A New Constitutional Order
Thinking beyond what is and imagining what could be
The Old Order
America is poorly governed. This is indisputable by anyone with working senses. At every level of governance, for every type of governance, nothing works anymore. Housing isn’t getting built, 21st century infrastructure isn’t getting built; the only growth market we actually have in this country are our bloated equities. Enough is enough. We demand more.
What is good governance? It is built of two components: action and inaction. Action, when it is needed, is taken decisively and firmly, without hesitation or frustration. The order is given, and the heavens move. And inaction: the power to do nothing at all, to let things fall into their proper place, is its own virtue. Good governance hopes to achieve one thing: a stable, harmonious society where the economy grows and the people are happy. Some presuppose this includes a vision of equality but equality is not for its own sake but rather for that continued vision of harmony. The poor and downtrodden, left to their own devices, will rent the state asunder into chaos. Likewise, the wealthy left alone will make their own fiefs and challenge the central authority. For the sake of harmony, America is a tune that must be played in key; the wealthy and poor working in a single melody to the tune set by the central government.
This government can take many shapes and forms but it’s clear now that the present Constitutional order is inadequate. It moves too slowly, far too in tune with inaction without enough action. We need to accelerate the machinations of state. ‘FASTER FASTER FASTER!’ must be the order of the day; a total acceleration approaching lightspeed efficiencies. And then, to move and act even faster.
Building new housing should take weeks and months, not years. In 10 years, we should have every city connected by High Speed Rail. Court cases (including appeals) should be done in days. Whole cities springing up out of nothing in a fortnight. And faster, faster, faster! The 21st century is our last final mad dash before humanity’s apotheosis. The 22nd will be a world of radiological water wars, of abject scarcity with the end of cheap energy in the death of petrol. If we don’t start hunkering down and preparing for that reality, not just America won’t survive the 22nd century but humanity will not. Nobody will. We owe it to our future as a species to fix not just our country but the world, and that requires the best and strongest government.
I alone have the answer to this. No one is proposing this because they are either cowards or they lack vision. I lack neither vision nor bravery. I alone have seen our future, of the shackles of our constitution leading not only to our extermination as a species, but the blackening of the skies themselves. Everyone is going to die if we don’t do something, if we don’t act. And I aim to act.
The New Order
Use of state authority requires legitimacy. When the Church ruled Europe, that legitimacy came from God. But God is dead; that legitimacy now instead comes from popular mass sovereignty. If the people don’t support their government, that government must cease to exist. To ignore the will of the people is to invite chaos and discord in the nation, something to be avoided at all costs. And what better can possess the sovereignty of the people but a single, unicameral legislative body, a National Assembly?
Elected regularly, under standard principles of one-person, one-vote, this Assembly is the true Sovereign of the nation, the Leviathan of State all wrapped up into its person. It does not just write laws or enforce them: it is the law. To be clear though: it does not rule the state day-to-day, it merely gives the state its legitimacy to function. It makes declarations of law as the people demand them to, but does not actually reach into the apparatus of the bureaucracy save when absolutely necessary.
For it is in the bureaucracy that true day-to-day power will reside. To become a bureaucrat, to attain the red-crimson robes of a magistrate, you must possess a basic education (a GED or equivalent), and then move to the rural provinces where you will become an apprentice under a more senior bureaucrat. And what will you do in that position? Govern. Rule! Make society run better! Such as:
Overseeing new construction of infrastructure.
Acting as prosecutor, public defender, and/or judge as the day warrants.
Handling grant applications.
Taking notes at a meeting with labor leaders.
Civilian oversight of military installations.
Fixing potholes.
And much more.
The question we have in the old order is who has the capacity to influence government action? It is typically the wealthy and well-connected, or in the voters with too much time on their hands. This governance-by-advocate is the direct causal link that makes everything too slow. The only people who should influence government decisions should be anyone who chooses to work for the government (and of course, the continued support AKA popular sovereignty of the National Assembly). If you care about how the government works, if you think you could do a better job at anything, go work for it yourself!
