Laws of Cultural Evolution?
The evolutionary pathways of trust.
Otto B. Wiersma

21 Sep. 2004 – 5 Mar. 2005 (last update)

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Introduction
Human biology hardly changed over the past tenthousand years, contrary to human culture. Walking, handling, talking, socializing and specializing gave human culture a boost, so we make more of it together. Who we are and what we make has the potential to lessen misery and to improve happiness. Trust fuels the ideal to share who we are and what we make. What I want to explore in this essay are some evolutionary states of trust in human culture.
 
The Dutch government expressed in its annual statement (Sept. 2004) a specific view on one evolutionary pathway of trust-in-society, reasoning that institutional reforms will lead to economic growth which will lead to more coherence in society which will lead to renewed trust (sc. in the economy, in the government and in the future). In her christmas-speech (Dec. 2004) the Dutch queen Beatrix expressed a reverse approach by pointing at trust as take-off: "Despite the inclination to enforce one’s own convictions and opinions, one should be able to rely on peaceful solutions of conflicts. In trust lies the foundation for appropriate social and civil behavior."
 
Conceptual network of trust
Trust is a property of relations and as such one of the aspects of the dynamical process of biological, psychological and social interactions. Trust can develop to become big or little (trust-formation), so a model for trust should provide the key elements for a representative simulation of this development. This model has to order the relevant aspects that have to be measured and describe the initial conditions and the rules that determine the longterm evolution and the shortterm development from previous to next states.

 
The next model represents the basic framework for (what we call) the Bio-Psycho-Social Dynamics (BPSD).
 
BPSD
code
evolutionary
need for
kind of
relations
kind of
selections
internal
valuation
comparative
measure
S resources anorganic,
organic
scarcity    
G genetical
reproduction
family
kin
sexual,
kin,
parental
   
R reciprocity non-kin
small-group
tit-for-tat    
E etnicity non-kin
large-group
altruistic,
memetic
   
        iv-status cm-status
 
The aspects (S,G,R and E) are irreducible (the rules on the different levels of explanation should not be reduced to each other) and compatible (assumptions and elements of rules on different levels should not contradict each other).
The BPSD framework can be used to score successive states of one person, several persons, small groups or large groups. A series of states represents the dynamical shortterm development or longterm evolution of what is scored (e.g. trust as BPSD-eventity).
The BPSD framework provides room for two different types of values: the internal valuation (how e.g. a person valuates his or her position on specific aspects) and the comparative measure (the measure as prescribed by an explicit metrical system that is applied to make e.g. persons or groups comparable in a more objective sense, which can be pretty different from the self-valuation, cf Praag, 2004 comparing UN and WVS research). The different types of values yield different types of status: the internal-valuation-status and the comparative-measure-status.
 
We give some examples of rules that also indicate how the different aspects are dynamicaly coupled in balancing and counter-balancing processes.
[EVERYTHING ELSE BEING EQUAL]
IF (a person is relatively more often involved in tit-for-tat transactions) THAN (this will lead to a relative increase of his/her resources)
IF (a person has a relative high level of resources) AND (the resources are scarce) AND (the person has kin) THEN (the kin will benefit more likely from the resources compared to non-kin)
IF (a kin-group of persons monopolizes scarce resources) THEN (non-kin groups will compete for these scarce resources)
IF (kin-nepotism is punished on the non-kin large-group level) THEN (resources will be divided more equaly on that non-kin large-group level)
IF (non-kin groups compete in fights for scarce resources) THEN (part of the resources will be redivided) AND (part of the resources will be lost)
IF (non-kin groups compete in cooperation for resources) THEN (resources will be redivided) AND (it’s likely that resources will increase)
 
Similar rules can be formulated for trust, e.g.:
IF (two non-kin groups with very different properties compete) THEN (it is likely that the intragroup relations will be basically trustful and the intergroup relations will be basically distrustful)
IF (a small group has relatively more (virtual) kin-properties) THEN (this group will function more effectively)
(..)
 
The examples indicate as well that it’s not rational-choice or social-construction that determines shortterm developments decisively. The main actors in shortterm development are the more or less stabilized products of longterm evolution. Contrary to the assumptions of the rationalist, culturalist, constructrionalist and structuralist approaches the primary BPSD-reflexes are determined by the genetically hard-wired algorithms that are only culturaly modified by consciously learned behavior. When humans act ‘culturaly’, it’s always as specific expression of the fact that their BPSD-instincts are alive and kicking.
(..)
 
Different kinds of relations colour different aspects of trust, e.g.:
non-kin small-group (short-term tit-for-tat: cooperation for mutual advantage) non-kin large-group (long-term reciprocal altruistic cooperation, relying on longterm plus-sum benifits)
(..)
 
Trust-in-society reflects the development from interpersonal-networks-trust to public-values/institutions-trust.
Trust has been generalized from family, clans and tribes to neigbourhood, schools, companies and collegues, society, market, state and international associations of states. The power of the western liberal-social democracies is this generalization of trust, that has as effect the strengthening of collective intelligence en by that competitive power. Compare the (temporary) stagnation on the aziatic, islamic and african continents during the centuries from 1600 – 2000.
(..)
 
Economically trust saves resources by preventing the spending of money to the work of accountants, assurers, lawyers and judges that is called upon by distrust (e.g. in administrative investigations, large contracts, and endless lawsuits). This way trust increases efficiency in the economical sphere (Putnam, 1993, Fukuyame, 1995, La Porta e.a., 1997, Knack & Keefer, 1997).
(..)
 
In numerous studies the development of culture from simple to complex (e.g. as measured by job-specialization) is taken as example not only of an evolutionary pathway as it happened, but also as a sign of cultural progress. A first remark can be made regarding the development from simple to complex. The reverse can also be found and argued to be of more fundamental importance, compare e.g. the simplification by choosing and using the same metrical systems. This way, by giving up conventional freedom (e.g. the way to measure time, which leads to saving time) humans gained personal freedom (e.g. more leisure time). A second remark argues that what has been made more complex, could be better for small interest-groups (e.g. complicated laws and juridical procedures are good for lawyers and judges), but worse for those who have to pay them.
(..)
 
How to measure trust?
(..)
During interactions humans constantly measure consciously and unconsciously trutsworthyness, e.g. scanning body-language like facial expressions, remembering the reliability of the behavior of different actors, having strong emotional reactions to different forms of free riding etc.
(..)
In research questionnaires are often used to measure levels of trust as ascribed by representative samples of respondents.
 
Measure trust in different countries
The relation of general interpersonal trust and GNP (1995):

(..)
 
Which factors threaten and which factors strengthen trust?
(..)
Trust for better and for worse
High levels of trust are not per se good.
Some examples: trust among elites only serving to protect their interests, trust among criminals, trust of persons believing a political/religious message that they will live for ever if they kill themselves and others in order to support some implications of that political/religious message.
 
What undermines trust
(..)
Moral relativism as a wrong generalization of cultural relativism undermines trust. Within certain limits a liberal-social society copes with cultural differences by providing freedom of choices and basic care. Freedom of choices for men en women alike has to be defended against both theocratic as well as nihilistic fundamentalists (e.g. 20th century fascism and communism and 21th century theocratic islamism). Basic care has to be defended against predator-capitalists (e.g. self-enriching managers in companies, institutions and governements).
(..)
A management-burocracy (organized distrust with rising costs of formal institutions) that shows a lack of respect for individual competence, skills and responsibility. This manageritis moves an unbalanced amount of the scarce resources from those who have to do the actual work (e.g. in safety, housing, feeding, education, health service, communication and transport) to those who theorize about the work (e.g. by continuesly suggesting change, renewment and reorganization).
(..)
Some leaders want (a lot) more, which means that (a lot of) others get less. Those leaders justify this by pointing at other leaders who also get more, instead of justifying why the lot more others should be happy with less (globaly leading to differences in income-ratio between countries from 1:5 around 1800 to 1:400 around 2000).
(..)
It is sometimes suggested that biological evolution is (unconsciously) undirected and cultural evolution (consiously) directed and therefore blessed with more trials and less errors, which would be a nice idea to trust in if true. It’s good to stay modest about the achievements of human consciously directed trials, because sometimes they work out terribly wrong. Benevolent help can unintented lead to worse life, e.g. constructing deep water-wells in Bangladesh prevented deaths from deseases like cholera but will cause a lot more deaths (expected 1 in 10) from arsenic poisening as effect of the low ground-water-level.
 
What strengthens trust
Roots of trust are a feeding and protecting environment, sexual attraction, related genes, familiarity, common language, religions & customs, positive experiences in cooperation and effective institutions.
(..)
 
