I discovered courtesy of the Social Evolution Forum
that back in Iowa City a physician at the University of Iowa Hospitals &
Clinics has produced a book that looks into a number of issues that interest
me, so, although in China at the time, I downloaded it to my Kindle and began
reading. The book looks at what it means to be a “highly adaptive society”
(adaptive in the Darwinian sense). It identifies basic characteristics and
surveys nations around the world, gauging their relative adaptability viz. the
factors that he identifies as crucial to highly adaptive societies. These
factors are “a representative form of government, a market-oriented economy, a
growing scientific and technical enterprise, a universal system of education,
and a system of religious practice which becomes progressively more
disentangled from government and progressively more tolerant of diverse
beliefs.” (Kemp, John (2013-06-11). Choosing Survival: Creating Highly
Adaptive Societies (Kindle Locations 68-70). Kindle Edition.) After further
discussing these factors, which one can recognize as common factors that many
scholars identify as crucial the rise of Western domination of the world in the
last 500 years, Dr. Kemp looks more carefully at nations and societies around
the world to gauge their adaptability according to these standards. Finally, he
addresses some of the challenges that the remainder of the 21st
century will present to such societies.
This summary of the book is short because I want
to get to what made it fun for me to read. This book really got my juices
flowing. As you will see, I have a number of criticisms and suggestions that I
set forth below, but this is a terrific project and it really goes to the heart
of what we have to do in the years to come. Accordingly, here’s a list of
thoughts that this book has generated and which I hope will contribute to the
project. (Based on memory and with no pretense to scholarship or form, I
randomly cite some thinkers and books that I believe pertinent to any
particular point in my discussion below.)
1.
Dr.
Kemp is an optimist. He seems to believe in Progress or a variation of the Whig
theory of history (that history is moving inevitably toward liberal
institutions). In his inventory of nations, for he opines that most of them are
moving toward becoming “highly adoptive societies” (hereinafter HAS). I am less
optimistic, or at least less certain. I agree that overall, his discernment of
the general direction of change is correct; however, his available data set is
short. That is, the advanced nations of today (Morris, Why West Rules—For
Now) are very recent developments. The Industrial Revolution is only about
250 years old. Given this short time span against about 10,000 years of
agriculture and civilization (i.e., cities), this is a brief period in human
history. Can we say that Progress, in this case defined as movement toward HAS,
will prove inevitable? I sense an assumption of inevitability in the tenor of
the book, although it’s not an explicit argument. I don’t believe that
representative government is the inevitable result of human change. Germany
came close to prevailing in the Second World War (before the entry of the U.S.)
(J. Lukacs), or perhaps Communism could have prevailed before the collapse of
the U.S.S.R. or the change in China (look at the persistence of N. Korea &
Cube, for instance).
2.
A
key question, I think best formed by Peter Turchin and his work (War &
Peace & War), is whether the historical cycles (“secular cycles”) that
he’s identified in agricultural civilizations will continue to apply in the
Industrial and Post-Industrial Age. Turchin recognizes this is a key issue. I
note that Turchin has done some preliminary work on cycles in U.S. history,
most of which encompasses the Industrial Age and qualifies as an HAS. Perhaps
it will address to what extent we might be really different from the past and
therefore exempt from the social gravity that has dragged down earlier
societies.
3.
I
think that the term HAS is misused, or at least misplaced. It strikes me that
the most highly adaptive societies were those of the hunter-gathers, who really
did have to adapt to their natural environment. With the advent of agriculture,
humans really begin, tentatively, to shape their environment. With the Modern
Age (beginning, shall we stipulate, around 1600), humans significantly begin to
change their environment, a project that truly takes off with
industrialization. Thus, what Dr. Kemp identifies has HAS should, I think, be
dubbed Highly Transformative Societies (HTS). The Modern Age marks the
transformation of society and (not always intentionally) the transformation of
the natural world as well. If we think of adaptation, what has the Modern Age
adapted to?
4.
Dr.
Kemp refers often to the “fragmentation of power”. I don’t like this term for
several reasons. As a term, I think that several options are more appropriate,
such as “de-centralization of power” or “devolution of power” (Khanna), or
“disbursement of power”. The connotation of “fragmentation” is not a good one,
but it does lead us to a deeper issue. I agree with the general proposition
that de-centralized decision making, such as we find in markets (Hayek) and
democracy are usually the best ways of decision-making in complex societies.