Anyone with a basic education degree should be able to get a job as an entry-level magistrate. From there, it is all on you as an individual, on how hard you work and the connections you form, that will inform your future success. Promotions are all internal; your colleagues and your superiors alone determine if you will climb the ranks. And there are a lot of ranks to climb, for the bureaucracy will be both large and all-encompassing. Every current government job will be rolled up into this single, centralized bureaucracy, and even then, it will be far larger. As State Owned Enterprises become more necessary for economic stability & defense spending, many of these bureaucrats will be overseeing new industries and businesses.
The system will function like the above diagram. People will join as Magistrates and then answer up to a cascading series of authorities, leading up finally to a Supreme Executive that will have absolute and total state control, with the National Assembly being the only check against the power of the Supreme Executive. Should the National Assembly ever turn against the Supreme Executive, against this entire system of rule, then that should RUINA IMPERII: the end of this constitutional order and its replacement with something new, with the National Assembly becoming the Constituent Assembly to determine the best path forward.
Being a magistrate of course is not going to be an easy or particularly fun job. The demands will be intense, and there will be no unions or expectations of regular hours. Versus a 7 day week standard (5 days working, 2 days off) for the non-governing population, the magistrates will be beholden to a 10 day week, with no days off. Only those who truly want power, who are willing to sacrifice their own bodies and sanity, should be trusted with it. Yet it need not just be torture, for that would render this project dead at the onset. Magistracies should come with certain benefits:
Full cost of living covered: housing, healthcare, food are all state-provided for free.
Free government transportation (plane, train, car, boat—anything needed with emphasis on speed)
Full paid maternity, sick, and regular leave: every Magistrate starts with a balance of 99 (10 day) weeks of leave which can be increased or decreased by their superiors.
High salaries: other than equity holders, Magistrates are the best paid members of society, with incomes rising the more you climb the ranks.
As for the ranks, here is a basic overview of how they would work, and the expectations therein:
Prospectus: the starting rank for all new magistrates. You have a GED and have just shown up to your first day at a rural magistracy. You get none of the benefits above (yet).
Magister: you have worked a few weeks and months as a Prospectus. You now get the benefits as described above.
Squire: you are a senior Magister who has climbed the ranks and has more authority and responsibilities.
Knight: you’re being moved around far more, as well as taking in rank 0s and 1s under your tutelage to train.
Sub-Prefect: the first opportunity to join the national administration presents itself with you now joining a prefectural department (which oversees direct administration of either some aspect of the country (such as canals) or some physical part of the country, such as a province).
Prefect: you now lead a team of Sub-Prefects and your own Prefectural Department.
Director: A Director oversees several Prefectural Departments.
Assistant Minister: above the Directors are the Ministries, which always possesses a national portfolio (the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Order, et cetera). The Assistant Minister helps coordinate Ministerial activities.
Minister: Ministers lead their ministries.
Secretary: Secretaries exist above all those below them and report directly to the Grand Secretariat. They are the main workhorses of the central administration, ensuring that government mandates are followed.
Grand Secretary: 24 Grand Secretaries govern the realm via the Grand Secretariat of State via collective consensus and under the direction of the one they choose amongst their body to be Supreme Executive.
The Supreme Executive: the person above all, possessing alone supreme, absolute, total power. Elected by a majority of the Grand Secretariat of State, this person serves for life or until they are infirm, or until either the National Assembly or the Grand Secretariat of State loses confidence in their ability.
To see how this system will work, we will have to use our imagination, for setting this government structure up cannot be done overnight, and the results of this governance style will take generations to bear fruit (by the design of the system). So let us use that imagination to construct two narratives, of the 4th Supreme Executive and the 6th Supreme Executives, with the 4th representing the ideal Executive and the 6th representing a rebellious one.
The Fourth Supreme Executive
The Fourth Supreme Executive was born in 2086 to a non-magisterial family earning below average wages. At the age of 18, they obtained their GED and moved out of their home to join the Magistracy as well as the Party (the Party controlling the National Assembly as well as the Magistracy). For the next ten years, they crissed and crossed the country, fixing potholes, serving in the merchant navy, overseeing a massive dam reconstruction effort after a major earthquake, and even having the time to marry a fellow magistrate.
By age 30 they are leading their own Prefect, the Interstate 5 Prefecture, which exists to ensure that Interstate 5 is kept clean, orderly, well-maintained, with as few accidents and issues as possible. As a gregarious, hard worker, nothing is able to stop them and their unstoppable rise.