Trust as a courageous way of life
A society in which selfconfident people dare to take the risk to approach kin and non-kin with basic trust, and even after failing giving others second and third chances, is not a weak, but a courageous society. Trust is not about being sure, it’s about choosing to be fundamentaly positive at first and as long as possible.
(..)
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links to places within this text to abstracts of / about:
Barkow, J.H., ed. (Missing the revolution)
Benjamin, W (Zur Kritik der Gewalt)
Derrida, J. (Force de loi)
Derrida, J. (thesis Evink)
Evink, C.E. (Transcendentie en inscriptie)
Goudsblom, J., (Vuur en beschaving)
Krishna, A., (Collective action and social capital)
Loch, C.H., S. Schneider, C. Galunic (Me versus We)
Mommersteeg, G., (In de stad van de marabouts)
Müller, H.P. (Local traditions in global competition)
Richerson, P.J. & R. Boyd , (Complex societies)
Rietdijk, C.W. (The Scientifization of Culture)
Toulmin, S. (Return to Reason)
Turchin, P. (Historical Dynamics)
Welzel, C. (Mass Beliefs and Democracy. How Values Shape Societies)
Zywicki, T., (Evolutionary Psychology and the Social Sciences)
sites:
Human Behavior and Evolution Society
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Abstracts in this file
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Evink, C.E., Transcendentie en inscriptie. Jacques Derrida en de hubris van de metafysica. 2002.
Evink proposes classical metaphysics as consisting of four elements: 1 the central role of reason, 2 the presupposition that thinking and being are identical, 3 the striving for absolute knowledge of reality as a totality, 4 the orientation on an all-determining principle of reality. During the Middle Ages 1 was reduced (reason made secondary to revelation) (cf Dooyeweerd (divine revelation), Duintjer (religious experience)). Kant reduced 2 (reality as a whole cannot be known, only thought). Nietzsche vs 3 and 4 as seductions of language [OBW Nietzsche calls for giving meaning and making true but rejects the idea that this would imply something like ‘absolute meaning’ or ‘absolute truth’]. According to Evink all philosophy implicitely contains 3 and 4 and can therefore be seen as a ‘minimal metaphysics’.
Derrida proposes ‘différance’ as what makes the appearance of something possible, but at the same time (through deconstruction) makes its completeness and purity impossible (referring to the singular alterity that withdraws from its context). Philosophical reason critically interrogates itself, confronting itself with undecidable concepts. D vs Hegel’s onto-theological reduction (absolute Spirit), vs Levinas’ ethical reduction (the other person, D: the other – singular alterity). Ethicity demonstrates the unfoundedness of justification, the unfulfillability of responsibility and the impossibility of a good conscience. Derrida keeps the metaphysical intention intact: strive for the unrealisable absolute purity, keep searching for the unreachable position beyond every horizon. Doing so he pushes every Daedalus up to fly as high as Icarus (hubris – il faut la vérité; tu dois, donc tu ne peux pas), but at the same time deconstructs his wings. Evink prefers a more modest approach. Responsibility is appealed by the appearance of the other (‘appèl") and therefore is finite and situated/contextual (without assuming any absolute law or infinite responsibility) from the beginning; it does not receive its call from a general alterity behind the other, nor from all possible other others. The limits of responsibility cannot be measured exactly, but that does not mean that responsibility should be infinite. Evink: there is no philosophy without a vision on reality as a whole or without a vision on the coherence providing core of its order (316). OBW: could it be that this is more due to the historical selection of these kind of ‘seamingly complete and consistent’ philosophical systems as ‘canonical’? Perhaps it’s a nice idea to write a history of philosophy tracing philosophers who criticize ‘reality-as-a-whole’- and ‘core-principle’-approaches.
 
OBW
 
open difference
 
beyond my horizon
my outer borders shift
putting off
what I can
know now
do later
judge never
 

