Tier 2 and statecraft

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A personal interest of mine is looking into the implications that spiral dynamics has for society and government.

A big limitation that tier 1 stages have is the assumption that everyone should just leapfrog to their stage.

A key example is El Salvador. A decade ago, this country had a homicide rate of over 100 per 100,000. To get a sense of how outrageously high that is, the US is at 5 per 100,000 overall and St. Louis, the worst American city, was at 43 in 2025. Going back to the previous decade, the worst ever would have been Camden at around 80. The overall rate of El Salvador a decade ago would make it more akin to Mexican cities on the dangerous side such as Tijuana. El Salvador's violent death rate was second to none in the western hemisphere, being dominated by gangs such as MS-13.

Everything changed once Bukele became president in 2017. He ran on a platform of making the country safe. He notably ran as a third party candidate, representing Nuevas Ideas (literally new ideas).

After becoming president, he implemented a seven phase plan to cleanse the nation of gang violence. Each of these phases were kept secret until they were announced:

1. Increased police presence and cut off all contact between prisons and the outside world
2. Expanded community efforts and scholarships to prevent youth from joining gangs
3. Increased police presence even further and militarized the police.
4. Deployed the military into gang-heavy areas
5. Issued mass arrests for anyone so much as bearing gang tattoos
6. Focused on the root causes of poverty in hopes of keeping them from turning to crime
7. Has yet to be announced as of June 2025

Each spiral stage has a different reaction to Bukele's policies.

It's first worth mentioning that the nation-state embodies stage blue principles. This means that societies with lots of red and purple (such as those in Africa) will result in weak governments with lots of corruption. For a stable government, a society that respects the golden rule (introduced at blue) is mandatory. El Salvador had enough people at stage red to make it one of the most dangerous nations on Earth.

Individuals at stage blue LOVE Bukele. This stage's main value is self control, with all other values being downstream of it. Self control brings forth rule of law which is necessary for the orange value of individual freedom. It therefore seems to be the reverse of the Benjamin Franklin quote, meaning that ridding society of security results in neither freedom nor security.

Those at orange and green question whether the end justifies the means. This is a fair point to make because Bukele has been undermining the country's civil liberties. Furthermore, the justice system has recently adopted the principle of "guilty until proven innocent". It also seems that Donald Trump has taken inspiration from Bukele, adopting the same principle for undocumented immigrants.

In tier 2, you realize that El Salvador is under circumstances that are different from rich countries with lots of orange and some green such as the US, Canada, and Sweden. As noted in Why Nations Fail, Latin America developed institutions that were less conducive to modernization than the Anglican offshoots. This difference can be seen within the US between the north and south. There were various differences that led the north to climb higher on the spiral than the south.

• The northern economy was more dependent on capital vs land for the south.
  • This resulted in better infrastructure
• The northern labor force consisted of free people who could change jobs if they so wished
• The north had higher literacy rates
  • The south also prohibited educating slaves for fear that they would use it to challenge the legitimacy of slavery.
• The northern class system afforded better social mobility than the southern class system which offered almost none
• Southern chivalry, a stage red value, was common amongst the elite

The factors that applied for the south also applied to Latin America. Even to the present day, most of these countries primarily export primary sector goods such as natural resources and crops. Meanwhile, the Anglican offshoots have economies that focus very little on agriculture or resource extraction and much more on industry and services. According to the authors of Why Nations Fail, Mexico has extractive institutions whereas the US has inclusive ones. Stage orange flourished better in Western Europe and the Anglican offshoots than in other parts of the world. And while Latin American countries have liberal values on paper, corruption is a major problem in that part of the world. This is not to mention the numerous coups, occasional civil wars, and organized crime that is endemic in Latin America.

This is a long way of saying that the US has things which can be taken for granted that El Salvador did not. Civil liberty cannot exist without rule of law.

This is also to say that Donald Trump is a detriment to the US.

• Donald Trump is in stage red
  • Perhaps the reason why the US has done better than Latin America comes down to a respect for written and unwritten rules as per stage blue. Every president since Nixon has disclosed tax returns and sold assets (or placed then in a blind trust) prior to assuming office. But it was never a written rule, so Trump did neither of those things.
  • And when it came to written rules, Trump pushed boundaries. After leaving office, he took classified documents to his Florida residence with the justification being that since he was president, it wasn't illegal for him to do so.
  • In his second term, Trump has effectively restored the 'spoils system' that was ended after President Garfield got assassinated. This indicates that he values loyalty more than competency
  • Trump has also been accused of instituting a "pay-to-play" administration
  • Then you have Trump calling the 2020 election results illegitimate. The only explanation that I feel needs to be added is the reason why Trump did that. Simply put, whereas blue, orange, and green represent conventional morality and fear hypocrisy the most, red is preconventional and fears weakness the most. In other words, Trump's ego wouldn't let him admit defeat because defeat makes him a loser.
• Authoritarianism is not the way forward for the US.
  • The US has a small bit of red but is mostly blue and orange with green emerging. A leader in stage red chipping away at civil liberties is going to be a setback.
  • Corruption is not endemic in the US (at least not on the national level) like it was in El Salvador. Trump is also making corruption worse.
  • Authoritarianism may be beneficial to a country with lots of survival values but is unnecessary for one with lots of self-expression values.

In summary, there are times when in countries that are low on the spiral, well-managed authoritarianism can be beneficial in establishing order. However, it should be prevented in countries that do not have a lot of stage red or purple. The authoritarianism in the US is a result of orange and green, being deemed by the stage blue evangelicals as worldly and woke respectively.