Re: Re:FW:Chaotic Systems vs. Created Unequal

[Ed Weick]

Bob McDaniel: 

 

>We should value those thinkers who attempt to get a handle on the new
>system by exploring new metaphors and their implications.
>
>The Agricultural Revolution involved taking the existing natural
>environment and programming it to ensure a regular supply of food and
>other products of the soil at selected sites. Land became a
>wealth-producing resource and subsequently the property of an
>aristocracy. The measurement of land was facilitated by geometry. The
>accumulated wealth provided the capital to underwrite the Industrial
>Revolution which greatly increased the supply of goods by locating
>factories at selected sites. The measurement of the dynamics of
>production required calculus  Speedy and cheap transportation (based on
>fossil fuels) encouraged global trade to benefit from comparative
>advantage. A further increase in leisure time and wealth supported the
>formalization of research, invention and innovation, activities also
>spurred on by large-scale warfare. National censuses generated massive
>blocks of data whose analysis was enabled by matrix algebra. The need
>for timeliness in processing such masses of data was solved by the
>computer. Now, just as the Agricultural Revolution led to programming
>the natural environment to sustain an urbanized (centralized)
>population, so the emerging Digital Revolution may be marked by the
>programming of the industrial environment to sustain a decentralized
>population. Complementing transportation, however, is now a
>communication system (increasingly digitally based) which appears
>destined to ensure global access to the knowledge necessary to the
>support of the decentralized population at a uniformly high standard of
>living. This population will draw its sustenance from the industrial
>environment just as a primitive population drew upon the natural (seas,
>soils) environment. But now to massive numbers and the speed of light
>must be added rapid, if not convulsive (intra-generational) change,
>leading us to seek the insights of catastrophe theory, chaos theory,
>fuzzy logic and multimedia (sound, video, graphics, geographical
>information systems (GIS)) based methods of pattern recognition.
>
>It is probably true that the transnational corporations which are
>building the infrastructure of the emerging system will fade away as
>they become increasingly irrelevant. The present system of nation-states
>appears destined for a similar fate.

The above is a good, seemingly convincing, description of how a human need, once resolved, will lead to another need, which then resolved... etc.  And we therefore have progress and better ways of understanding the world we are continuously (though in fits and starts) creating.  We therefore have progress. 

 

But what I don't find in it is a recognition that each time one part of the world advances (mostly the west during the past millennium), other parts are left behind.  Nor do I find recognition that progress in the materially advancing part of the world requires exploitation of much of the rest, or sets up situations in which the wealthy in the rest can exploit their own people — e.g. oil in Nigeria. Whether because of exploitation by the rich world or because they lack skills and resources, the people of the less developed world have been left farther and farther behind during the twentieth century.  That many of them can now do calculus and have computers to help them calculate with the speed of light does not seem to matter very much.  Doing calculus and using computers may help them only if the can migrate to the rich world or if they can get a job with a rich world TNC.  Since only a small proportion can do this, most will be left behind.  Perhaps the only good thing one can say is that they will be left behind by twentieth century standards, which is probably better than being left behind in terms of those which prevailed two or three hundred years ago.

 

Enormous technological progress has resulted from the use of fossil fuels.  But I would question whether the ordinary people who were involved in the exploitation of these resources, or in industrial progress in general, had better lives than their forefathers.  Inter-epochal comparisons are difficult.  The industrial revolution was based on the exploitation of labour by capital, the agricultural revolution on the exploitation of tenured peasants, serfs and slaves by noble landholders.  Who is to say which form of exploitation was worse or better in terms of human comfort?  Both led to rebellions and revolutions.  In the early years of the industrial revolution, people left the countryside in droves, not because they did not want to stay on the land or because they were seeking a better life in the city, but because land was being cleared to make way for sheep for the woolen industry.  Much the same thing happened in this century as new crops were introduced in Asia and Africa and Brazilian coffee plantations became mechanized.  The slums of Sao Paulo and Rio grew very rapidly even in recent decades as people were moved off the land.

 

Historically, progress was not simply a matter of inventing a better mouse trap and then benignly applying it to make everyone better off (except the mice).  Typically, there were motives and purposes behind it which have often only been understood retrospectively.  David Landes, in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, mentions that ancient Chinese warlords settled on rice-based agriculture because, far better than any other crop, it would maximize population growth which in turn would maximize the build-up of armies.  More recently, in regions such as the Russian steppes and western North America, agricultural settlers were moved into "empty" regions partly to raise agricultural production but also largely to subdue hostile tribes to the point of destruction.  Even more recently, Stalin developed the Gulag not only out of fear of his own citizens, but, I would argue, mainly because cheap labour was needed to undertake projects like the White Sea Canal and the Siberia road system.  And today, more than we realize, much of the technology which we use, and on which we will have to rely heavily in future, such as the computer, jet propulsion and nuclear energy, owe much of their development to the creation of weapons of mass destruction.  Where would we be if people weren't bent on mutual mass extermination?

 

As for the future, I would not quarrel with the idea that we now have technology to support a decentralized population.  However, I see very little evidence of trends which would encourage population to decentralize.  Population continues to grow, and since much of it is now concentrated in very large urban areas, that is where the growth is taking place and will likely take place in future.  With large masses of people to draw on as labour and consumers, my hunch is that global business will become more concentrated and more powerful, not less.  I would agree that many TNCs will fade away but others will prevail and become much larger and economically important, likely by absorbing the fading ones.  As for nation states, some will fade away, but I foresee the re-emergence of superstates, and a return to bipolar or tripolar hostilities.  The potential for progress in military hard- and software and for "Star Wars" defensive shields is enormous.

 

Ed Weick