Intelligence and Democratic Action Within Society

Democratic political systems generate “policies” just as do businesses within a market economyMarket economy. Within businesses, those policies are typically codified in a manual that describes the principles that lie behind corporate actions with respect to corporate constituents. Some business policies might pertain to the duties of corporate officers while other policies pertain to the settling of grievances that arise within the organization. Within democratic political entities, the most familiar category of policies pertains to the requirements those entities impose on private citizens and corporate entities within the society. A good number of those policies are reflected in the ever-expanding Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The central topic for this chapter concerns the place of intelligence in the articulation of policies. Wherever you find a particular policy articulated as the official policy toward this topic, you may be sure that there were alternative policies that could have been adopted, including the adoption of no policy. The existence of options also pertains to the articulation of business policies. The central concern of this chapter concerns the place of intelligence in the articulation of policies and the impact of those policies on resulting actions within society.