Social Forms
Alexander Liss
Mistakes
Accumulation and Cleanup
System
of Niches and Transition
In casual conversations, in learned
discussions, in legislative bodies and in political rallies one could hear
various ideas of social change, which have no chance to work.
Too often, ideas, which are implemented with best
intensions, lead to unanticipated negative and even disastrous results.
Something is dangerously amiss in people’s
understanding of what is possible.
It is enough to recall all attempts to
implement ideas of communist ideology. They all fail. They all brought tyranny
and massive death. Still, some claim that those were mistakes of implementation
and not flaws of ideology.
One could observe similar problem with
ideas of socialism. It is easy to see social systems functioning in
Experience shows that only a few stable
forms of social organization exist. It is important to analyze them and to
analyze transitions from one form to another.
When this is done, one could ask - which
stable form we want to arrive to? How to organize the transition to it from the
current form?
In analysis of an existing of potential social form
one has to consider following factors.
There are rare forms of society, where
attrition (including cased with wars and disease) balances growth (including
caused with birth and immigration). One could find such societies in some
city-states, for example.
Mostly, population grows and distribution
among age groups changes.
The need to support perpetual population
growth limits the set of potential stable forms society. To accommodate such
growth, the society engages in expansion – acquisition of new resources and
more intensive and efficient use of existing resources.
Demographic growth usually translates into
economic growth of the society.
To feel comfortable, to not feel
frustrated, a person needs to expend, unless the person is psychologically
broken, as it is with slaves.
The expansion could be in any of many
possible directions, but the opportunity to expand should be there. For a
member of military, it should be an opportunity to grow in rank and to
accumulate wealth. For a market participant it should be an opportunity to
extend control over business activities and to accumulate wealth. For a member
of knowledge based sector, it should be an opportunity to extend influence on
decision-making and accumulate wealth.
Wealth could take many forms: some income
and privileges guarantees, possessions of income producing businesses,
possessions of property, savings, etc.
Economic growth of a society is growth of
wealth of individuals combined with demographic growth.
In a stable society, many mistakes do not
lead to disasters and not corrected. Hence, they accumulate causing rigidity of
the society and imbalances in it.
The consequence of such accumulation is
growing instability of the society, which could break down at circumstances,
where it used to be stable before.
Hence, a stable society has a build-in
mechanism of clearing of mistakes time after time. In a market-based society,
such cleanup happens during market downturns, in despotic societies it is done
through periodic purges or wars.
A society is a distributed system, which parts
interact without explicit controlling body. This makes it efficient.
The growth of wealth in a society is made
possible with the specialization of members of the society and exchange of
resources, goods or services. This exchange is facilitated by specialists.
In a market-based society, there are
·
producers
of goods and services, as manufacturers and service providers
·
managers
of resources (including liquid resources), as owners of commodities, investors,
lenders
·
traders
and financial specialists, facilitating exchange of resources, goods or
services
The growth of culture and civility comes with
similar specialization and exchange. Sciences, arts, political developments
have specialists generating ideas and building organizations, and specialists
facilitating their exchange and adaptation.
Availability of resources is the limiting
factor. Efficient management of resources is crucial for the society’s
stability.
Those who have control of resources could
acquire goods and services in exchange for the right to use resources.
Sometimes, granting of such right is strictly regulated, for example when a
government employee is in charge of resources. In such cases, people in control
of resources are under the pressure from people, who want to use the resources
and this leads to corruption.
In a market-based society, the connection
of resources control with desires is recognized. In such society, this
connection is used to optimize distribution of resources through mechanism of
private property. It is in interests of an individual owner of resources to
allow the use of resources under his control in the way, which is optimal for
the society as a whole.
Thus, the problem of optimal use of
resources is solved through private property.
It is natural to make decision for oneself;
it is unnatural and, hence, difficult to make decisions for a society as a
whole.
Social side of an individual is not
conscious. It is hard to deploy it repeatedly, reliably and consciously without
causing damage to one’s psyche.
Many societies designate a small group of
individuals, who are trained for this task from childhood or prove ability to
do it otherwise. Usually, they perceive the society as a whole as their own
“property” and take care of this “property”.