Derrida, J. Force de Loi. Le Fondament mystique de l’autorité., 1994.
NL Kracht van wet. Het ‘mystieke fundament van het gezag’
Intro Sneller: Natuurrecht af te leiden van een kenbare orde? Natuur als volmaakte orde (Rousseau) of doelloos krachtenspel (de Sade). Rechtspositivisme ziet recht als gebaseerd op eerdere rechtsregels. Hobbes: auctoritas non veritas facit legem. Walter Benjamin stelt dat het rechtspositivisme blind is voor de onvoorwaardelijkheid van de doeleinden en dat het natuurrecht blind is voor de voorwaardelijkheid van de middelen. Institutionalisering van het recht vereist kracht (force, enforce the law) en geweld (violence, Gewalt: geweld, macht, legitiem gezag, bv in ‘Gesetzgebende Gewalt’, ‘geistliche Gewalt’ en ‘Staatsgewalt’). Gevaar dat de kracht in het ‘enforce the law’ ontaardt in een verkrachting van de rechtvaardigheid. Recht richt zich op de algemene regels, rechtvaardigheid wil dat recht gedaan wordt in de bijzondere situaties. Rechtvaardigheid geschiedt door de beslissing die de algemeengeldige wet doorbreekt. Walter Benjamin onderscheidt rechtsfunderend en rechtshandhavend geweld (mythisch, Grieks) en rechtsvernietigend geweld (goddelijk, Joods). Derrida: in de rechtvaardige beslissing is tegelijk sprake van rechtsvernietiging en rechtsfundering. Rechtvaardigheid veronderstelt macht, en macht doet een beroep op rechtvaardigheid.
Dynamiek van de veranderende betekenis (verschillend, uitgesteld, aangevuld, vervangen) leidt tot een verplaatsing van de tegenstellingslogica van natuurrecht en rechtspositivisme (47). Deconstructie wil zich niet opsluiten in een theoretisch betoog, maar pretendeert consequenties te hebben, dingen te veranderen (48) (..) door de maximale intensivering van een in gang zijnde transformatie (49). Men kan niet direct zeggen ‘dit is rechtvaardig’ of ‘ik ben rechtvaardig’ zonder rechtvaardigheid, zo niet het recht te verraden (50,70, 72). Pascal: Het is rechtvaardig, dat wat rechtvaardig is, wordt gevolgd; het is noodzakelijk dat wat het krachtigst is, wordt gevolgd. (51) (..) Rechtvaardigheid zonder kracht is onmacht (..) kracht zonder rechtvaardigheid is tiranniek (52). (..) Aangezien men niet kon maken dat wat rechtvaardig is, krachtig werd, heeft men gemaakt dat wat kracht is, rechtvaardig werd. (52). D: Dit betoog van Pascal is conventioneel geïnterpreteerd naar een soort pessimistisch, relativistisch, en empirisch scepticisme (52). P lijn van Montaigne die spreekt van ‘mystiek fundament van het gezag’ van wetten. Het gezag van wetten/recht berust op het krediet dat men ze geeft (53) (..) Montaigne: ‘ons recht heeft legitieme ficties waarop het de waarheid van zijn rechtvaardigheid fundeert.’ (54) JD relativisme/nihilisme maakt van de wet een ‘gemaskerde macht’ (54). Pascal: ‘Onze rechtvaardigheid wordt vernietigd ten overstaan van de goddelijke rechtvaardigheid (55 > Benjamin). JD Stellen van de wet als een gewelddadigheid zonder fundament (56). In de deconstructie van het niet gefundeerde rechtsfundament kan men de politieke kans vinden op historische vooruitgang (53). Recht is berekening, rechtvaardigheid rekent met het onberekenbare (..) de beslissing tussen rechtvaardigheid en onrechtvaardigheid is nooit verzekerd door een regel. (..) de daad van rechtvaardigheid verzoenen met de regel. (60). Een metafysisch-antropocentrisch waardenstelsel beheerst het westers denken over rechtvaardig en onrechtvaardig (63). JD 1. verantwoordelijkheid zonder begrenzing (bovenmatig, onberekenbaar) tav wat ons onder de naam rechtvaardigheid is nagelaten (64..) wat er toe brengt om niet alleen theoretische begrenzingen, maar ook concrete onrechtvaardigheden aan de kaak te stellen (65). 2. verantwoordelijkheid tav het verantwoordelijkheidsbegrip zelf dat de rechtvaardigheid en de juistheid van onze handelswijzen reguleert (65). Het moment van opschorting (epochè) vd deconstructie intensiveert de verantwoordelijkheid (65v). Geen beheersbare tegenstelling tussen recht en gerechtigheid, waar (..) het recht beweert uitgeoefend te worden in naam van de recthvaardigheid en rechtvaardigheid verlangt zich te kunnen vestigen in een recht dat in werking moet worden gesteld (gevormd en ten uitvoer gebracht) door ‘enforced’ kracht. (68v). Onherleidbaarheid van het idee van rechtvaardigheid, onherleidbaar opkomend met en verschuldigd aan de ander (73). Rechtvaardigheid wacht niet, ze is steeds onmiddelijk gevergd (75). Kierkegaard: het ogenblik van de beslissing is een dwaasheid. JD markeert de doorbreking van alle voorafgaande overwegingen (75). Constatief recht kan nooit beantwoorden aan de eisen van de theoretische rationaliteit (76). Er is slechts rechtvaardigheid in zoverre er gebeuren mogelijk is, dat, als gebeuren, de berekening, de regels, de programma’s de anticipaties, enz [OBW de theoretische rationaliteit] overstijgt (77). De overmaat van rechtvaardigheid op recht (..) mag niet als alibi dienen om zich afzijdig te houden (..) de onberekenbare rechtvaardigheid beveelt te rekenen (78) (..) en de fundamenten zelf van het recht te heroverwegen, herintepreteren.
Walter Benjamin, Zur Kritik der Gewalt, 1921. JD joods-duits denken begin 20e eeuw: patriottisme, nationalisme, militarisme, anti-(parlementaire)-democratie, anti-Aufklärung, thematiek van de vernietiging (84). Crisis van het Europese model van de burgerlijke, liberale en parlementaire democratie en dus van het begrip van recht dat daarmee samenhangt (86). B onderscheidt 1, rechtsetzende Gewalt en rechtserhaltende Gewalt en hij onderscheidt 2. mythisch Gewalt en rechtsvernichtend Gewalt. Gewalt: geweld, (legale) macht(suitoefening) (88) en hij onderscheidt 3. Gerechtigkeit als Prinzip aller göttlichen Zwecksetzung en Macht als Prinzip aller mythischen Rechtsetzung. (89). Het natuurrecht naturaliseert het Gewalt als natuurproduct, het rechtspositivisme heeft meer aandacht voor de historische wording van het recht (90). Maar beide tradities delen hetzelfde vooroordeel, dat men rechtvaardige doeleinden kan bereiken met rechtvaardige middelen. (90) Geen oplossing als er een tegenstelling opkomt tussen rechtvaardige doeleinden en gerechtvaardigde middelen (91). Het Europees recht monopoliseert het Gewalt ter bescherming van het recht zelf (91). De Staat is beducht voor funderend geweld (nieuw recht dat uit is op een nieuwe Staat (92). Een ‘geslaagde’ revolutie draagt een nieuwe orde van begrijpelijkheid (..) van het betoog van zelflegitimering (97). JD het geweld van de fundering of ponering van het recht (rechtsetzende Gewalt) moet het rechtshandhavende geweld (rechtserhaltende Gewalt) omvatten en kan daar niet mee breken (99). B. Er is iets verrots (Morsches) in het recht. Interne tegenspraak (doodstraf, oorlogsrecht (100), bederf van internationaal recht ten bate van particuliere belangen (101)). B De inconsequentie van de antimilitaristische pacifisten hangt daarmee samen dat zij het legale en onaantastbare karakter van het rechtshandhavende geweld niet erkennen (102). B Het Bestehende en het Bedrohende behoren onverbrekelijk tot dezelfde orde (104). Het handhavende geweld is een dreiging van het recht (gaat uit van het recht en bedreigt ook het recht zelf) (104). B: degeneratie (Entartung) van een parlementaire democratie die onmachtig is om het politiegeweld dat zich in zijn plaats stelt, te controleren (112) (..) > institutionele degeneratie (verdwijnen van het bewustzijn van de latente aanwezigheid van het geweld in het rechtsinstituut) > Verfall (113). B Een hypocriete compromis-politiek (..) afzien van het ideaal (114). Onbeslisbaarheid (Unentscheidbarkeit) van alle rechtsproblemen (118). Onherleidbaarheid van elke situatie (119). Wat heilig is in het leven van de mens, is niet zijn leven, maar de rechtvaardigheid van zijn leven (123). B verwerpt het mythisch Gewalt (dat recht fundeert en handhaaft) (128) slotzin: ‘Die göttliche Gewalt, welche Insignium und Siegel, niemals Mittel heiliger Volstreckung ist, mag die waltende heissen. Walter’ (130). Het goddelijk geweld, dat insigne en zegel is, nimmer middel tot heilige uitvoeren, mag soeverein worden genoemd. JD Endlösung als 1 radicalisering van het kwaad, 2 radicalisering van een logica van de Staat, 3 radicalisering van het bederf van de parlementaire en representatieve democratie, 4 radicalisering en uitbreiding van het mythische geweld waar recht is losgemaakt van rechtvaardigheid (132v). Nazisme uit op het vernietigen van de getuige van de andere orde van het goddelijk geweld, welks rechtvaardigheid onherleidbaar is tot het recht (134), en uit op de vernietiging van de eis tot rechtvaardigheid (135). Rechtvaardigheid beveelt te gehoorzamen aan zowel de wet van de representatie (Aufklärung, rede, objectivering, vergelijking, uitleg, incalculeren van de veelvuldigheid, en dus van het aaneenschakelen van unieke zaken), als aan de wet die de representatie transcendeert en die het unieke, elke unciteit, onttrekt aan haar hernieuwde inschrijving bij een orde van algemeenheid of vergelijking (136). JD verstijft van schrik bij een interpretatie die van de holocaust een verzoening en een onontcijferbare ondertekening zou maken van de rechtvaardige en gewelddadige woede van God (137). Dat maakt voor JD de tekst van B nog te heideggeriaans, te messianistisch-marxistisch of te archeo-eschatologisch. De lering bestaat daarin, dat wij de mogelijke medeplichtingheid moeten overdenken, kennen, voor onszelf representeren, formaliseren, beoordelen, van al die betogen met het ergste (hier: de ‘eindoplossing’) (137).
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Rietdijk, C.W.,
The Scientifization of Culture, 1994
Wetenschap als Bevrijding, 1997
website:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bcb/rietdijk.html
Twee tendenzen in de (culturele) evolutie. Daarvan een aantal aspecten:
  Verlichting
toenemende bewustwording, verfijning en toepassing van:
Verduistering
(on-)bewust cultiveren van:
intelligentie redelijkheid irrationaliteit
  kennis onwetendheid
  kunde spelvaardigheid
  doelgerichtheid doelloosheid
  (verduidelijkende) vereenvoudiging (verwarrende) complicering
  begrijpelijkheid onbegrijpelijkheid
  samenhangendheid onsamenhangendheid
geweten rationele ethiek: goed is wat het lijden vermindert en het geluk bevordert (persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid om dat goede na te streven, daarbij vertrouwen in het eigen oordeel: individualisering) relativistische ethiek: goed is wat mijn lijden vermindert en mijn geluk bevordert, desnoods ten koste van anderen (individualisme, vaak verscholen achter conformisme)
  algemeen belang, totaalgeluk eigenbelangen ingebed in groepsbelangen
  het verminderen van lijden en bevorderen van geluk is zin(-volheid) zinloosheid (nihilisme)
  integriteit liefdeloosheid
gevoel (genieten van) kwaliteit (permissiviteit voor) inferioriteit (ook die van het eigen tekort)
  vertrouwen wantrouwen
  optimisme pessimisme
  hoop wanhoop
  mededogen ongevoeligheid (voor lijden)
  moed angst
  waardering rancune
filosofie rationalisme (objectief bepaald wat waar, goed/slecht en rechtvaardig is) relativisme (wat geldt als waar, goed/slecht en rechtvaardig, is cultureel-historisch bepaald)
  determinisme toeval
  samenhang, orde chaos
  daadkracht verbalisme
  welsprekendheid wartaal
  inhoud (substance) vorm (image)
mensbeeld grote verschillen in aanleg en capaciteiten gelijk(waardig)heid
  inner-directed other-directed
  disciplinering tgv ontwikkelingsvooruitgang permissiviteit tgv consumentisme
  persoonlijke zorg om de medemens verzorgingsbureaucratie, zwakkerenindustrie
  homo faber homo ludens
maatschappij vrijheid van autonome persoonlijkheden conformering aan groepsbelangen
  open debat censuur (ook vh relativisme: het is maar jouw hier-en-nu-mening)
  betrouwbaarheid corruptie
  openheid van zaken (onthulling) verhulling
  gelijkheid in kansen op superioriteit gelijk(waardig)heid in inferioriteit (egalitarianism)
  ondernemerschap plat hedonisme en consumentisme
politiek meritocratie (posities ogv verdiensten) relatiocratie, belangengroepen-corporatisme
  afdwingen van integriteit permissiviteit tav gebrek aan integriteit
  ingenieurs en profeten carrière-oligarchie
wetenschap technisch-wetenschappelijke ontwikkeling (bèta-vooruitgang) weerstand tegen technisch-wetenschappelijk ontwikkeling, alfa/gamma stilstand oiv relativisme
economie bijgestuurde vrije markten laissez-faire wisseling van hoogconjuncturen en recessies
  hoge groei en lage inflatie oiv van loon- en prijs-sturing grote schommelingen in groei en inflatie
  inkomensbeheersing toenemende inkomensverschillen
  beteugelen groepsbelangen bevorderen groepsbelangen
  doelmatigheid ondoelmatigheid
  stimuleren research & development ontmoedigen / tegenwerken research & development
recht prioriteit feiten en de beoordeling van feiten prioriteit vormen en procedures
  gelijkheid voor de wet, maar rekening houden met ongelijkwaardigheid van mensen en meningen gelijkheid voor de wet en gelijkwaardigheid van mensen en meningen
De herhaalde vraag die Rietdijk bij elk aspect stelt: wie / welke groepen hebben belang bij het ontwikkelen of in stand houden van de ene of andere opvatting of praktijk. Als cultuur-criticus ontmaskert R in groepsbelangen verhulde eigenbelangen die ten koste gaan van fundamentele algemene belangen (verminderen lijden en bevorderen geluk van allen), omdat zij de veiligheid, de vrijheid, de welvaart en het welzijn van anderen (on)bewust met verschillende vormen van dwang en geweld bedreigen.
 
