Businesses should be semi-democratic. Everyone should participate in decision-making. Everyone should share in the fate of the business, and help direct that fate.

The problem with that ideal is that it nullifies the benefits of specialization, upon which most organizations depend. And not just businesses, or even human organizations in general. Sophistication of an organization relies on the distribution of work by breaking large tasks down into groups of smaller tasks. These smaller tasks are at a level of complexity that is appropriate for a single individual. The individual can acquire the necessary knowledge and skill to perform the task well. Multiple individuals can perform multiple tasks in parallel. Only coordination and integration tasks need to be synchronized.

But people are more than machines, more than units of productivity. The problem with our organizations is that we privilege a false narrative of human mechanization.

Granted, for many people, this is a relief. Understanding the whole system, even just a simplified sketch, is too onerous. But not understanding it is a risk. It’s funny that people can be so optimistic when it relieves them of mental burdens. If someone offers to be the boss, and take responsibility for strategy and long-term planning, and coordination, and all the other things that managers do, then we are quick to trust they they are competent, ethical, and otherwise worthy of that responsibility.

This is one of the main points of tension in complex societies. Or more accurately, one facet of the ubiquitous tension between the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective, which is fundamentally the need to coordinate and compromise between the various needs of all the individuals who comprise the collective.

I think a lot about the problem of responsibility. We all get mad when other people renege on their responsibilities. When they refuse to be accountable. But this is the moral hazard of social organizations. The ease with which individuals can lie, to make false promises, to subvert the social compact, to take the benefits without paying their fair share of the cost.

People are very good at believing that they shouldn’t have to pay a cost, while still deserving a share of the rewards. Some people are very good at manipulating the system to this effect. Many more try, but fail. Collectively, a certain subset of people work to create holes in the system’s operating system. These holes allow a tiny minority—the “elite”—to evade almost any responsibility. But not all of those who betray the system—and, thus, the whole society—can attain positions which provide such benefits. Still, they have faith in themselves—enough to deliberately erode the system’s guard rails and protections, just in case they get lucky. Maybe they will still attain a lower rank, and gain some excess benefits, less responsibility than average, and so this is a tolerable risk.

But people who believe in ensuring accountability should act on that belief. I should act on that belief.

To enforce accountability, must one assume an appropriate managerial role. Either in an existing organization, or—since virtually all existing organizations follow a corrupt model—build a new one, with accountability written into its DNA: it’s “business plan” or “founding principles” or “statement of values” or somesuch. These directives must be legally binding and enforceable, or they are worthless.

Ultimately, the law is how we keep society functioning, in the face of pressure from those who would tear it apart, in order to consume the parts, and serve themselves at everyone else’s expense. The way to do this is to build more resilient organizations—be they businesses or non-profits or something else—that can grow into the gaps left by other decaying organizations. Then these new organizations can start to influence the public institutions—for the better. Our public institutions determine the success or failure of the law, and all the components of society which the law regulates. No regulation, no functioning. We need a big brother or sister, but we need them to serve the collective, not just a minority, not just elites, not just insiders, and not just themselves.

There is a terrible paucity of new, improved, ethical organizations. Instead, there is a plague of corrupted organizations designed only to get absorbed into the behemoths and leviathans that already dominate everything. Probably we need to destroy the reigning monopolies and their oligarchic support systems. But that requires legal tools, and political will, which will only come from an underlying driving social force. Which requires regular people to step up and take accountability first, in large numbers, in an organized way, with some form of leadership to at least coordinate and strategize. But only with the input and support of all members of the group.

It is not so clear how much these things fall to the choices of unique individuals, versus being self-organizing based on the actions of only normal individuals. Are special people required? Probably, but not certainly. Maybe regular people can become special, when necessary. And yet, how are these people selected? At random? Or based on some innate quality?

Who should we trust to take on these roles, if the current batch of villains are not to spoil everything?