Societies need a common cause to usefully exist:

1. A Purpose combined with
2. Tasks everyone can do/participate in

This creates a feeling of Ownership—and that is exactly what a functioning society needs.

It’s also about channeling the ambitions of your ambitious people. When there’s no proxy Status Game to play, they have to tackle the problems themselves. Nice.

Probably a big reason in itself not to create any kind of Bureaucracy.

For the US, this might have been domesticizing the Frontier/the Industrialization, but there have been other great tasks, too.

Notes

Links

• A School of Strength and Character