Know theself - Transition from democracy to netocracy

The evolution in general deals with information – biological with genes, social – with memes (units of knowledge). The knowledge is consciousness information. Therefore the engine for both human’s development and social evolution is the knowledge. The course of social evolution is mode of generation and processing of knowledge. Biological evolution has no purpose, it is based on mutations (trail and errors) and line of its course is very clear and visible, especially since Darwin and development of genetics. Humanity is more complicated system due to emerging reason, mind and consciousness. In fact humanity has two interacting lines of development distinguishable only in analysis – subjective or course of human history and objective – the course of social evolution itself. The course of human history is chained of mind-maid events, which could vary - slowdown or accelerate the course of social evolution, but cannot change it. Therefore, the course of social evolution is outcome of interaction between objective laws of self-organisation as a system and human mind and nature. So, humanity is rational system, organised by interactions between objective laws and human mind and consciousness. The history is the “visible” part of this process.

Many people accept culture and civilization as synonyms. In fact culture characterise one particular social group by contents of its social consciousness – religion, believes, moral norms, myths, aesthetic views, positive knowledge, ideas, laws, philosophy etc. The civilization is level of development of humanity as a whole due to achieved method for generation and processing of knowledge. Hundreds cultures are “melted” to create single civilization. So far there are only three known civilizations – empirical (positive knowledge is generated trough “trial and error”), technological (positive knowledge is generated trough experiments and discovered laws of natural sciences) and forthcoming humanitarian civilization (positive knowledge will be generated trough revealed laws of human and social sciences). Hence the cultures could be considered as a “social species”, they originate, straggle to survive, evolve and some of them perish, in case they are not able to process knowledge, generate memes and civilization do not need them anymore.

To survive our hunting and gathering ancestors have been forced to elaborate hierarchical organisation. During earlier stages of relatively simple social organisation – tribes, kingdoms, empires, societies adopted hierarchical structure, which is most effective and adequate for surviving at this level of development. At certain level of complexity hierarchical systems become less effective and unstable, and humanity tends to reorganise itself as heterarchical system, which is more reliable, sustainable and secure. Hierarchical social systems are relatively simple “mind-maid” organisations. Heterarchical systems are more complicated and outcome of self-organisation. The most complicated systems like human brain; free market and macro-economy are heterarchical. Capitalism for instance is powerful and vital, because is part of course of social evolution. The Capitalism elaborates and incorporates heterarchical macro-economy and adopted democracy as decision-making mechanism. Therefore the course of social evolution is transition from hierarchical to heterarchical social structure or from simple “mind-made” hierarchy to sophisticated self-organised heterarchy.

In fact all stages of social evolution are struggle of our ancestors to survive as - individuals, tribes, nations and nowadays as humanity. Four core values: slaves, land, money and knowledge are stricture-determinated factors and mark four basic stages in the course of social evolution – Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism and let say forthcoming Epistemism. Transitions from hunting and gathering to agrarian society and from agrarian to industrial society are two major revolutions in humankind. So approaching transition from industrial or technological society to “post-technological” society is transition from money-driven to knowledge-based society and could be considered as third major revolution facing humanity today.

Technologies of 21-century (robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology) provide opportunity knowledge alone without significant material resources to destroy humanity. Recently Bill Joy^[1] has introduced concept of “Knowledge-enabled mass destruction” (KMD), as equivalent to existing “Weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) based on 20^th century technologies (nuclear, chemical and biological). No doubt accelerating increase of knowledge increases the vulnerability of the society and could destroy the world. This possibility has been realized with invention of atomic bomb and become more obvious with developing of chemical and biological WMD. Emergence of 21-century’s high technologies make it almost inevitable.

So, modern society face one terrible dilemma – with attainment of knowledge society become simultaneously - more powerful and more vulnerable. As a matter of fact during last few decades science and technology tend to expand exponentially. Unfortunately to make things worst any significant scientific discovery and technological achievement could be applied as a weapon more easily and cheaply rather than in constructive way. If resources needed to create nuclear weapons are on national level; the resources for KMD are accessible for small group of people. This point of social evolution is unique and humanity should take it into account from now on. Therefore exponential development of high technologies and increasing of vulnerability of humanity could be considered as a basic contradiction of modern society.

It is most important contradiction among thousands of other contradictions and global problems facing modern world, because resolving this particular contradiction is a matter of life and death for human race. Not part of it, but mankind as a whole. Resolving this basic contradiction is imperative, which make transition to new social structure inevitable. Apparently scientific and technological development is endless and unstoppable. So, how society could survive or how humanity could resolve this basic contradiction? Which is the next step of social evolution?

