g. democracy, which remains a work-in-progress that needs to solve some key problems today:

1.???? Shepherds are cast as heroes by their long-standing allies - mass media – which first helps their promises get heard by the herd, and then, help convince the herd that the elected shepherd’s promises are being kept – for reciprocal favours of many kinds, that have turned reportage from a noble profession into a business.

2.???? The above formula attracted many in the herd to make shepherding their lifetime career – making them a distinct sub-herd by themselves.

Problem: The cost of democracy is driving up the price of freedom.

1. The cost of electioneering by competing shepherds has shot up to levels far exceeding the salaries they would earn during their term, if elected.
2. The cost of the bureaucracy needed to organise each election has also shot up.
3. While ‘friendly’ donors help the elected shepherd recover the cost of electioneering, the cost of the bureaucracy has to be borne by the tax-paying herd.
4. Shepherding is risky, as is business – which justifies their greater rewards. But the herd seeks the security of lifetime employment for a steady salary, followed by a pensionable retirement – something that has made a bureaucratic career the most attractive for generations – especially in government today, since rapid change in technology, and the severe competition in global competition in trade, has made business too volatile to afford it any longer.

Shepherds come and go. But their bureaucracy stays, and grows - in scale and cost, not agility.

Voters, as consumers, have been living in a globalised world, and seen international competition improving the Value Equation of products they buy. So their benchmarks are no longer just domestic brands. Simultaneously, cheaper foreign travel has raised their benchmarks of governance too, making patriotism a poor excuse for governance with a poor Value Equation, i.e. Higher taxes (Price) to pay for the increasing cost of bureaucracy and/or shepherds, without a corresponding increase in quality of life (Benefits) of their herd.

Result: Immigrants from poorer democracies have been swarming into more affluent ones in the west – initially to supply cheap labour, but now with STEM skills that most local voters lack after manufacturing was outsourced to poorer nations. This has increased supply in a shrinking job market in the west – a trend that AI will accelerate, and businesses, naturally, will exploit.??

Enhancing the Value Equation of Democracy - The mission set by USA’s herd for its chosen shepherd.

What makes 2024 significant is that USA’s new shepherd is a wealthy businessman, and has chosen two even wealthier businessmen (both immigrants/first gen), to cut the cost of USA’s democracy by, first, reducing the cost of its bureaucracy with their D.O.G.E initiative.

The hope – The trinity is well up Maslow’s ladder of their personal needs, and can and will focus on the US herd’s needs, and not on Crony Capitalism.

Strategic issues that the DOGE Duo need to resolve.

1. Cutting Cost - Done in their businesses, so do-able by them in governance too.

The DOGE Duo can use their proven S.T.E.M and Business skills to bring “Lean Management” to a brand-new Bureaucracy - assuming their Shepherd’s Trifecta power can overcome resistance by the old one.

2. Adding Benefits - Help the Shepherd deliver his key promise to the herd - moving them up their individual ladders of Maslow’s needs, e.g. :

Cheaper housing - While moving Earth’s excess population to Mars is one of Elon Musk’s dreams, his “Modular Home”, with a “Tesla Wall” to power it, can help the herd realise this dream before the next US election.

Cheaper energy and transportation – Trump’s “Frack More” is a more realistic short-term solution – something that Musk’s Tesla EV eco-system, currently facing Chinese competition, is not.

The toughest benefit to deliver - Cheaper grocery and healthcare

Obesity, in medical terms, is only a symbol of a truth – that USA’s per-capita consumption of grocery has, for long, been greater than that of not just the "Global South", but of other affluent democracies as well.

Further, reducing grocery prices might lead to consuming even more, i.e., greater demand.

And despite its huge, “Sea to Shining Sea” arable land mass, the USA’s growing population and its relentless ("Dil Maange More") appetite, has turned it into a net importer of food.

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

As civilizations went through cyclical boom-bust phases, historians journaled their peoples' experiences, and philosophers saw these cusps of history as dots, and joined them to create lines – truths - for future generations to learn from and, hopefully, put into practice. When practiced consistently across generations, these truths become values – the components of a nation’s culture.

This consistency is what distinguish Japan and Germany. Both underwent several boom-bust cycles, transited from Autocracy to Democracy, but managed to keep their cultures intact. Culture helps civilisations learn, and survive.

While France defined Democracy as Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Japan and Germany added their cultural nuance - Frugality - to their version of it.

Frugality is a value that helps losers survive, and live to fight (or, in this era, compete in trade) another day.

Philosophers call it minimalism – reflected in Japanese art as Haiku, and in German design as Bauhaus. It’s about putting Function ahead of Form.

When frugality becomes an aspirational lifestyle in a culture, its visible in human form

A Dutch scholar once told me that European Aristocrats were identifiable by their lean, angular physiques, and their herds by their corpulence.

After tightening the belt of its bureaucracy, can the DOGE Duo persuade USA’s voters to do the same?

Elon Musk could set a personal example for a new American Democracy - Wealthy, but now visibly leaner - just as he changed “Twitter” into just “X”.

Problem: Frugal US herds could cause markets to crash – perhaps forever. And because US stocks account for 50% of global Market Cap., the ripples will unsettle global markets too - further accelerating their efforts to delink their economies from a glut-printed US dollar.

Bauhaus-ing Marketing can help Businesses survive in an era of Bauhaus-ed consumerism.

Joe Rogan demonstrated the superior Value Equation of influencers in Bauhaus-ing the marketing of USA’s new shepherd – their 3-hour conversation did what billions of dollars spent by his rival in broadcasting one-way messages, adorned by paid celebrities, could not.

Corollary: The legacy Mass Media-Madison Avenue-Wall Street trio no longer has the financial resources to sustain gluttony - of groceries, and of media content, powered by instant-delivery apps, that made instant-gratification desirable for the American herd.

Which might lead to another revolution Musk is evangelising: Bauhaus-ing the education industry, with a focus on STEM skills for Creativity (FUNCTION), and not on creating a glut of degrees (FORM) that have led to a growing herd of unemployables – whose numbers will only increase, thanks to another Elon Musk contribution - Open AI.

Existential Issue - How will USA feed its unemployed if its Social Welfare, too, becomes Bauhaus-ed ?

Musk's "Ship them to Mars" is not a solution to help any Shepherd get elected – even if Marketed by the most powerful Social-Media Influencers. Especially when the herd, too, is enlightened by a (fact-checkable) version of LLM-AI, and not by the Education Industrial Complex.

And what if the USD 2Tn saved by the D.O.G.E Duo’s proposed Bauhaus-ing of Bureaucracy does not cover the cost of a Social Welfare system inhabited by a growing herd of unemployed/unemployable Junior Citizens who will, eventually, become Senior (Senior-er?) ?Citizens? ?

It’s a Dystopian outcome, but one that a classical Economic equation might help avert, i.e.:

Solution – Focus American S.T.E.M ingenuity on creating more Butter, not Guns.

Which might inspire the Indian in the D.O.G.E Duo, and the USA’s new Director of National Intelligence to say, “Shanti”.

But America’s hippies went further when they said, “Make Love not War”, which Elon Musk's growing number of offspring is proof of, and, and has, ironically, inspired America's arch-rival - Russia - to create a "Ministry of Love".

If Japan and PRC follow suit, historians might record 2024 as a cusp - when American Democracy embraced Meritocracy, and created a Philosophy for a new American Civilisation.

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