- Society as a Rational System
- "The History of the world is none other than the progress
- of the
consciousness
of Freedom."
Georg Hegel - Society is a rational system, which evolve trough verification of knowledge in social practice
- Society is very complex formation. At any level of its development people have created relevant framework or so-called paradigm to explain the origin and being of society. According to dominance of social consciousness, existed paradigms could be classified as: mythological, religious, political and scientific. The most influential paradigm during the last century is politico-economical paradigm, which correspondent with politics as dominant form of social consciousness. According this paradigm economy is foundation of society. The society is divided by classes and class straggle is a core of social development. Hence abolishing private ownership of means of productions through revolution could create a fear society. This paradigm seems to explain society satisfactory on earlier stages of capitalism, but fails to create classless society and cannot explain current political situation and offer a vision for future development. This is so, because political paradigm is more ideological than scientific.
- From scientific point of view society is a living and evolving system. Such system is a principally different compare with biological systems due to incorporated reason, mind and consciousness. However human mind and consciousness evolve, therefore society evolves as well. So society is not only a living, self-organising system, society is mind based and could be determinated as rational system. Living systems generate, proceed and verified information. Rational systems generate, proceed and verified knowledge. Biological systems operate with genes; rational systems operate with memes (units of knowledge). The knowledge is conscious information, which could be truth (proven or positive) of false or unproven believes. Hence verification of knowledge is a real engine of social evolution. The most important point is – how society generates, proceed and verify knowledge or
- How society works as a rational system?
- Society has two sub-systems – social being and social consciousness. These are philosophical categories. From point of view of formal science that is economy and culture. Apparently both sub-systems -- social being and social consciousness or economy and culture are interconnected. So social evolution has two aspects: the course of social being (or economy) and course of social consciousness (or culture), which are – an objective and subjective component of what is known as course of history.
- The social evolution obeys three fundamental laws: a) the law of objective factor, b) the law of verification of knowledge and c) the law of subjective factor.
- a) Relatively simple systems of all classes (physical, biological and rational) are hierarchical, most complicated systems are heterarchical or horizontally organised, they consist of hundreds or even thousands sub-systems. Most complicated known systems, as human brain, macro-economy and the Universe itself are heterarchical. Not surprisingly transition from more simple societies to more complex societies is transition from hierarchical to heterarchical social structure. For instance changeover from agrarian to industrial society is transition from hierarchically organised society to societies (nations) with heterarchical components like macro-economy and democracy. Therefore upcoming “post-industrial” society will be organised heterarchicaly. All systems between two extremes - most simple and highly complex societies, have mixed structures. According the law of objective factor - The course of social evolution is transition from hierarchical to heterarchical social structure.
- b) Society verifies knowledge of different level of complexity. All emerging social ideas are interconnected, and could be reduced to very few fundamental ideas like God, equality and democracy, which dominate and drive society for centuries. Verification of these fundamental ideas could verify or reject most of aggregated ideas. They have determinated the social structure and especially the dominance of social consciousness. In this particular case the idea of God dominate religious social consciousness, ideas of equality and democracy determinate the dominance of political social consciousness.
- Such fundamental ideas could be verified only in social practice through the experience of many generations. The idea of God for instance dominates religious social consciousness for thousands of years. The ideas of equality and democracy are more resent developments of political social consciousness. Those types of ideas are verified by institutionalisation. The institutionalisation of an idea has two stages: firstly dissemination and strengthens, secondly – decline and obliterate. This is happen because institutions fallow their own natural laws of evolution. Institutionalisation creates powerful elite to spread the idea. With times designated powerful elite create hierarchy, which struggle to keep its privileges. Elite is powerful due to its position of decision-makers and control of recourses: in agrarian society - land, in industrial societies - money. At certain point surviving of institution became more important than idea itself. The mechanism of declining and obliteration is very simple. The power elite have absolutised the idea to level of fundamentalism. Soon after institution remains an empty shell. This is incredible and unexpected by power elite transformation.
- For instance institutionalising Christianity as an official religion of Roman Empire, Constantine transformed one small insignificant religious sect into world religion. In fact we cannot imagine Christianity, as we know it without Constantine. However newly crated Church follows his own logic of development, developing hierarchy of powerful elite. At certain point to preserve its power and privileges the elite has created special institution “Saint Inquisition” to fight for “purity of Christianity”. The employed methods of this institution contradict with principles of defended idea. The Saint Inquisition has destroyed the core of Christianity as love based religion and eventually religion as institution has been separated by state.