Money seems to be most powerful religion in the modern society. But they have never been so important in the past and will not be in future. As a matter of fact money as universal value, dominate society for the last 200 years, which is a tiny segment of human history. However during this time humankind has generated enormous wealth, revolutionise science, technology, day-to-day living and continue to do so. In the same time humanity suffers enormously, surviving two world wars and grate number of local wars. Only in the WWII have been killed more people than in all known wars combined. Therefore it is not a question to glorify or criticise Capitalism, but to analyse it impartially.

Some people believe so-called liberal democracy i.e. post cold war capitalism is the end of history. ^[2] Nothing could be far from the truth. Social evolution is unstoppable. Humanity generates knowledge that seems to accelerate; accumulated knowledge makes dramatic changes and humanity evolve. Capitalism is neither god nor bad - simply segment of social evolution. No doubt as Feudalism for instance, Capitalism emerges, rise, dominate society up to certain level of development and eventually will be shifted by more relevant to achieved new level of social organisation in foreseeable future. The point is how this transition will take place?

In the meantime two projects to change Capitalism are already history. In the dawn of rising Capitalism, concerned by condition of working class, Marx and Engels elaborated theory of class straggle and revolutions and proposed first model for reshaping of society – Communism. This model has a lifespan of 70 years and could be considered as most successful social experiment. It has transformed Russia from feudal country to world nuclear power. It initiated exploration of the Cosmos and has significant technological and scientific achievements, but eventually has filed to create classless society. It started as a scientific theory and ended as a state religion. The Communism elaborated sophisticated hierarchical system resembling feudal social stricture. The cult to personality of communist leaders resembles reverence of God. Still alive they raised monuments to themselves like Roman Emperors and even are mummified like Pharaohs. Perhaps this incredible transformation of Communism from dreamed classless society to inherited feudal hierarchy has happened due to same fundamental reason, which transformed Christianity into Saint Inquisition. Very interesting point indeed, but out of our scope now.

The second model for reshaping society was initiated by politicians in the aftermath of WWI and is known as National Socialism or Fascism. It was considered as a “third way” between Communism and Capitalism. This is an authoritarian political ideology that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole. The key characteristics among many others are – nationalism, aggressive militarism, single party government, egalitarianism, portraying themselves as superior Arial race, the cult of the leader, intolerance of others religions, languages, political views, economic systems, cultural practices, etc. This infamous ideology provokes WWII and fails miserably with enormous suffering and huge sacrifice of life.

The historical lesson from both experiments to reshape society is very simple. Social evolution obeys its own natural laws and any intervention in favour of one particular group of people lead inevitably to disaster. Unfortunately this simple lesson is very difficult to be understood by so-called power elite, which initiates current social experiment - New World Order. As a difference in a compare with mentioned two projects for reshaping of society, New World Order does not intend to destroy Capitalism, but to shift it to new form of hierarchical organisation in favour of tiny privileged minority - financial elite.

New World Order has emerged in the aftermath of WWII. Initially colonial system was shifted by “Free trade”. Free trade sound fairly, but it is possible only among equal partners. Apparently former colonial countries did not become as free and independent as expected, especially with puppet governments and badly corrupted official. The new power elite percept the world as “a grand chessboard”, where could exercise theirs muscles, power and even change the rules during the game. The philosophy of adopted geopolitics is simple – “hegemony is as old as mankind”, therefore the world should be dominated by one nation or at least chosen by God or self-made elite.^[3] The naked truth is – in the past 10000 years hegemony was possible even inevitable due to existed hierarchy, but in the future will not to be. In fact ambition for hegemony is as old as mankind. Sixteen empires attempted to do so, no one succeed for a long time. Extended duration of dominance only make collapse more spectacular. A vision of hegemony is vision of unipolarity of the world. This is form of political extremism, improvidence, lack of foresight, incompatible with globalising world. Therefore theory for world hegemony, especially in our days is recipe for disaster, because it is agents the course of social evolution from hierarchical to heterarchical structure.

The modern Capitalism has deepened the contradictions in society as never before. Some global problems like - growing energy demand and emerging energy crises; weapon of mass destruction; nuclear proliferation; global terrorism, security issues; organised crime; a widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots"; climate change and global warming among many others are simply unsolvable, because they are consequences of ongoing social practice and side-effect of the system. Now the Capitalism generates social outcast, drug abuse, organised crime, premeditated ignorance of education for unprivileged children, consumerism, in short -- destroy morality. Corruption, greed, envy, deceptions, gluttony, sloth, hypocrisy are landmarks of modern society. No doubt such ideology of geopolitics undermines effectiveness of political parties, democracy and trust in the system itself.