J. Goudsblom. Vuur en beschaving (1992)
1 Inleiding
De mens is de enige diersoort die geleerd heeft vuur te beheersen.
In de negentiende eeuw werd het begrip vuur in de natuurwetenschappen vervangen door begrippen als warmte en energie. Norbert Elias boek 'Het civilisatieproces'. West-Europa tussen 1300 en 1800: veranderingen een de sociale verhoudingen tussen mensen veranderen de manieren waarop mensen dwang uitoefenen op elkaar - daardoor veranderen hun gedrag en hun emoties en ook hun persoonlijkheid. Leerproces om de vaardigheden die nodig zijn voor de omgang met vuur te verwerven. Domesticatie van het vuur als eerste grote ecologische transformatie.Als tweede ecologische transformatie de agrarisering die zonder vuurbeheersing ondenkbaar zou zijn. Derde ecologische transformatie de industrialisering. Elias operde een triade van beheersingen. Beheersing van de buitenwereld, van de tussenmenselijke verhoudingen en van de binnenmenselijke sfeer. Het bezit van vuur maakt de samenleving productiever en weerbaarder, maar heeft ook het vermogen tot vernietiging en kwetsbaarheid vergroot.
2 De oorspronkelijke domesticatie van vuur
Voor veel planten zijn de gevolgen van een brand op de lange duur heilzaam en voor sommige de zogenaamde pirofieten of vuurgroeiers zelfs van vitaal belang. vondsten in Kenya en Zuid-Afrika vuurgebruik 14 tot 15.00.000 jaar terug. In Europa en Azië homo erectus al 400,000 jaar geleden vuurgebruik, lang voor de komst van homo sapiens. Lleren en zelfbedwang nodig om brandstof te verzamelen, bijvoorbeeld houtsprokkelen. Omweg-gedrag nodig bij verzorgen van vuur, inspanningen verrichten met het oog op later profijt. Verbind het technische aspect met het mentale en het sociale aspect bij de verklaring van de ontwikkeling van vuurgebruik. Sociale coördinatie bijvoorbeeld nodig om er zeker van te zijn dat er voortdurend iemand op het vuur zou letten. Er zijn enkele aanwijzingen dat chimpansees in staat zijn om een vuur enige tijd brandend te houden. Verandering machtsbalans: groepen met een hoog niveau van vuurbeheersing konden effectief anderen met een lager niveau van vuurbeheersing weghouden van het vuur. leven met vuur zal stimulerend hebben gewerkt op de bijzondere ontwikkeling van de menselijke vermogens tot spreken, verstaan en denken.
3 Vuur in pre-agrarische samenlevingen
In de jaren vijftig leerden enkele chimpansees in de dierentuin van Johannesburg sigaretten te rogen waar ze niet alleen aan verslaafd raakten maar ze leerden ook ze aan te steken en de peukjes uit te maken. Gebruik van vuur als wapen zorgde voor een verschuiving in de machtsbalans, bijvoorbeeld het doelgericht aansteken van branden om het wild op de jagen. Hierdoor werd ook het landschap veranderd. Lang voordat de landbouw opkwam was de vegetatie in veel landen van de wereld al sterk beïnvloed door menselijk ingrijpen met behulp van vuur. Holoceen ongeveer 10,000 jaar geleden met het ten einde lopen van de laatste ijstijd. Indianen staken bosgrond een paar keer per jaar in brand - daarmee ruimte voor rendier, bever, hert, kalkoen wankel kauwgom een enz. Ook de prairies als de resultaat van brandpraktijken van indiaanse jagers. In Australië was er een soortgelijke situatie. Deze toepassing te typeren als jacht-vuur. Andere toepassing van vuur bij koken, wat op den duur zowel ideologische of psychologische en voor biologische veranderingen met zich meebracht. Vedsel-vuur nieuwe voedselsoorten, bijvoorbeeld groente. De eenvoudige reflexketen van honger, voedsel zoeken, eten op den duur vervangen door de culinaire handeling. Aandacht voor koken alsr de eerste subtiele en intieme kennis van de materie waarmee de basis gelegd zou kunnen zijn voor een verdere ontwikkeling van de empirische natuurwetenschappen. Overgang van oraal naar manueel als een eerste fase in de civilisering van de eetgewoonten. Warmte-vuur en licht-vuur, ook rook om insecten te verdrijven en prooidieren en om signalen door te geven. Vuur als bron van warmte en licht leidde tot een stijging van de levensstandaard. Vuurbeheersing leidde ook ook gebiedsuitbreiding, bevolkingstoename of wel extensieve groei. Door vuur mogelijk om te leven in de koudere gematigde zones van de wereld waar mensen minder te lijden hebben over ziekteverwekkende en dodelijke parasieten. Verdere ontwikkeling van riten in verband met vuurgebruik waarbij altijd zowel voorschriften als verboden horen. Vuurkracht ook de inzet van de destructieve kracht van het vuur tegen alles waarvan mensen vonden dat het voor vernietiging in aanmerking komt. Daarmee ook de noodzaak van een regulering van sociale verhoudingen en individuele impulsen.