Unfortunately, this system does not have an
efficient way of fixing of mistakes. A “ruler”, who is destructive to the
society, could emerge from the system of preparation of “rulers”, or could take
power on his own through other means and it is difficult to dislodge him.
The longer such person is in power, the
bigger is a psychological toll of power, the more insane he gets, and the more
the society suffers.
Democracy and rule of law mitigate it
through distribution of decision-making, limiting terms of rule and providing
mechanisms of removal of unfit rulers.
Even with democracy, there us
specialization – a relatively small group of specialists arises, which controls
political power. New members of this group are usually co-opted and only rarely
they thrust themselves into it on their own.
The difficulties with democracy numerous It
is difficult to make decisions of collectively. There are too many restrictions
on possible candidates to become governing specialists. These candidates have
to have skills of presentation and oratory, which are largely unrelated to
governing abilities. There is danger of demagogues arising to power and
circumventing democracy.
Still, with all its failings, there is no better way
of organizing governance than democracy. Accumulation of mistakes and inability
to clean them with autocratic forms of governing is worse than problems of
democratic rule.
The majority of stable societies have a few
types of highly stable embedded social structures, which enhance stability of
the society.
From the other hand, the level of accumulation
of mistakes in these structures is high and their cleanup is difficult and
often traumatic.
Even corals fight with each other; no
wonder stable societies fight each other.
They fight for control of resources
(whatever is perceived as valuable resource at the time), or to incorporate
another society as a subservient one.
To fight, societies develop fighting
capabilities and fighting specialists – military.
Because societies with weak fighting
capabilities are absorbed by neighbors, all stable societies have strong
fighting capabilities.
Military specialists leave military because
they become too weak to fight or because they are killed in battle. In
addition, they leave, when they are not capable to fight effectively. This
natural attrition helps in cleanup of accumulated mistakes.
Bureaucratic systems are used in
government, military, business, etc.
They add stability to a subsystem, where
they are used.
They allow offloading of the burden of
making difficult decisions, by setting and managing rules, to which a
decision-maker should adhere. These rules are managed by different people, who
do not apply them. For example, in the army, people have to do things, which
naturally cause internal rejection, because they go against human nature. They
can do this, only because they learn to follow rules, which are set by others.
These benefits come at a price.
Bureaucratic systems diminish efficiency of
the functioning of the society. Interests and expertise of bureaucrats
(managers and administrators) differ from the goals the society; this diverts
resources to serve interests of bureaucrats and diminishes quality of
decision-making. Hence, inaptitude of bureaucrats is rooted in the nature of bureaucracy.
Bureaucratic systems do not adapt well to
new situation, because bureaucrats keep these structure intact as long they
could achieve their goals, which differ from goals of the society.
With all their deficiencies, bureaucratic
systems deliver, what cannot be delivered in other ways. However, when they are
deployed, they grow and take over areas, where they are not needed. Then,
bureaucratic systems resist attempts to demolish them. This works like a ratchet.
Stability of bureaucratic systems is appreciated
in times of crises, when they survive and serve as foundation for recovery. Through
a chain of crises, they get firmly embedded in the society.
Family structure – nuclear family, extended
family, tribe, is a basic social structure. Its importance depends on the
presence of other civilizing social structures and on the stability of the
society. The less stable is the society, the more important it is. It is
important in
Family structure affects how governing is
organized. For example, it defines governing structure in autocratic societies.
The main view of a stable society is a view
of the system of social niches – stable subsystems in the society. In a society
there are various distributions between social niches geographic, demographic,
political power, wealth. These distributions provide initial understanding of
the workings of the society as a stable system.
Interactions between members of society are
largely defined by the social niches to which they belong. Hence description of
patterns of interactions between social niches adds considerably to the
understanding of the society.
Next would be analysis of possibilities of
migration of an individual from one social niche to another.
Next step would be analysis of possible new
social niches and dynamic of their emergence and dynamic of disappearance of
old social niches.
This already provides some understanding of
how existing form of the society could transition into a different one.
Now a value judgment could be added – which forms of
society one would rather avoid and which hasten. Note that some understanding
of this could be unconscious and anxieties of the society could be explained by
the fear of society flipping into an undesirable form.