A scientific justification for fully open government

Secrecy in government is the major source of most major problems in modern governments. Opening our governments will push forward the greatest achievement for democracy since the American declaration of independence.

There is a scientific justification that dominates all objections to the contrary about the benefits of fully opening our government’s decision-making mechanisms: all significant scientific understanding has been realized by understanding previously unknown pieces of information. Understanding as much as possible about any subject of scientific inquiry has consistently provided science with increased returns and diminished uncertainty. In opposite, lack of information has systematically been an obstacle to further understanding and has never led to scientific discovery.

Political science, as a field of scientific inquiry, has always lacked the most basic element of scientific research: full awareness and interpretation of all information relevant to the true nature of its subject of study. There is no possible scientific understanding in physics without understanding the properties of matter and energy. There is no possible scientific understanding in chemistry without understanding the quantum interactions of molecules. There is no possible understanding in biology without understanding the structure, processes and evolution of living cells and biochemical processes.

There is no realistic argument supporting the possibility that political science would somehow evade this certainty of scientific understanding. There is no possible reason political science could be capable of useful research without full understanding of its subject of study. There is not one single exception in scientific research where understanding is greater with information than it is without.

Fully opening government decision-making mechanisms and institutions would open the door to unparalleled scientific understanding in the most ancient, and most primitive, of all the sciences. Political science has the sad record of going over 25 centuries without one significant autonomous scientific discovery. The philosophical history of politics is astounding; its scientific history a sandcastle.

In addition to providing increased accountability of political leaders, a policy with no possible and morally defendable objection or harmful consequence, fully opening all government would open the field to scientific inquiry, comparison, analysis and interpretation of facts. There simply cannot be any harmful consequence to the wellbeing of any society if all the facts about political decision-making were known. The few arguments still trolling political science faculties are easy to dismiss, unmatched for the benefits full disclosure will create.

There is consideration that some might benefit from knowing in advance about government affairs. True, unless all have equal knowledge at the same time. Then there is no advantage, merely a decreased uncertainty in all parties involves. Decreasing uncertainty has the benefit of reducing costs and reducing time and waste otherwise spent guessing.

There is also consideration that political office is too hard and pressure must be relieved to allow the leaders of government to speak frankly. Of course, this argument is completely impossible to defend outside the fantasy world of political science, created by a crying lack of credible and significant knowledge and understanding. Such a justification starts with the premise that citizens are not fit to understanding what their government is doing. This is entirely wrong. One million people are always smarter than one; without exception.

The last remaining argument, not the brightest in the family, is tradition. Indeed it is a tradition, going back to the thousands of tyrannies that controlled human societies all over human history. Confidentiality privilege is one of the last few remaining defenses for incompetent and corrupt politicians. It is fundamentally granting the benefit of doubt to the institutions that have the most systematically, brutally and efficiently abused their powers, all the way back to the anarchic days before organized society.

Political power has always been, and will always be, the concentrated seat of wealth and influence in any society. Conspiracies to influence, unbalance or possess political power have been the most frequent source of human misery, economic distress and the most efficient human killer: war. Luckily, they can be avoided altogether by criminalizing censorship of public information, a simple shift in policy that would eliminate the putrid excrements of immunity.

Anecdotal cases are always thrown about when discussing the full opening of government activities and public information. But societies are not built on exceptions. The direct benefits of opening all governments are indisputable and impossible to morally object. Neither science nor politics have ever benefited from censorship of critical information. Full disclosure has been the default foundation for all scientific understanding. Science has created or made possible every commodity modern societies enjoy and doubled life expectancy. Politics has never provided significant benefits to human civilization, more often destroying societies than building them.

If political science is to become a science, a recurring term in the academic field, it must closely follow the means and methods of its much more successful alternative: science. If facts are to possibly become significant in political science, they must be fully understood and always subject to indiscriminate scrutiny. This requires analysis, classification and a broadcasting platform for the knowledge that can be gained.

The tradition has always been for governments to spy on their people. Outside of the people close to the ruling government, there are only anecdotal stories that such a policy has ever provided anything useful beyond military strategy to any society. Political leaders were expected to be military leaders for most of human history. This was the strongest argument for the privilege of confidentiality.

Modern societies, however, only require of their political leaders to be competent, honest and to represent the people who have indirectly chosen them. Having no need for tactical protection of vital hills and rivers, elected leaders can submit to full real-time disclosure of every aspect of their work without objection. This policy change would be the greatest improvement in representative democracy since its creation, removing the antiquated traditions of limited accountability, and the first true understanding in political science, which will be able to study its subject for the very first time.