4 Vuur en agrarisering
Vuur en agrarisering. Geleidelijke overgang van verzamelen en jagen naar landbouw en veeteelt. Einde van de laatste ijstijd ongeveer 20 tot 30,000 jaar geleden, dat is dus niet meer dan 1000 generaties. Opkomst van landbouw en veeteelt ongeveer 10,000 jaar geleden, dus 300 tot 400 generaties geleden. Dit heeft het tempo van de intensieve en de extensieve groei nog meer verhoogd. 10,000 jaar geleden 100% van de mensheid verzamelen en jagen, 500 jaar geleden naar schatting 1%, in 1965 minder dan 1/100%. De domesticatie van planten en dieren is in diverse opzichten vergelijkbaar met de vuurbeheersing. Toename beheersing en afhankelijkheid - toename productiviteit en kwetsbaarheid. De eerste op grote schaal verbouwde gewassen waren granen. Omweg-gedrag nodig voor onderhoud van het vuur - daarmee samenhangend uitgestelde bevrediging. Brand-huishouding, gericht op grotere productiviteit van verzamelen en jagen, was een belangrijke pre-adaptatie op landbouw volgens Lewis. Hakken en branden: ontwikkeling van zwerf-landbouw, dus ontwikkeling van bos-boeren en vuur-boeren naar zwerf-boeren, en daarna ploeg-boeren. Verzadiging door de hak- en brand-cultuur. Het leven werd harder en gewelddadiger - in plaats van vreedzame boeren kwamen er krijgers. In Europa de ontwikkeling van de ijzeren ploeg: meer productiviteit door irrigatie, ploegen en bemesten, daarbij meer duurzame menselijke nederzettingen waarbinnen vuurbeheersing meer gespecialiseerd en gereguleerd werd, bijvoorbeeld voor haarden, ovens en lampen. Verrassend: de opbrengst per manuur van hakken en branden was hoger dan die van daarna ontwikkelde vormen van landbewerking. Arbeidsintensieve methoden van landgebruik leidden later tot stijging van productiviteit en toename van bevolking. De meerderheid van deze groeiende bevolking kreeg niet een grotere welvaart maar leidde een kommervol bestaan.
5 Vuur in gevestigde agrarische samenlevingen
Na opkomst landbouw en veeteelt vuur niet meer de enige bron van energie. Ontwikkeling van verschillende standen: krijgers, ambachtslieden, handelaren en boeren als grote meerderheid. Culturele divergentie en sociale differentiatie als kenmerk van ontwikkelde agrarische samenlevingen. Scherpe tegenstellingen in levenstijl en macht tussen heersende elites en boeren en landloze armen. Gebruik vuur bij boeren vooral praktisch, bij priesters ceremonieel. Ambachtelijk bij pottenbakkers en smeden. Door toename rijkdom noodzaak dat te verdedigen, waarmee de agrarische samenleving gedoemd is tot geweld volgens de Britse antropoloog Gelner. Overgang naar militaire agrarische samenleving. Pottenbakkers: ontwikkeling aardewerk met behulp van vuur - daardoor uitbreiding productiecapaciteit omdat producten langer houdbaar bleven in die potten. Ontwikkeling metaalbewerking - samenhang smeden en krijgers. Metaalbewerking begonnen met de bewerking van lood en koper, daarna uitvinding brons. Uiteindelijk verdreef ijzer brons, omdat ijzererts overvloedig beschikbaar was. Samenhang toename eigendom, ontwikkeling wapens, niet gericht op het onderwerpen van de natuur maar op het onderwerpen van mensen, in eerste instantie de boeren en ambachtslieden. Vaak steden na verovering tot de grond toe afgebrand. In het Akkadisch twee woorden voor vuur kook-vuur en wild-vuur, getemd vuur en wild vuur. Bij de bestrijding van branden in steden werkte men met water, zand en gebed, die volgens Ebeling alle drie ongeveer even effectief waren. Verbod afbeelding mensen heeft mogelijk te maken met een ritueel om afbeeldingen, bijvoorbeeld wassen beelden van vijanden, in vuur te werpen en zo symbolisch te verbranden.
6 Vuur in het oude Israël
De twee overheersende thema's in de bijbel zijn godsdienst en oorlog. In Deuteronomium 12 is sprake van het verbranden van zonen en dochters door de oorspronkelijke bewoners. Pas aan het einde van de zevende eeuw voor Christus schijnt koning Josia deze praktijken te hebben afgeschaft, zie 2 Koningen 23. In de bijbel komt vuur voor als teken van goddelijke macht, van goddelijke toorn. Ook in Numeri (21 en 31) en Jozua (7,8,11) verhalen over het verbranden van steden na verovering. De grote roem van David en Salomo berustte in belangrijke mate op de controle over grote ijzermijnen en smeltovens en de daaruit voortvloeiende beschikking over ijzer voor landbouw, handel en oorlog.
7 Vuur in de Grieks Romeinse oudheid.
In de achtste eeuw bij de Middelandse zee een snelle groei van bevolking en kapitaal. Bewoners organiseerden zich in de vorm van stadstaten. Carthago in 146 voor Christus volledig verwoest. Constantinopel in 324 na Christus het zwaartepunt van de macht in het Romeinse rijk. Bekend verhaal van Prometheus die het vuur van de goden zou hebben gestolen en aan de mensen gegeven. Zolang er nog geen geld was om transacties mee te verrichten, waren er eigenlijk maar twee manieren om metaal te bemachtigen: ruil of roof. Het is aannemelijk dat de begraven en cremeren door onze voorouders zijn uitgevonden als een middel om aas etende roofdieren te verhinderen de fatale smaak voor mensenvlees te ontwikkelen. Ontwikkeling van kleinere boerenbedrijven naar grootgrondbezit. Tot de standaard praktijken van binnenvallende legers behoorde agrarische verwoesting: de totale plundering en verwoesting van het land. Het belang van technische uitvindingen werd vaak niet ingezien. Toen iemand een instrument ontwierp waarmee de door een altaar vuur in een tempel verhitte en uitgezette lucht gebruikt werd om de tempeldeuren te openen na een, beschouwde men dit als niet meer dan een aardigheid. Het werd niet herkend als de ontdekking van een nieuw principe om warmte energie om te zetten in bewegingsenergie. Hesodius betoonde zich een vroege woordvoerder van de derde stand, door pottenbakkers ten voorbeeld te stellen als mensen die met elkaar wedijverden in een vreedzame concurrentie waaruit geen oorlog maar juist voorspoed zou voorkomen. De eerste eeuw: uitvinding van een systeem van vloerverwarming. Al in 450 voor Christus kende Rome bouwverordeningen waarin bepaald werd dat huizen niet hoog en op een veilige afstand van elkaar gebouwd moesten worden. Keizer Augustus richtte in zes voor Christus na een grote brand een Brandweerkorps in overheidsdienst op, dat bekend kwam te staan onder de naam Vigiles. Bekende brand 64 na Christus tijdens de regering van Nero die bijna een derde van de stad verwoeste. De Grieken en Romeinen kenden geen heilige boeken, ook geen invloedrijke klasse van priesters en profeten, zij vereerden vele goden en vierden het hele jaar door religieuze feesten. De officiële hoofdtaak van de vestaalse maagden was er voor te waken dat het tempel vuur bleef branden. De militaire macht van Rome bleef meer dan 1000 jaar ongebroken; het is moeilijk voorstelbaar dat dit zo had kunnen zijn zonder sterk samenbindende centrale instituties. De bouw van vuurtorens betekende een scheiding van sacrale en utilitaire functies; het is een mooi voorbeeld van het samengaan van specialisatie en secularisatie. Nieuwe testament: beeld van eeuwig vuur. De ondergang van het West-Romeinse rijk werd gekenmerkt door een omkering van de trends die de groei van een begeleid. De bevolking nam in omvang af, de steden raakten ontvolkt, waarmee de basis wegviel van gespecialiseerde ambachten en handel en van grootschalige bestuurlijke en militaire organisaties. Zo ging de demografische achteruitgang gepaard met economische en politieke desintegratie. Er is wel beweerd dat de voornaamste oorzaak van deze ineenstorting gelegen was in de ontbossing. Daardoor oprukken woestijn, ontstaan moerassen en verspreiding van malaria. Met de ineenstorting van het West-Romeinse rijk kwam ook een einde aan de ontbossing. De lange periode van desintegratie van het rijk gaf aanleiding tot een spontaan proces van herbebossing.
8 Vuur in het pre-industriële West-Europa.
WestEuropeanen hebben veel geleerd van Arabieren, Byzantijnen, Indiërs en Chinezen, ook op het terrein van de vuurbeheersing. De pre industriële maatschappij in West Europa was opgebouwd uit geestelijkheid, adel, burgerij en boeren. De belangrijkste beschadigende invloed wordt beurtelings toegewezen aan een van de eerste drie groepen, zelden aan de boeren. De opkomst van sterk georganiseerde godsdiensten hing samen met het ineenstorten van het Romeinse rijk. Er ontstaan drie sociaal culturele gebieden Grieks orthodox, rooms-katholiek, en islam. In West Europa door het rooms-katholicisme met name aandacht voor de schrik aanjagende werking van vuur: in de vorm van brandstapels waarop mensen die van ketterij of hekserij beschuldigd waren ter dood werden gebracht, en in voorstellingen van een hel en een vagevuur. Zo spaarzaam als de vermeldingen van een hellevuur in de bijbel zijn, zo veelvuldig komen ze voor in de Koran. Griekse vuur was een geducht wapen in de zevende eeuw na Christus. Waarschijnlijk was dit een snel ontvlambaar soort ruwe olie of een destillaat daarvan.
Later maakte dit plaats voor een nieuw soort vuurwapen: het met buskruit geladen geschut. In 1453 bezweken de muren van Constantinopel onder de kogels van Turkse kanonnen. Het benutten van explosies vormde weer een nieuwe wending in de vuurbeheersing. In Azië en Oost Europa wisten militaire elites met de hulp van vuurwapens grote rijken te vestigen. In West Europa kwam een ware wapenwedloop op gang met een bloeiende oorlogsindustrie. De ontwikkeling van steden in Europa sinds de middeleeuwen is een heel bijzondere geweest. Er kwam een algemene verordening om 's nachts alle open vuren af te dekken (couvre-feu > curfew). In de 17e eeuw de uitvinding van een oprolbare brandslang door een Amsterdamse brandweercommandant. Van niet minder belang was het bouwen van steeds meer stenen huizen. Grotere branden in de steden deden zich dan ook meestal voor in wijken met veel houten huizen. De constructie van pompen vergrootte de bluscapaciteit aanmerkelijk. Een andere vernieuwingen was de brandverzekering die aan het eind van de 16e eeuw in Nederland en Duitsland werd toegepast. In Pruisen had men een systeem waarbij de huiseigenaren geen premie hoefden te betalen maar waarbij iedereen werd aangeslagen bij een brand volgens een tevoren bepaalde maatstaf om bij te dragen aan de schadevergoeding. De opkomst van de brandverzekering leidde wel tot een steeds grotere afhankelijkheid tussen een steeds groter aantal individuen. J.W. de Zeeuw legde een verband tussen de mogelijkheid om turf als brandstof te benutten en de groei en bloei van de Hollandse steden ten tijde van de republiek. Het uitbreiden van landbouwgrond en weidegebied ging ten koste van de bossen. Door de behoefte aan hout zowel als brandhout als timmerhout geen uiteindelijk het meeste bos aan brandstof op. Oorzaken van brand: blikseminslag, hooibroei, brandstichting mede door armoede en sociale onrust. Met de voortschrijdende staatsvorming is het gevaar van brandstichting op het platteland in vredestijd steeds verder teruggedrongen. Halverwege de negentiende eeuw nam het brandstichting af en werd dat vervangen door meer open en vreedzame vorm van protest, namelijk bijeenkomsten, petities, stakingen en een begin van vakbond vorming. Er waren overgangen van alchemie naar chemie, van ambachten naar industrie, van magie naar wetenschap. Tot de uitstralingen van de grotere vuurbeheersing behoorden ook verbeteringen in de boekdrukkunst, met name het gieten van losse letters. Behalve thermometers leverde de achttiende eeuw ook steeds nauwkeuriger weeg-instrumenten op. Het viel op dat vele stoffen door verbranding die lichter maar juist zwaarder leken te worden. Lavoisier toonde aan dat bij verbranding een verbinding met zuurstof plaatsvindt. Aan het eind van de achttiende eeuw verdween vuur uit de leerboeken; in de thermodynamica werd alleen nog maar gesproken van warmte en energie.
9 Vuur in het industriële tijdperk.
In het tijdperk van de industrialisering is er een overgang van het gebruik van organische energie naar fossiele energie, steenkool en vervolgens olie en gas. De extensieve groei is de laatste 200 jaar bijzonder groot geweest. Over de hele wereld is de bevolking toegenomen van naar schatting 900 miljoen in 1800 via 1600 miljoen omstreeks 1900 tot meer dan 5 miljard tegen het einde van de 20e eeuw. Ook de intensieve groei is indrukwekkend; voor de domesticatie van vuur gebruikte men ongeveer tien MJ per dag; in de Verenigde Staten gebruikte men gemiddeld per persoon aan energie tegenwoordig 1000 MJ per dag. Duidelijk is een afname van verschillen in macht en gedrag. Dit is het gevolg van de toegenomen standaardisering en nivellering van het moderne leven. De industriële overproductie leidde herhaaldelijk tot de recessies en faillissementen. Monopolievorming is wel gekenschetst als een eliminatiestrijd tussen economische concurrenten. Degenen die zich daarin handhaven konden grote winsten behalen, maar een ander gevolg was de algehele Verelendung van de arbeiders. De negentiende eeuw was de grote eeuw van de Europese expansie. Dankzij een bloeiende industrie ontwikkelden de straten van West-Europa een militaire weerbaarheid waar vrijwel geen enkele andere samenleving tegen was opgewassen. Deze militaire, politieke en economische superioriteit van de Europese staten leunde zwaar op hun voorsprong in industrialisering. Een typisch product van deze trend was de veiligheids lucifer. Die lucifer behoorde tot de vele voorwerpen waarvoor de mensen in een individuele samenleving volledig afhankelijk waren van andere mensen, zonder dat zij zich van het bestaan van die anderen bewust hoefden te zijn. De productiemethoden in de moderne industrie en ook in de landbouw zijn in hoge mate brandstof intensief. De auto is een aardige symbool van het vuurgebruik in de industriële samenleving en aan het eind van de 20e eeuw. Met eenvoudige handelingen kan men vrijwel zonder enig risico zich bedienen van grote hoeveelheden sterk geconcentreerde energie. Dit roept een illusie van onafhankelijkheid op terwijl men juist opgenomen is in een net van maatschappelijke afhankelijkheden. Ook wordt gemakkelijk vergeten welke maatschappelijke inspanningen ervoor nodig zijn om het leveren van die energie in stand te houden. De verhoogde productiviteit heeft geleid tot intensieve groei in de centra van de industriële productie en consumptie, en voorlopig vooral tot extensieve groei in de rest van de wereld. Een ander gevolg is dat rijkdom armoede aantrekt. Het gebruik van meer brandbestendige bouwmaterialen zoals baksteen, beton en staal voorkwam grote stadsbranden. Ook de stadsaanleg met ruimere opzet van wijken en alleenstaande huizen droegen bij. Evenals een effectievere brandbestrijding. Grotere stadsbranden komen nog geregeld voor in de derde wereld. En de schade cijfers in de Verenigde Staten en Canada zijn minstens twee keer zo groot als in West Europa en Japan. Ten tijde van oorlog zijn steden kwetsbare mikpunten voor vernietiging. Vergelijk Rotterdam, Hamburg en Dresden. De intensieve land en tuinbouw berust op de voortdurende toevoer van enorme hoeveelheden brandstof. Watertekort lijkt in belangrijke mate het gevolg van de onbeheerste manier waarop met vuur wordt omgegaan. Het afbranden van de vegetatie leidt tot ontbossing, ontbossing tot erosie, en erosie door uitdroging van de bodem tot minder regen. Overigens heeft al te grote zorg om bossen brandvrij te houden averechtse gevolgen. Van tijd tot tijd zullen voorgeschreven branden noodzakelijk zijn om concentraties van brandstof op te ruimen.
10 De vuur beheersing bezien op drie niveaus.
Er leven tegenwoordig ruim 5 miljard mensen op aarde. De omgang met vuur zal enige sporen hebben nagelaten in de genetische structuur van de huidige mensheid. Paarden hebben bijvoorbeeld een heel eigen gedragspatroon ontwikkeld tegenover afbranden: ze vluchten niet weg van het vuur maar gaan het juist tegemoet en springen er overheen. De vuur beheersing is het product van sociale organisatie en culturele traditie. Het temmen van vuur betekende dat de mensen ook elkaar en zichzelf temden en beschaafden. Tegenwoordig wordt contact met echt branden vuur beperkt tot speciale gelegenheden, waarbij kaarsen worden aangestoken, open haardvuur, barbecue of nog zeldener, fakkels. De toename van beroepsmatige deskundigheid in omgang met speciale vorm van vuur heeft ook als gevolg een verregaande onwetendheid en onmacht van niet-specialisten. In de 20e eeuw heeft het militaire brandstichten een nooit eerder vertoonde omvang aangenomen. Tegenwoordig wordt ook het onbekommerd verbruiken van grote hoeveelheden brandstof als een probleem erkend. De sociaal-culturele ontwikkeling van de laatste 10,000 jaar gekenmerkd door een wisselwerking van processen van homogenisering en diversificering. Omstreeks 1500 begon het bij de hoogste klassen in West-Europa gewoonte te worden waskaarsen te branden en tot laat in de avond op te de blijven, een luxe die slechts een kleine minderheid zich kon veroorloven. De tegenstellingen tussen rijke en arme landen komt tot uiting in de toegang tot brandstof en tot apparatuur om brandstof te gebruiken en branden blussen. Omstreeks 1985 verbruikte de gemiddelde inwoner van de Verenigde Staten ongeveer veertig maal zoveel energie als de gemiddelde inwoner van India. Vaak heeft verbranden een sterk ceremonieel of zelfs theatraal karakter. Bijvoorbeeld brandstapels met documenten vol valse beschuldigingen of met een grote partij verboden genotmiddelen. Het proces van elektrificering is een voorbeeld van de tendens tot vermindering van verschillen tussen en binnen samenlevingen. Er ontstaan standaarden van comfort, hygiëne en veiligheid. Wat dreigt is een uitputting van de voorraden fossiele brandstof. Er zijn twee strategieën mogelijk: een vermindering van het gebruik van energie, en een overgang op andere bronnen, zoals wind, water of kernenergie. Ook hoopt men op de ontwikkeling van kernfusie. Hiervoor is het bereiken van zeer hoge temperaturen vereist. Het bereiken van temperaturen in de orde van een tienvoud van 15 miljoen° kan gelden als een voorlopig hoogtepunt in de ontwikkeling van de menselijke vuur beheersing. De gesignaleerde trends in de richting van toenemend gebruik van vuur, in steeds meer geconcentreerde vorm, onder condities van een voortgaande specialisatie en organisatie, hebben de vuur beheersing ogenschijnlijk simpeler, maar in feite complexer gemaakt.
 