However, if we understand power as the ability to make decisions and effect
change through speech (and not through force) (Arendt, Habermas), then too much
fragmentation damages power in a society. With too much fragmentation, anarchy
(in the non-philosophical sense) or political impotency become problems. For
instance, the U.S. Constitution came about as a result of the excessive
fragmentation of power inherent in the Articles of Confederation. The Civil War
came about from an attempt to fragment power (the secession of the Confederate
States). Indeed, much of post-Civil War U.S. history shows a trend toward
centralization of power in the federal government, which on the whole, I judge
to have been beneficial. Today, we see a strong fragmentation sentiment in the
Tea Party and Radical Republicans (Wills) who want to
strip the federal government of much of its power and role in American life.
For the better? I don’t think so, although finding the right balance between
centralized (coordinating) power and de-centralized decision-making is not an
easy issue or one given to bright lines. (See Coase’s theory of the firm, which
I think has applications in political theory, and, of course, The Federalist
Papers.)
5.
The
book doesn’t address directly the theory of complexity as applied to societies
(see, e.g. Gaddis, The Landscape of History; Beinhocker, The Origin
of Wealth). Whether we can model societies successfully seems to me crucial
to gaining a sense of how we can successfully shape the future. It will also
help us understand how things might not go the way we want. (Or is this wishful
thinking? Theories of the cycles of history have been around almost as long as
history itself, yet societies seem to be immune to their insights—historians
have just been so many Cassandras to the extent that they might have hoped to
alter the course of events.)
6.
The
book’s seeming faith in progress (movement towards HAS) is not balanced by a
consideration of how things might go amiss, both in countries that have
achieved a high level of development and those who might hope to achieve it.
Some nations get stuck in an unfavorable equilibrium and have a hard time
getting out of it. As a current resident of India, I perceive that despite some
strong economic growth recently, it’s hard to see how this society will gain
traction in the near future. Corruption, extreme poverty, poor infrastructure,
political fragmentation (in the negative sense): all of these factors make me
much less optimistic that what I take Dr. Kemp to be from his discussion of
India. Having just spent a month in China, I was amazed at the overall level of
development, but much of the cost has been externalized (some horrible air
pollution and apparently even greater problems of water quality and quantity).
These facts serve to cancel much of my amazement at the terrific infrastructure
improvements and astonishing commercial development. The prospects of democracy
in China are uncertain at best, and the model of centralized power seems to
growing in popularity for some. (See M. Pettis, Avoiding the Fall: China’s
Economic Restructuring, on prospects and problems for the Chinese
economy.)
7.
How
do societies avoid the collapses or declines described by Turchin, Tainter,
Diamond, P. Kennedy, Homer-Dixon, Toynbee, et al.? (This list could go on at
some length.) This, to my mind, is the ultimate adaptation that any society can
aspire to, which assumes that the society has achieved a satisfactory level of
equilibrium. (Has any society ever achieved this?) We need to address not only
factors of collapse identified in past societies (as controversial and elusive
as these causes can be), but we also need to contemplate new threats to social
survival. Nuclear war (hey, I’m a child of the 50’s & 60’s), as well as
human-caused global climate change pop to mind, but certainly others exist.
(Local climate change has certainly altered and contributed to the collapse of
many social orders.)
8.
What
will drive future adaptation? War, along with economic competition, drove much
of the European change (Ferguson, Civilization). What will drive change
in the future? If war becomes the driver, it could destroy much of social
development achieved to date. (The physical survival of the U.S. allowed Europe
to recover after WWII; compare what happened in Europe after WWI). Can we
continue to compete in economics with the same system that we have now? (See #9
below.) There have to be ecological limits to growth (Julian Simon
notwithstanding).
9.
We
have to figure out how consumer capitalism will morph into a sustainable
equilibrium. Can consumer capitalism come to such a state? One doesn’t have to
be a Marxist to believe that this system is unsustainable (although Marx had
some insights; also see John Stuart Mill). This is the visionary aspect of a
program for thinking about future societies.
I’ve said enough for now. I hope it’s apparent
that the book has certainly stimulated my thinking, and the parts of the
projects that I’ve suggested need further development are a huge challenge,
especially given that Dr. Kemp has a day job. I hope that as an amateur who has
not ventured such a demanding project as writing a book on such an important
topic, my writing this this review isn’t too galling. Think of this, please, as
cheerleading, or egging on, if you will.
If you’re interested in this topic—what our
future holds and how we might shape it—start with this book and join the
conversation!