By 36, they are leading a Ministry (Finance) and from there it’s another short five years before they finally make it to Secretary. And then it’s a waiting game, as the previous generation dies out and gets promoted out.
At age 54 they join the Grand Secretariat of State as a Grand Secretary and from there, they charm the other 23 Grand Secretaries and continue their hard work.
Finally, at age 62 the Fourth Supreme Executive arrives onto the scene, and having helped govern and adjudicate the American polity for decades, are able to deftly and quickly resolve many outstanding issues America is plagued with. For the next 19 years they governed and worked closely with the National Assembly and the Magistracy, creating a new golden age for America before retiring peacefully.
The Sixth Supreme Executive
The Sixth Supreme Executive grew up in the long shadow cast by the 4th. The Magistracy has become corrupt and insular. Only kids of magistrates have a chance to rise up in the ranks these days, with the 4th Supreme Executive shutting off the ladder they climbed up behind them. After being dismissed as a Prospectus (or leaving voluntarily, the records debate this), the lowborn Sixth Supreme Executive to-be joined the opposition party.
The opposition party has never won an election. If it ever did, it would symbolize the end of this entire governmental structure. The government itself always had the opinion that if it was losing the election, it was because things had truly and well gone wrong. While elections have long remained free and fair, no opposition to this system has ever been able to intelligently coalesce and oppose the status quo. Until now.
The 5th Supreme Executive is a grossly incompetent and corrupt executive, more so than anyone could even imagine, with the Grand Secretariat of State supporting that continued corruption. As the government slows to a crawl, the opposition picks up steam, winning more seats election after election until calamity: RUINA IMPERII, for the opposition is now in the majority.
The National Assembly becomes the Constituent Assembly. But what to do now? They can’t just resurrect the old American constitution, unused for nearly a century now. Nor do any other systems seem worthy of adoption. What the system needs is not revolution but reform and thus the 6th Supreme Executive is made: to clean up the system, to go after the corrupt, and to instill a better, more meritocratic system. This they do, restoring the glory of the state and imposing new reforms working in tandem with the National Assembly.
Getting There
As the above two narratives tell, when the system works, it works great. And even when it doesn’t, it still is able to correct and reform itself. I can imagine the counter-argument though: that if the Supreme Executive is corrupt and has absolute power, won’t they use that power to cancel the elections, or to stuff ballots? Recall the governing philosophy: to reduce chaos and increase harmony. Illegitimizing the election risks an uprising and the anger of the masses; it would be national suicide. And yes, even knowing all that, the truly vile and corrupt may choose to do it anyways. But that’s the point: without popular sovereignty the whole system collapses. If the people do not consent to this system, it ceases to exist. If it takes a bloody revolution, that would be a tragedy, but it would be inevitable regardless.
Beyond that, there is to be no written constitution, no constraints on power at all save that which the National Assembly declares. Everything is to be under the purview of the Magistracy and the Supreme Executive who commands them.
So, how do we get there? Just as the Articles of Confederation were tossed, we don’t need to follow the procedures set in our present Constitution to rewrite it. Two things are needed: one, the consent of the masses via a national, binding referenda, and second, the assent of the present government.
Therefore: a political party and programme is needed, one capable of seizing the national legislature, and thereby contriving a referenda to present to the ruling government as a fait accompli. The first RUINA IMPERII will come for the current US Constitutional Order. With popular sovereignty at our back, the First Supreme Executive will be chosen. Of course, it will be impossible to set up the whole apprenticeship model as everyone will be starting from scratch—no senior magistrates yet exist to train new ones. Everything will have to be built on the move. People will have to be hired and promoted based more on connections and loyalty to the party than personal merits. But that should balance out over time as the system solidifies and as people get more experience. By the third decade of this governance, it should be working as designed.
And who knows? Maybe that is it. Maybe every Supreme Executive will rise and rule like the 4th. Or maybe every other Supreme Executive will be like the 6th, a radical reformer.
Ultimately: what can this government do? Everything. What can’t it do? Nothing. Who can join the government? Anyone who wants to. Who gives this supreme executive power? The people via the National Assembly. What limits on power exist? None, save those prescribed by the National Assembly.
No more committees! No more ‘public comment’ or national debates that take eons to play out! We must act, and we must act fast—FASTER! FASTER! FASTER! Else it will be too late for ourselves and our children.
Avanti!