The great divide in politics is usually seen as being between left and right, a battle between socialism and capitalism, but most people recognise that both sides have something to offer and that both cooperation and competition have value. This conflict between left and right still exists but there is a deeper and very real divide that explains what is going on in this left/right struggle. It's a conflict between the selfish, those on the left or right who believe their way is the only way and the rest of us

Research into human behaviour shows that at the two extremes about 10% of the population always behaves selfishly and another 10% always generously. The altruistic 10% are part of the 75% of people in this spectrum who are inclined to be generous. This being the case one might expect this significant and generously inclined majority to dominate our societies but this doesn't happen because selfish minorities can prevail in poorly designed systems.

To see how damaging selfish behaviour is we're going to look at an experiment called the Public Goods game. It's used by academics to demonstrate the impact a selfish minority can have on a group of ordinary generously inclined people.

In the game ten players are each given tokens representing a small sum of money, perhaps $10 and the rules of the game are that players can put some or all of that money into a pot. The money in the pot is then doubled by the experimenters and shared out equally between the players. If there are ten players and they all put in $10 the pot is $100, which is then doubled to $200. When this is shared out everyone gets $20, but there's a catch. If one person doesn't put anything in then they keep their $10 and still get a full share of the $180 that is in the pot. Everyone else ends up with one tenth of the pot, $18 and the selfish individual gets the $18 plus their original $10 so they end up with $28, more than everyone else.

The game is usually played over ten rounds and what happens is that most people put in all or most of their money in the early rounds but as they see that some are not contributing they contribute less as each round is played. By the end of the game hardly anyone is putting anything in because contributing benefits the selfish. Instead of everyone doing well out of the game a selfish minority have wrecked something that could have been good for everyone. In real life the same rule applies. Any group or society can be damaged or wrecked by a selfish minority that acts only in it's own interests, but this can be changed.

In the game this is done by making two simple adjustments. The first is to let the players know who is behaving selfishly and the second is to allow the generous players to punish the selfish. The effect is immediate. The selfish start contributing and everyone is better of, but as always there's a catch. In the last round the selfish can't be made to contribute because there is no eleventh round in which they can be punished, and so in this round they don't contribute and end up with more.

For societies to be successful the selfish, who are always with us, have to be kept in check and so any information of any significance must be freely available. There must also be effective sanction against those who behave badly, but there's one more thing that is needed that isn't usually mentioned. It exists in the game but not in our society. There needs to be an equality of power between people. If that doesn't exist then those who have more power than others can put themselves beyond punishment, and that will eventually bring any society down.

Politics, whether it's the politics of the left or the right is the pursuit of power over others and that is inherently selfish. CfD's systems take power from politicians and pass it to the people of Wales. We give the decent, moderate generously inclined majority the authority they need to keep the selfish in check.

Campaign for Democracy gives us an extraordinary opportunity, not just to reform the political system we have, but to move beyond politics.