So what do we do? It seems we've pretty much agreed that governments are beasts beyond anyone's control, but so is _society_. So is the entire human population. Where do we start? If, or based on the words of many on this list, we tear down the government, will we understand the resultant human-made system any better? ..................................................... ("human-made" system: is government some other kind? Is society made up of an entire population of beasts?) System-makers typically expect automatic processes to determine the character of the whole, and the operations themselves become the purpose for which the system exists. The humans who act within the system are reduced to accessories, becoming secondary in importance to the organizational requirements of maintaining & perpetuating the outcome - which by then becomes moot, as everyone's concentration is focused upon the details of the procedures. When a system is designed to organize human behavior (as in "governing" it) it has the inherent mistake of being based on the presumption of complete knowledge of human nature (yet who agrees on what that comprises). Anyone who is circumscribed by the system created is held within its confines, is judged by its borders and by its limits upon their decisions. If someone wants to try out an idea or method which does not fall within the allowances set up within it, they must first go outside of the system to have the freedom to act according to the new idea. They must take up the responsibility which would otherwise have been distributed and shared with others. They also take outside of the system the effects which might have affected those within it. No one is going to be agreeable to participating in a venture in which they do not have some confidence about the reward; in a ready-made system if someone has become dependent upon the security it provides, they are going to be even less willing to give up the comfort of pre-determined decisions and predictable outcomes. Then there will be seen less of reason and more of unimaginative automaticity. In a non-political system or manner of existence (not designed to rule over human nature per se), individuals have to rely upon their own abilities, upon the development of their own judgement, rather than upon the "governance" of their behavior by strangers. This doesn't mean that there could be no systems in existence at all; there are still business enterprises which call upon the coordination of efforts towards a specific goal. But this does not obligate that they take on the quality of a "perpetual picnic". The more that individuals look at systems as relative to the accomplishment of particular, specific goals, the less they will look to them as the means to accomplish the re-shaping of mankind (i.e. the morality of the neighbors). Such systems actually could accomplish a "re-shaping" of some individuals, but as an accessory contingent event, simply from the fact of those involved having discovered a means of achieving some personal command over "Nature". Trying to understand the system (whose system?) is really putting the cart before the horse (first you need a problem, to which the system is the solution). Trying to understand all of human nature is a Major Enterprise. It's much more managable to set up small systems based upon the control of those who have cause to set one up, who are interested & willing to participate, than trying to set up an all-encompassing system which includes even unrully, ungrateful beasts with an attitude.