- A very similar pattern could be observed with verification of idea of classless society. Russian revolution of 1917 created communist state, which shaped new power elite with party based hierarchy (nomenclature) resembling feudal inherited hierarchy. To keep its power and privileges, party elite creates political police to defend “purity of communism”. The difference between Saint Inquisition and KGB is in the façade, in principle both are mechanisms of same nature. Not surprisingly communism has collapsed due to subjective interference in the system, which is against its self-regulation and evolution.
- Highlighted mechanism for verification of complex ideas in social practice through institutionalisation explains the law of verification of social driving ideas. According this law - Institutionalisation of structure-determinated ideas, create hierarchically organised power elite, which at certain point destroy the idea itself.
- c) Social evolution is determinate simultaneously by its own internal or objective laws of development as a system and subjective manipulations in favour of decision-makers, rulers or so-called ruing elite. This is influence of human mind and nature. So, the course of social evolution or as generally accepted as human history is contradiction or clash between both tendencies. An observation of human history shows very clearly that human nature could make a history, but cannot change the course of social evolution. This is understandable, because at the end of the day surviving of society depends of its organisation as a system – structure and function, not by peoples believes and aspirations, never mind how powerful they have been at the time. So according to the law of subjective factor - People could change the form of society creating events, but cannot change the course of social evolution itself.
- So, above-mentioned laws are laws of social being (structure), social consciousness (functions) and connection between both. In segregation they explain how rational systems generate and process knowledge and how this knowledge change society. The meaning of the process itself is to verify generated beliefs, ideas & hypothesises and confirms which knowledge is truth or positive and which is negative or false. Accumulated verified knowledge change society and make it more complicated and complex. Evolution of society includes quantitative changes, which at certain point leap to qualitative changes. These are radical changes of social structure and functions. In the process of social evolution few things should be outlined clearly and considered as most important to understood the course of social evolution in general and the course of human history in particular.
- The course of social evolution
- Verification of knowledge is a real engine of social evolution, which changes both social being or economy and social consciousness or culture. However due to hierarchical stricture of society so far three fundamental values – land, money, and knowledge became structure determinating of three societies with increased complexity - agrarian, industrial and forthcoming “post-industrial”. In general terms accumulated positive knowledge change society, which expand and improve way of its verification. Ongoing changes could be very slow, (quantitative) or dramatically speeded (qualitative) changes. Quantitative changes elaborate the social system and powerful elite, quantitative – changes its structure and shifted existed elite with new one. Quantitative changes are truly evolutionary, qualitative changes are revolutionary. The revolutions are not bloody by definition they could be peaceful as well. This depends of subjective factor.
- Such a quantitative leap happens during transition from a hunter and gathering society to agrarian society. For around 10 000 years, agrarian societies elaborate sophisticated hierarchical structure and thousand of tribes have been integrated into 2-3 hundred nations. At certain point sophisticated functions of society contradict with existed hierarchical structure. Apparently this is obstacle for social development and new qualitative leap to more adequate social structure is inevitable. This is real reason for industrial revolution 200 years ago. Emerged capitalism introduced free-market economy, separated political power into executive, legislative, & judicial and reinvented and disseminated democracy as a decision-making mechanism. These significant changes in social structure are heterarchicaly by nature and more adequate to the level of social development. Currently humanity become increasingly complex and sophisticated system and existed structure even more inadequate to secure proper function of society. Hence society again is on the verge of qualitative leap to new social structure.
- Social evolution has made dramatic changes in social consciousness as well. For thousands of years human thinking evolved gradually from animism to mythological and religious thinking to nowadays dominance of political and scientific thinking. Some believed animism is primitive religious thinking. In fact polytheistic mythological thinking is abstract and much more sophisticated compare with animism. The idea of one God as creator and prime course for everything need accumulation of enormous amount of knowledge and ability for abstract thinking. Dominated political thinking today is even more sophisticated. However political thinking remains ideological and become less adequate to solve emerging global problems. Scientific thinking goes in parallel with development of science. Philosophy has developed so-called dialectics, respectively – dialectical logic, which are something like high mathematics for social science. Dialectical thinking studies social evolution as a process. It is “functional” thinking compare with formal logic, which by definition is “static”. Formal sciences employ systems thinking, which is “structural” and studying the object as a whole. Both dialectical and systems thinking accept reality as a process, which obey same natural laws, although they are different by degree of generalisation.