In raising Capitalism economy and politics have been clearly separated and independent activities. In the aftermath of WWII and especially after Cold war financial elite influence political elite enormously. Emerged New World Order is an offspring of doomed marriage between financial capital and modern politicians. Financial barons simply buy politicians and decisions. World Bank estimates $1 trillion in bribes are paid every year to corrupted officials worldwide.^[4] Extra billions are spent “legally” for lobbing, sponsoring and donations in favour of political parties, which inevitably influence decision-making process. Buying decisions is lucrative business indeed and best way to destroy the fabric of society – representative democracy. Eventually the New World Order has shifted democracy to corporatocracy. No wonder it makes the world very dangers place to live.

New World Order has a conspiratorial component as well. Some people believe there are secret societies like Illuminati, Bilderberg club among few others, who pull the strings of global politics in shadow and influence social order in favour of privileged few. However it is not important at all do such secret societies exist or New World Order is a concept of mainstream politicians. The point is - could such people reshape society according their views? Following the lessons from two previous projects, the answer is clear and categorical – the social evolution has its own objective laws to obey. People could make history, but nobody could change the course of social evolution. Such attempt will bring only more misery to humanity, but the collapse at certain point is inevitable. So, humanity is a self-organised system in transition from hierarchical to heterarchical structure. From this point of view, Capitalism has long lifespan due to created heterarchical macro-economy and established democratic decision-making process. Communism experimented to plan economy to achieve classless society. To keep in power communists elaborated sophisticated hierarchy of decision-making party bureaucrats (nomenclature), resembling feudal hierarchy and dictatorship. This is the prime reason for collapse. Communism is against the course of social evolution, because economy is very complicated system and cannot be planed in advance. Further, a created social hierarchy undermined system and Communism eventually disintegrate. Hence, the Cold war is only catalyst, but not prime reason for the collapse itself.

National Socialism failed because attempted to achieve world dominance with brutal military power, and crate ethnic-based hierarchy with their “superior” Arial race on top, followed by all “inferior” ethnic groups. The Fascism tried to reshape world in hierarchical manner. It has failed because it is against course of social evolution to heterarchical society. The WWII is only one historical alternative. Even Nazi Germany was won the war, the Fascism will collapse inevitably soon after, as Communism did. The lifespan of National Socialism was only twelve years, a fraction of second in the scale of social evolution.

At the present many people believe there is a clash of civilizations.^[5] In other words the ongoing ideological battle, which provokes WWII, will be replaced in future by cultural conflicts. Therefore the clash of cultures or civilisations will be battleground in foreseeable future. No doubt existing cultures are different by definition, but eventually all cultures share identical core universal moral values like peace, prosperity, love etc. The differences among cultures have never been and will never be so immense to cause “clash of civilizations”. In the contrary, evolutions of cultures contribute and enrich same civilization. In fact the conflict in post Cold war world is between two ideologies in decline – political extremism and religious fundamentalism; New World Order vs. a World Caliphate, fighting for dominance and hegemony, therefore still old fashion ideological battle.

Rising Muslim fundamentalism is reaction to emerging unipolarity of the world and ideology of neoconservatism. According to John McGowan,^[6] neo-conservatism is viewpoint for creating American empire, seen as successor to the British Empire, its aim being to perpetuate a Pax Americana. Therefore the U.S. should be the world's sole superpower, indispensable to establishing and maintaining global order. The ideology of World Caliphate became significant, partly due to emerging vacuum after collapse of communism, which temporally created unipolar world, partly because “New World Order” need enemy to fight with. More over, in his documentary “The Power of Nightmares - The Rise of the Politics of Fear”, BBC, 2004, Adam Curtis argues that the threat of radical Islamism is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries and particularly American neo-conservatives in an attempt to unite and inspire their people.^[7] The secret weapons of this clash are media manipulations and brain washing.

Society generates and processes knowledge; any deliberately disturbances in this process like propaganda, manipulations, suppressing information, brain washing etc. could cause severe social problems. Such problem today is emerging terrorism. The modern terrorism begin with "Unabomber" and the Oklahoma City bombing, pass through the nowadays Islamic jihad’s suicidal missions and will evolve unpredictably depends of future developments of global politics. However neither New World Order’s hegemony nor World Caliphate is possible to be established in foreseeable future, because both are against the course of social evolution to heterarchical structure. So the current situation is not a “clash of civilisations” it is “the last push”, which will give birth to forthcoming humanitarian civilization.