Geert Mommersteeg, In de stad van de Marabouts (1998)
De schrijver bracht twee jaar door in Djenné. Daar kreeg hij geleidelijk toegang tot de wereld van de marabouts en inzicht in de twee vormen van kennis waarin zij gespecialiseerd zijn: openbare kennis en geheime kennis. Pas in 1819 maakte een heilige oorlog een definitief einde aan twee eeuwen van Marokkaanse overheersing. Een tijd brak aan waarin het gebied werd bestuurd als een theocratische staat. De opmars van de Fransen begon rond 1890. Zij veroverden Djenné in 1893. De beroemde moskee van Djenné staat sinds 1988 op de lijst van wereldmonumenten. Gedurende de ramadan lezen de marabouts 1/30 deel van het heilige boek en de daarbij behorende uitleg zoals die geformuleerd was door de zestiende eeuwse Arabische geleerden. Kinderen beginnen als ze 7 a 8 jaar oud zijn met het volgen van de lessen aan een koranschool. Zeven jaar lang krijgen ze dan les in het reciteren en schrijven van de verzen van de koran, puur op de klank af, nagenoeg zonder enig begrip van de inhoud. In Djenné worden twee zaken tegenover elkaar gezet. Enerzijds is er de islam, anderzijds is er maraboutage, met welke term het geheel van magisch-religieuze praktijken worden aangeduid waarin marabouts gespecialiseerd zijn en waartoe onder anderen het vervaardigen van amuletten en het waarzeggen behoren. Universele islamitische waarden als het vasten kunnen een lokale kleur hebben (vgl de studie van Marjo Buitelaar). "Ik weet het niet", dat is het grootste deel van alle kennis op de wereld. "De inkt van een geleerde is meer waard dan het bloed van een martelaar" (citaat van Mohamed volgens de hadith (overleveringen). De Fransen term marabout verwijst naar de monnik-soldaten die in de elfde en twaalfde eeuw verantwoordelijk waren voor de islamisering van de Berbers van de westelijke Sahara. De marabout maakt verschil tussen de moslim en de gelovige. D moslim houdt zich aan de vijf zuilen van de islam (onderwerping: getuigenis van God en Mohammed, vijfmaal daags gebed, de belasting, ramadan, bedevaart naar Mekka), de gelovige houdt zich aan de zes zuilen van de iman (geloof: geloof in één God, geloof in de profeten, geloof in de door God openbare boeken, geloof in schepping van engelen, mensen, geesten en duivels, geloof in uiteindelijke vernietiging van de wereld en de opstanding van mensen, en geloof dat alles wat iemand in het leven overkomt het werk en de wil van God is). Voor de lessen aan de beginnende koranschool-leerlingen worden de kortste soera's gebruikt. Omdat de 114 soera's in de koran (afgezien van de eerste) gerangschikt zijn naar afnemende lengte, bevinden deze zich dus achterin de koran. Leerlingen oefenen de tekst met schrijfplankjes waarop enkele letters, woorden of verzen geschreven zijn. Na het oefenen worden de schrijfplankjes schoongemaakt en het water waarmee dit gedaan wordt, wordt zorgvuldig opgevangen en bewaard in een kruik. Om de hele koran te leren reciteren heeft een leerling minstens vier jaar nodig. Maar velen doen er langer over en de meesten komen nooit zover. Het kunnen reciteren van de koran behoort tot de kern van het islamitische geloof. Het is daarbij niet van belang of men de betekenis ervan nu wel of niet begrijpt. Het onderwijs leidt niet op tot geletterdheid. De leerling leert niet hoe hij een tekst moet lezen, hij leert hoe De Tekst voorgelezen moet worden. Gedurende de hele schooltijd wordt een leerling niets uitgelegd m.b.t. de betekenis van wat hij leert oplezen en leert schrijven. Noch een vertaling noch een toelichting wordt hem gegeven. Het enige wat van belang is, is dat hij de heilige woorden correct reciteert en ze zonder fouten schrijft. Het onderwijs heeft ook een belangrijke vormende functie. De leerlingen worden er getraind in gehoorzaamheid, respect en nederigheid, en leren er impliciet de kenmerken van de sociale structuur en het culturele leven van de islamitische gemeenschap kennen. Voortgezet koran onderwijs ontvangt men aan de 'boeken-scholen.' o.l.v. een marabout lezen ze de werken van klassieke moslim-auteurs op het gebied van het islamitische recht, de Arabische grammatica en literatuur, theologie, de tradities van profeten en de exegese van de koran. Er wordr ook wel les gegeven aan de vrouwen van Djenné die de koran en boeken over de islam willen bestuderen. (OBW Ik benut voor deze samenvatting een spraak>tekst-programma en toen ik insprak "over de islam", maakte het programma er van "over die slaan". Ik moet het programma met de hand corrigeren...). In Djenné maakt men onderscheid tussen twee soorten gebeden: het rituele gebed dat de moslim volgens de tweede zuil van de islam verplicht is te verrichten met voorgeschreven bewegingen en daarbij uit te spreken formules die samen een rituele gebedsoefening vormen (dyingar). Daarvan onderscheiden is een vraag-gebed of smeekbede (gara). Met name in tijden van de religieuze hoogtijdagen worden lange reeksen van smeekbeden uitgesproken. In de koran staan woorden waarmee men God aan roept die meestal snel verhoord worden, die zijn geheim. Het zijn de marabouts die de plaatsen in de koran kennen waar deze woorden staan. Zij weten hoe God aangeroepen dient te worden om hem iets te vragen. Vermakelijk hoofdstuk over voorspellingen. "Het komt vaak voor dat marabouts met hun voorspellingen liegen, maar niemand kan alles precies weten. Alleen God weet het." "Niemand behalve God kent de toekomst. Het enige wat nodig is, is vertrouwen in hem te hebben." Problematiek van het vertalen van teksten uit de koran, die door moslims als het ongeschapen woord van God onvertaalbaar wordt geacht. Bij veel waarschuwingen wordt gebruik gemaakt van numerologie, bv het magisch vierkant:

2 9 4
7 5 3
6 1 8

en allerlei varianten daarop. De islamitische amuletten ontlenen hun kracht aan een geschreven tekst die er in is gesloten.Baraka is kracht. Om dat te krijgen is het noodzakelijk anderen, vooral je ouders en oudere mensen, te respecteren. Baraka kun je niet vinden zonder inspanning. Het is een zaak die je koopt met vermoeienis en lijden, met geduld en volharding. Ook weer twee varianten in het geven van aalmoezen. Zakat is de godsdienstige belasting volgens de derde zuil van de islam. Sara is geen religieuze verplichting, maar een religieuze daad, die in de koran als zeer verdienstelijk wordt voorgesteld. Het wordt gebruikt als middel tot communicatie met God. Men geeft iets aan een ander in de verwachting dat God in ruil hiervoor een speciale gunst zal verlenen. Sara drukken het zoeken naar welzijn uit, zowel spiritueel als materieel. Vragen mag en geven is verdienstelijk. De islamitische verwachting is dat tegen het einde der tijden al het goede van de wereld zal verdwijnen; alle exemplaren van de koran zullen naar de hemel worden gebracht en ook de marabouts zullen verdwijnen en met hen zal hun kennis verloren gaan.
In 1996 heeft Djenné elektriciteit gekregen. De laatste jaren heeft het verval op sommige plaatsen in Djenné onrustbarende vormen aangenomen. Een groot aantal oude huizen wordt niet of in onvoldoende mate onderhouden. De kwetsbare leemarchitectuur vervalt in snel tempo. Elk regenseizoen levert een paar nieuwe ruïnes op.

 

 
 