- The social evolution could be influenced enormously by decision-makers, ruling class, or so-called power elite, because of various reasons. The ruling classes in the past are most literate and educated; at all times they have resources to do that; finally they tried to keep intact already achieved privileges and even to gain more. That is human nature, which only make history more colourful, but cannot change the course of social evolution. Depend of the level of available knowledge ruling class manipulate society in various ways to keep itself in power. During the times of “one god - one king” rulers accept that their power originate by god. Unsurprisingly the power is inherited. Enforcing such view as general rule is form of brainwashing. It is typical for religious consciousness and agrarian societies. Despite its power ruling class has been shifted out when society became more complex and replaced by new more adequate elite. Existed hierarchical structure was not able to secure further development of society and has been replaced as well. In this way eventually agrarian societies have transited to industrial societies. This transition, which took place around two centuries ago, is most important transition in human history since agrarian revolution ten thousand years ago.
- In more complex industrial societies the dominance of religious social consciousness was gradually replaced by dominance of political ideology. Newly born power elite deliberately manipulate society to keep in power through political propaganda and media manipulations. There is nothing new under the Sun. So the mechanism of social evolution seems to be very simple. Society generates and verifies knowledge, accumulated knowledge change society, ruling class try to keep its power and privileges, but at certain point the power elite is shifted and new social structure is created. The first few changes are quantitative therefore evolutionary by nature, the last one is qualitative or revolutionary, because it creates completely different structure, culture and decision-making process.
- Society evolves through creation of cultures and civilizations. Some people accept the notions “culture” and “civilization” as synonyms. In fact they are very different. Culture is the contents of social consciousness of one particular social group or society. Civilisation is a level of verification of knowledge achieved by humanity as a whole. Any culture is an engine for verification of knowledge. Thousand cultures verified the knowledge of humanity forming only three civilisations – empirical, technological and humanitarian. Empirical civilization verifies the knowledge through “test and error”. This is agrarian society. Technological civilisation verifies knowledge through experiments and discovered laws of natural sciences. This is typical for industrial society. Forthcoming humanitarian civilization will verify knowledge trough laws of social and human sciences.
- Social evolution in action
- From point of view of society as a rational system, accumulations of technical and social innovations gradually change society. At certain point of complexity, existing structure become obstacle for further development and qualitative leap lead to establishing of new structure and new power elite. These qualitative leaps in social development are known as revolutions. So, the qualitative leaps in economics and cultural sub-systems lead to structural changes in society and terminate in two types of revolutions – economical and cultural. However because of interconnections between both sub-systems changes are made accordingly and affect profoundly entire system.
- Both economical and cultural revolutions are final result of accumulated relevant innovations. Transition from agrarian to industrial society is an example of economical revolution expired by technical innovations. It started as industrial revolution and ended with changes in political structure of society. It also replace the dominance form of social consciousness from religion to politics. Cultural revolutions are expired by ideas. They relate primary to changes in social consciousness and secondary affect social being or economy. Example of ideological revolutions among many others is accepting Christianity as an official religion for Roman Empire, which verifies religious idea of one God, and lead to dominance of monotheism as form of social consciousness.
- Factors in social evolution are social creativity and created innovations. Classes are an obvious division of society, but class straggle is a secondary factor in the process of social development. In fact the conflict in French revolution is not between landlords and peasants, as should be expected, but between existing power elite of inherited aristocracy and newly emerged class of innovative entrepreneurs. Unprivileged classes of peasants and working class are used as ideological tools in revolutionary situations and could be factor for changes only according to offered by them new ideas and innovations.
- Social evolution “repeats” itself in exponentially speeded cycles. Any revolution shifted out existed social structure, create new one and new power elite. The power elite create a new hierarchy, which at certain point become destructive and new revolution is inevitable to replace existed social structure with, more adequate such structure and new elite. The key factors in interaction between economical and cultural sub-systems are the people who made decisions. This is so because society is a rational system and its evolution go in parallel with development of culture in general and mindset of decision-makers in particular.
- Mindset of people is determinated by dominant form of social consciousness and social position. Ruling class always try to keep in power and protect its privileges. This is human nature. Because of this reason innovative ability of ruling class diminishes and with time become obstacle for social evolution. It is time for new structural changes. Mindsets of ruling classes at all times are very similar. Imagine fling bird experiencing resistance of air. She probably “thinks” if there is no air, she could fly faster and easier. In fact without air the bird cannot fly at all. To “keep flying” ruling classes pump out the air, which inevitably lead to collapse. The system simply doesn’t work in this way. That is the destiny of all empires and power elites throughout history.
- Transition from industrial to “post-industrial” society
- has four aspects – transitions in: a) decision-making mechanism, b) economy, c) culture and how these transitions will take place – evolutionary or revolutionary; (peaceful or bloody).