The Capitalism itself emerged 200 hundred years ago as segment of course of social evolution with two clear heterarchical components – free market economy and democracy as decision-making mechanism. It has extraordinary achievements, but during last few decades begin to degenerate due to destruction of already existed heterarchy. The gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" become absurd and grotesque. Democracy was gradually shifted by corporatocracy; and few multinational corporations became powerful enough to dominate macro-economy and determinate global policy. This is falling capitalism or New World Order in decline. No doubt the New World Order make same mistake attempting to create hierarchical social stricture resembling Multinational Corporation. Any attempts to “export democracy”, (which actually is pure corporatocracy) around the world is same mistake, which Russians made decades ago exporting “world revolution”. The collapse of the New World Order is inevitable, because it is against the course of social evolution as well. The social evolution doesn’t tolerate any speculative and ideological models in a favourer of part of society, regardless of which one – working class, politicians, clerics or oligarchs.

If we look back to the period of transition from land- to money-based society, France made this transition by revolution, neighbouring Britain adopted evolutionary way due to undersigned Magna Carta centuries ago. Therefore transition from money-driven to knowledge-based society theoretically has two options – evolutionary and revolutionary. The first one is most desirable, but less probable in an environment of constantly speeding social development. Regardless of that it is possible to describe such transition in general terms following natural laws of social evolution.

No doubt future society will resemble human brain as heterarchical structure of interacting sub-systems and decision-making functions and powerful self-regulating mechanism. Imagine international body called for example humanitarian jury, which act as social conscience. Apparently this is not a political body and should be stuffed not by politicians, but by impartial intellectuals with very high moral standards. With 1% physical and 99% global virtual representation humanitarian jury will review any political and institutional decisions on all levels – local, national and global, in sake of society. If decision is against interest of society or humanity as a whole it should be reconsidered, if it does not contradict with accepted moral standards, norms and values - could be implemented. In long term Humanitarian jury could prepare new Magna Carta to clarify and ensure peaceful development and transition of society.

To set up Humanitarian jury as a powerful self-regulating mechanism is a first step to peaceful transition from technological to humanitarian society. In fact some components of Humanitarian jury already exist. International movements like Global Justice Movement, Peoples´ Global Action, The International Forum on Globalisation, Green Peace, Tax Justice Network, among many others already acts as social conscience. Humanitarian jury do not aim to coordinate such institutions, but to make a qualitative step ahead in controlling political decisions and development of social consciousness and self-consciousness. Creating a body or sub-system resembling social conscience is only first step in peaceful transformation. A few more steps are needed to crate heterarchical society.

If New World Order intends to implement its ideas of reorganising and reshaping of society at any price, revolutionary and bloody transition seems to be more likely in foreseeable future. The attempt to create small privileged financial elite controlling humanity, resemble a clash between eighteen century’s “chosen by God” and “born to rule” aristocrats and emerging self-made or “rob to rule” entrepreneurs. The history proof, winners are those people, who stay on side of course of social evolution. Nowadays clash is not between the "haves" and the "have-nots", as seen on the surface and assumed by power elite. It is actually invisible conflict between financial barons and newly emerged knowledgeable people. No doubt the last one is on side of course of social evolution. This is so, because the money cannot save humanity and their importance in the future will diminish. Therefore at certain point the New World Order inevitably will collapse, although the price in this case will be devastatingly high.

As was pointed above, during last two hundred years the course of social evolution is transition from hierarchical to heterarchical social structure. If there is a clash, it is not the clash between cultures or civilisations, but the clash between natural course of social evolution and human nature as always has been, i.e. people who try to redirect the course of social evolution according their own interest. Apparently they could make a history, but can’t change the course itself, because nobody could beat the system. Above-mentioned projects are ideological construction, but the course of social evolution obeys objective laws. There is no room for ideology in the course of social evolution. Therefore heterarchy doesn’t mean "liberty, equality, fraternity", “redistribution of wealth”, etc. The course of social evolution is simply struggle to survive and self-organisation of humanity as a rational system. To survive humanity should resolve its basic contradiction, which means to reorganise itself from hierarchical to heterarchical structure.

In “Theses on Feuerbach” ^[8] Marx wrote: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is, to change it". Now century and half later seems to be clearer, people could create history, but can’t change course of social evolution. However one thing is certain -- to transit peacefully from money-driven to knowledge-based society, from democracy to netocracy, from technological to humanitarian civilization or to grow up above its “puberty” and pass to its “maturity” humanity should know itself.