Determining where to look for a solution

Now that we know what we're looking for, we need to decide where to look. All federal-level governments around the world have the following parts that collectively form a "government system."

Components of Government Systems

• Structure – who does the work, how they're organized

• Services – what work is performed, what outcomes are produced

• Processes – how the work is performed to produce the outcomes

• Rules – constraints or requirements such as a constitution, laws, and policies that dictate the structure, the services performed or prohibited, and how processes are performed

• Ideology or belief system – why the structure, services, and processes were designed the way they were

Textbooks and the media usually describe a government by its declared ideology. This can be confusing for several reasons. First, the definition of terms such as "democratic" and "socialist" varies widely by article, textbook, and even dictionary representing the viewpoint promoted by its author. Second, a government's declared ideology may be little more than an advertising brand. Therefore, searching and comparing ideologies would not be useful in finding a solution.

Swapping leaders or changing the structure of an organization seldom leads to meaningful change because the processes are still performed the same way so the outcomes remain the same. Therefore, simply changing the government structure would not provide a solution for us.

Processes determine how activities are performed by those operating in the government organization. Processes produce the work output or the services of the government. Therefore, government processes determine what we experience from government. From the perspective of solving our root cause, we should look for alternative processes to our two processes that enable rule by the elite and political parties.

1. The ruler selection process – how rulers are put into power

2. The governing solution process – how the rulers in control make governing decisions

Therefore, we will examine how each of these processes is performed now in countries around the world. Naturally, we're looking for the true processes, the way things are actually done, which may differ from the officially declared versions.