- a) Governing of society is mode of making decisions. Depending on complexity of the society there are three core decision making mechanisms – autocracy, democracy and netocracy. Autocracy is simplest “one man” – king, tsar or emperor decision-making mechanism. Democracy is collective decision-making mechanism, which insists a broad spectrum of political parties and elections. Decisions are made in favour of majority. Netocracy is a collaborative decision-making mechanism, based on virtual global mind and digital technologies. Decisions are made in favour of society as a whole.
- The word “netocracy” derives from “net” (web of connections) and the ancient Greek kratos “rule” or “power” and is qualitative new stage of development of decision-making process. There are no straggle for power, ruling and opposition political parties, no professional politics, elected representatives etc. components of democracy. In foreseeable future decision-making networks of self-selected specialist will make decisions ad-hoc, in favour of society as a whole, which resemble function of human brain. Therefore at present days transition from democracy to netocracy is key ongoing transformation. This transition is contradictive and conflicting. From one hand democracy gradually degenerates to corporatocracy. Buying political decisions through sponsorship of political parties is common. From the other hand new nongovernmental organisations like: Amnesty International, Human rights watch, Transparency international, Tax Justice Network, Green Peace, among many others have been established. They act as a social conscience, which is a key factor for self-regulation and peaceful transition from democracy to netocracy.
- b) Transition in economy or transition from money driven to knowledge-based society, suppose to be most important change in social structure. This is transition from capitalism to epistemism. Nowadays politico-economical concepts like end of history, clash of civilizations, shock therapy are still mesmerised by free-market economy and shape slightly different visions - neoliberalism, neoconservatism or "Chicago School" revolution. Present-day free-market fundamentalism resembles ideology of absolute monarchy in agrarian societies, which lead to bloody transition from agrarian to industrial society. That’s happen with France and Russia, but was avoided by more liberal British monarchy. So, transition from technological to “post-industrial” society is as inevitable as transition from agrarian to industrial society. The point is, which alternative – bloody or peaceful, revolutionary or evolutionary. However money-based economy is already in transition to knowledge-based, which insists a completely altered paradigm. Therefore society needs new economy free from ideology and scientifically based paradigm.
- Extreme free-market economy is partly due to human nature – mindset of wishful thinking, partly due to natural laws of social evolution. It is amazing how and why the power elites from all times start to “purified” the dominated paradigm in way to absolutise it. This is one-dimensional thinking, which create ideological (religious & political) fanatics and fundamentalist. However the positive side effect of modern economical schools is to demonstrate rising absurdity of money-based society. This policy lead to global uncertainty and soon humanity will face the dilemma – surviving or destruction. This is not security as a lucrative business: face-recognition cameras, ID cards with biochips etc., an Orwellian Big brother type of society. This is truly sustainability or necessity for humanity to recognise knowledge as greater value than money and reorganise society accordingly.
- Netocracy as collaborative decision-making mechanism could control material resources without necessity to form new power elite, respectively new hierarchy. This is so because decision-makers are self-selected ad-hoc for resolving of any particular problem on all levels: local, national, regional or global. Secondly knowledge is spiritual by nature and nobody could control it.
- c) Transition from industrial to humanitarian civilization. Free-market economy creates massive wealth of around 64 trillion a year, but the price is terrible – destruction of environment and morality, flourishing corruption and organised crime. In money-driven society everything is turned into commodity for sale including human conciseness and integrity. Nowadays political parties and officials are badly corrupted. Transition from industrial to humanitarian civilization means transition from politics to morality as dominant form of social consciousness. This is Cultural Revolution. Similar Cultural Revolution has taken place with separation of religion from state and transition from religion to politics as dominant form of social consciousness. This is also transition from agrarian to industrial society and from empirical to technological civilisation.
- d) Neither economical nor ideological revolutions are bloody by definition. The bloodiness of revolution depends of subjective factor or so-called human nature. The processes of globalisation and globalism are modern equivalent to evolutionary and revolutionary transitions. Globalisation is natural process of social evolution leading to creation of “single social organism”, which is forthcoming society. Globalism is another word for corporatism, ideological concept employed by gurus of modern free-market economy, or something diametrically opposite. Confusing both terms is a big mistake, in many cases deliberate manipulation.
- Transition from technological to “post-industrial” society is inevitable, because the course of social evolution is a translation from hierarchical to heterarchical social structure. This is transition from democracy to netocracy, from money-driven to knowledge-based society or from technological to humanitarian civilization.
