Chef -- Hate to admit it, but most of us have a bit of petty tyrant in us given the chance. Thank heavens most people are either lazy, uninterested or not willing to lead. A group composed of nothing but leader personalities is a nightmare (worse than the proverbial herding of cats or Democrats). What you've identified in your Habitat endeavor is basic group dynamics that is, I assure you, not new to your generation. We should distinguish between the social dynamics of groups and the key sets of rules (formal and informal) that set boundaries and biases for those dynamics. The checks and balances are there to keep the leaders vaguely honest. We've collectively -- either explicitly or implicitly -- delegated authority and executive power to them. For social groups to be something other than Hobbesian anarchy or caveat emptor marketplaces, they must be built on confidence. Among other things, confidence requires that the followers know they have effective means of disciplining the leaders if they get out of hand. And the leaders must know in their bones that there are mechanisms by which the lazy folks can decide to toss them out on their ears. These group disciplines need to be present in any group that has a bit of hierarchy to it. They are indispensable where the hierarchy involves leaders having some sort of coercive executive powers.

[The checks and balances argument for a "rule of law" isn't limited to the domestic or international political sphere. There's been a boom in the study of confidence -- or "trust" -- as a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of modern economic and political systems. "Democratization" or economic transformation of the Middle East will depend on it. Fukuyama's "state-building" book (which is still on my pile but I think prak has digested already) almost certainly puts these issues front and center. Why do we say that "rule of law" is so essential for nation-building? Trust, trust, trust. In lieu of trusting all people to be good, we place our confidence in the mechanisms that encourage them to be good -- our rule of law and our checks and balances. So the stuff on checks and balances in the political system are equally relevant to the marketplace of economic activity.]

Like all effective systems of rules in social groups, checks and balances are there for the exceptions -- to place boundaries on deviant behavior. They really have a hard time if the amount of deviant behavior is relatively high -- e.g. can't have your courts clogged sending everybody to jail. One among several reasons why prohibition was such an abysmal failure. More dangerous than system overload, however, is when the leaders with power effectively dismantle the boundaries and claim the right to determine what's deviant and what's not. It's why, for example, I think Ashcroft was beyond horrible. The way he and Gonzales used the OSC -- the elite of the Justice Dept -- to fashion rationalizations for doing away with the boundaries -- is quite unforgivable. That's got the potential for long-term damage to one of those low-profile institutions that makes our checks and balances system work. The OSC power is one of authority within the government, not simply its bureaucratic ability to say yeah or nay. Its soft power -- influence -- is more important than its hard power. The soft power is based on its reputation for independence, credibility and integrity. And the Bush Admin time and again just sends one unit of gov't after another to the garbage dump (e.g. the tax policy guys at Treasury -- oy!) by using them as nothing but tools in their propaganda campaigns, or manipulating them for the short-term results they want. That's what's truly outrageous about the Armstrong Williams scandal and this newest one, which I think is even worse though the dollars are only 10% of the Williams scandal. Your "this post will self-destruct" highlighted how critical transparency is to checks and balances. We can't govern ourselves when there's no transparency. Worse yet, how can we govern ourselves when we don't know who the government is paying to act as agents of influence and propaganda artists!