Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

by Stanley McChrystal

This critical caveat to Tocqueville’s predictions of American democratic success cuts to the heart of what makes democracy tick: a political structure in which decision-making authority is—in some ways—decentralized to the voters, rather than concentrated in a monarchic or oligarchic core, requires a high level of political awareness among the public in order to function. If people are not educated enough to make informed decisions at the polls, the feedback system on which democracy is premised will not work. The proliferation of democratic governments across the world over the past two centuries might suggest that the simple act of democratic decentralization itself is a recipe for success. But as Tocqueville points out, one cannot make good choices without proper context: a democracy such as America could remain free only with “a proper kind of education.” In other words, a system requires shared consciousness before it can reap the benefits of empowered execution.