Toulmin
, S., Return to Reason, 2001. NL vertaling Terug naar de rede, 2001.
pleidooi voor sceptisch pragmatisme; recombinatie van rationaliteit en redelijkheid (er is mogelijk een betere theorie en praktijk bij veranderende omstandigheden) vs rationalisme (er is maar één manier om het goed te doen in theorie en praktijk)
Verlies van vertrouwen in de samenhang van taal en feiten (begripsverandering in het licht van formele logica en historische ontwikkeling) (13). Taal alleen begrijpelijk als ze betekenisvol is binnen het ruimere kader van handelingen en instituties (22). Einde aan de droom dat rationaliteit, noodzakelijkheid en zekerheid zijn te verenigen in één wiskundig pakket (24). Relatie van substantiële, inhoudelijke argumentatie vh verhaal en de formele argumenten ve axiomatisch systeem, cf Michel de Montaigne (26). Relatie concepten en objecten, blijvende abstracte ideeën en tijdelijke specifieke dingen en toestanden (29). Inhoudelijke argumentatie – historische datering, ruimte voor alternatieve interpretaties en dubbelzinnigheden (32). Rationaliteit geconcentreerd op de inhoud, redelijkheid op de situatie (33, cf logica – rhetorica, 38). Montaigne sceptisch tav theorieën, Descartes en Pascal op zoek naar formele argumenten om (abstracte) theorieën te onderbouwen (35). Droom van de betrouwbaarheid van de volmaakte theorie en de zekerheid van het onweerlegbare bewijs (39v). Descartes: meetkunde als kennismodel: superioriteit van theoretische abstractie en logische deductie (42), oiv de wiskundige vorm van Galilei’s bewegingsleer (44). Historische achtergrond van de godsdienstoorlogen in Midden-Europa (1618-1648) van de speurtocht naar zekerheid en consensus vs de onzekerheden, dubbelzinnigheden en paradoxen, speurtocht culminerend in Newton’s Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis (1687) (45). Transformatie Europa na 1600: ontwikkeling van een hoger niveau van maatschappelijke competentie (Hodgson, 47). Groei van een gemeenschap van mensen die een wetenschappelijk vertrouwen deelden, philia die geen belang hebben bij het profiteren van elkaars situatie, maar wel bij het gezamelijk genieten van gedeelde goede dingen (48). Exercitie en discipline ontwikkeld in Maurits van Nassau’s militaire academie: één juiste manier (inspiratie wiskunde) (48,49). Vergelijk echter de opbouw van Romeinse (vast grondpatroon) en Griekse (afhankelijk van de natuurlijke omstandigheden van het terrein) legerkampen (50,51). Vergelijk Franse voorkeur voor geometrische precisie (recht, tuinaanleg, formele bewijsvoering, elite aan ‘t hof) met Engelse voorkeur voor pragmatische souplesse (recht, tuinaanleg, experiment, elite meest op ‘t platteland) (53). Arbeidsspecialisatie (Anthony Flew – drogreden van de specialist: ik word alleen betaald om deze dingen te weten > ik wordt betaald om alleen deze dingen te weten, 56), gevaren: starheid, oogkleppen, bureaucratisering (58). De interne consistentie van formele systemen waarborgt echter niet de relevantie ervan voor alledaagse, praktische kennis (60). En ook het tussen haakjes plaatsen van waarden en ethiek gaat ten koste van de relevantie van de theorieën (61). Is te bewijzen dat het heelal een inherent stabiel systeem is? Newton: ja, empirisch. Leibniz: niet acceptabel, moet ook formeel bewezen worden. Poincaré (1889): drielichamenprobleem als struikelblok (64v) tegen de achtergrond van Kant’s middenpositie tussen empirisme en rationalisme, Lyells Principles of Geology en Darwins Origin of Species (68v). Onvoorspelbaarheid, fysisch determinisme > chaos en complexiteit (70v, OBW – geen logische of noodzakelijke stap). Ook op ‘t gebied van economie of landbouw niet één juiste methode. Voorbeeld: herorganisatie waterhuishouding Bali met voorbijgaan aan de rol van de watertempels die functionele irrigatieroosters bewaakten ter voorkoming van ongedierte, ziekten, droogte en overstromingen (78v). Ander voorbeeld: micro-krediet programma’s tbv armoede-bestrijding (81v). Je sommen goed maken <> de goede sommen maken (85). Drie rationalistische dromen: een universele methode, een volmaakte taal en een eenheidsstelsel voor de natuur (87). Wittgenstein: zinnen representeren (darstellen) feiten zoals een landkaart een gebied representeert (95). Leibniz wilde met een wetenschappelijke methode en taal de 17e eeuwse religieuze conflicten overstijgen, Montaigne beval aan te leven met onzekerheid en ambiguïteit, Bacon beschouwde zekerheid als een idool en riep op vanuit de ervaring sterke en zawkke punten van overtuigingen te zoeken (96). Vraag te stellen in de beginfase van de conceptie van mogelijke nieuwe theorieën: hoe moeten de nieuwe ideeën van de wetenschap worden toegepast? (102), want het is mogelijk gelukkkig te leven met onzekerheid, ambiguïteit en pluralisme (103). Index van productiviteit in economisch geavanceerde landen nu de kwaliteit van nieuwe ideeën, niet de kwantiteit van materiële goederen die ze produceren; ontwikkeling van schaarste-economie naar informatie-technologische overvloed-economie (104) Evenwicht bewaren tussen de verfijning van onze praktische vaardigheden en de menselijke belangen die deze dienen (105). Er is net zo min één methode voor het doen van wetenschappelijke ontdekkingen als voor het maken van een grote opera of mooie film (108). Einde droom van één objectieve, onpartijdige methode (106v). Van zuivere theorie naar klinische praktijk (127v). Voorbeeld: landomheinig in Afrika vanuit een soort ‘evenwicht-theorie’ houdt geen rekening met het onevenwichtige klimaat daar (130). Aristoteles: nagaan wat ‘pros ton kairon’ is, handelen in het licht van wat de situatie vereist (135). kat’holou (over het geheel genomen, universeel), kat’hekaston (bij de speciale gelegenheid, in het bijzondere geval). Verschuiving van de tijdloze vraag naar de algemene principes (OBW modale reducties) naar de tijdgebonden vraag ‘Van wiens belangen mogen we aannemen dat ze in moreel opzicht de doorslag geven in de situatie waar we hier en nu mee te maken hebben?’ (150). Debat Angell (NGO’s, wereldeconomie) – Carr (na crisisjaren sceptisch tav liberale democratie, realisme niet waardenneutraal) (173v) Ook niet één systeem voor de biologie (moleculen, macro-moleculen, ontwikkeling, evolutie, 180v). Na de 17e eeuwse godsdienstoorlogen de vrede van Westfalen: 1 nieuw systeem van souvereine natiestaten; 2 leidraad voor kerk en staat: cuius regio, eius religio; 3 vertrouwen in rationaliteit (ontwikkelen meetkundig zekere kennis). 1 en 2 niet te handhaven bij een wereldwijde onderlinge afhankelijkheid, cf de kritische werking van de NGO’s (191v). 3 geschokt door onvoorspelbare aardbeving van Lissabon (1755), WO I, omwenteling 1989 (193v). Pre-verbale kennis als wortel waaraan wetenschappelijke aanspraken hun zin ontlenen (208v). William James: veelsoortigheid van kennis (211). Wittgenstein: alle betekenisvolle taal kan worden gedeeld door alle taalgebruikers, en ‘waarover we niet kunnen spreken, moeten we zwijgen’ (212). Aristoteles: episteme, techne en phronesis (oordeelsvermogen), grieks: metis (handigheid, vernuft, bedrevenheid, vakkundigheid) (214v). Veel van onze kennis is pre-verbaal of niet-theoretisch (219). Kierkegaard, Emerson en Nietsche geven de voorrang aan epieikeia (billijkheid) boven nomos (wet) en phronesis (praktische wijsheid) boven episteme (intellectueel begrip) en maken zo een scherp onderscheid tussen moreel gezond verstand en elke rationalistische toewijding aan een formele ethische theorie (222). Montaigne als de schrijver die erin slaagde zijn aandacht te richten op dingen die er werkelijk toe doen (229). Tegenover het funderingsdenken: de pogingen om kennis een logisch betrouwbare basis te geven, is mislukt (233). Sextus Empiricus’ verhandelingen Adversus Logicos en Adversus Mathematicos (237). ST vs Wittgensteins blinde vlek voor de betekenis van de geschiedenis (‘Was geht mich die Geschichte an? Meine Welt ist die erste und einzige’ (Notebooks, 1914-1916) (238,255). Terug in een wereld van praktische hoop en vrees (241). Verheerlijking van de wiskundige rationaliteit als één aspect van een bredere, wetenschappelijke reactie op het verlies van de theologische consensus (242). Wetenchappelijk denken en praktisch handelen – cf Wittgensteins naaimachine, huis en vliegtuigvleugels. Praktische grondslag van onze kennis (vs overschatting van het verbale aspect van de kennis (modernisme) EN versus het postmodernisme (dat alleen de nutteloze verbale formules inwisselt voor de stelling dat al zulke formules ongeldig zijn) (244). Analyse en acties laten leiden door idealen die van rationele oordelen een springplank maken naar redelijke beslissingen (..) zoekend naar een evenwicht tussen harde feiten, gedeelde waarden en concurrerende belangen (251).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toenemende complexiteit van samenlevingen meten door arbeidsspecialisatie.
Gelden ‘wetten’ voor de wijze waarop samenlevingen zich ontwikkelen? bv Popper vs wetten voor of ‘lessen’ die te trekken zouden zijn uit de geschiedenis: levensgevaarlijke pseudo-wetenschap.
Locke: eigendomsrecht als natuurlijk recht.
Ayn Rand: uitgaande van het non-agressie principe als basis voor effectieve arbeidsspecialisatie is het laissez-faire kapitalisme gebaseerd op het rationele karakter van de menselijke natuur.
Friedrich
Hayek: de informatie die noodzakelijk is om de economie draaiend te houden is veel eenvoudiger dan wat veel economen aannemen; marktmechanisme veel effectiever dan staatsplanning. Culturele groepsselectie: afname van een deel van de conventionele vrijheden (bv tijdsbepaling) en winst van bv persoonlijke vrijheden (tijdsbesteding) door arbeidsspecialisatie.
Utilitarisme: maximaliseren geluk (van alle mensen) en verminderen lijden – brug tussen deontologen en consequentialisten?
The difference between understanding laws that hold for eventities and enforcing laws that violate eventities can be the difference between life and death.
Mensaap ontwikkelde meer en meer vertrouwen in de samenwerking met soortgenoten en in de werking van z’n gereedschap. Niet duidelijk dat er de afgelopen honderdduizend jaar verbeteringen zijn opgetreden in het genetisch materiaal van de homo sapiens. De biologische evolutie is darwiniaans, de culturele evolutie is lamarckiaans. Exogenetische of exosomatische erfelijkheid van culturele verworvenheden: kennis, informatie en vaardigheden. > gedrag via overdracht en leren. Biologische kenmerken van de mens op evolutionaire tijdsschaal: vgl bv vijf vingers en vijf tenen, hersenen, rechtop lopen (voordeel: armen/handen vrij > werktuigen, nadeel: slijtage heupgewricht), stereoscopisch en kleuren zien (oog-hand-coördinatie).
Evolutie naar bewustzijn ‘in the cards’, ontstaan van de soort mens (als drager van bewustzijn in deze vorm) met deze kenmerken ‘toeval’.
Game-theory: zero sum game (één winnaar en één verliezer), positive sum game (win-win-situatie). Prisoner’s dilemma en het belang van vertrouwen.

Techologische vernieuwingen als motor van culturele ontwikkelingen. Ontwikkeling naar ‘optimale complexiteit’.
 
vertrouwen
Vertrouwen gegeneraliseerd van familie-clan (tribe) naar
buurt, werkkring, samenleving, markt, staat, statenverbanden.
De kracht van de westerse liberale democratieën:
het generaliseren van vertrouwen met als effect het vergroten
van de collectieve (vgl individuele) intelligentie en daardoor
de concurrerende kracht.
Vergelijk de (tijdelijke) stagnering in de aziatische, islamitische
en afrikaanse wereld in de vier eeuwen van 1600 - 2000.
Welke factoren versterken resp. ondermijnen dit vertrouwen?
voorbeelden van ondermijning:
zelfverrijking leiders (wat zij meer krijgen, krijgen anderen minder;
ter rechtvaardiging verwijst men naar andere leiders die ook meer
krijgen, ipv verantwoording af te leggen tav hen die minder krijgen).
 
Francis Fukuyama, Trust. The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, 1995
NL vertaling: Welvaart: De grondslagen van het economisch handelen
merkwaardig dat het woord Vertrouwen uit de titel is gevallen
http://www.groene.nl/1995/11_01/fukuya.html
'De mens mag dan voor tachtig procent voldoen aan het neoklassieke profiel van de rationeel calculerende burger, maar zijn gedrag blijft voor twintig procent eigenmachtig en in economische termen irrationeel. Waarom rennen mensen een brandend huis binnen om een ander te redden? Waarom zijn ze bereid om te sterven voor een beginsel? Die ontbrekende twintig procent, zoals ik het noem, is het domein van cultuur en politiek, waar de nutsmaximalisatie moet wijken voor tijdloze passies als trots, schaamte en verontwaardiging.' (..) Niet de marktwerking bepaalt de cultuur, maar de traditionele cultuur van een land bepaalt hoe de markt er functioneert. UITGANGSPUNT VAN Trust is de stelling dat welzijn en concurrentievermogen van een land afhangen van één overheersend aspect van de cultuur, namelijk de mate van onderling vertrouwen tussen de burgers. de spontaniteit waarmee de burgers tot wederzijds voordeel relaties aanknopen, door Fukuyama het 'spontane associatievermogen' gedoopt. Japan: Een keiretsu - een Japans concern - met zijn horizontale en verticale netwerken, zijn financiers en onderaannemers, berust volledig op onderling vertrouwen
Zuid-Italië: Het familisme is daar zo extreem dat men zich niet eens inspant voor openbare voorzieningen als onderwijs of de aanleg van wegen, laat staan voor het opzetten van middelgrote of grote bedrijven. Daarom exporteert Japan high-tech-produkten en Zuid-Italië ambachtelijke produkten. Indirect beïnvloedt de premoderne erfenis dus de positie die een land inneemt in de wereldeconomie. F stelt high-trust societies als Japan en Duitsland tegenover low-trust societies als China en Frankrijk.
het Nederlandse consensusmodel: 'Ik had daar graag een apart hoofdstuk aan gewijd. Het is uitzonderlijk omdat het een zeer groot maatschappelijk vertrouwen weet te verbinden met vrije-marktwerking.' Verenigde Staten, waar ondanks dertig jaar sociale programma's een steeds grotere maatschappelijke vertrouwenscrisis is ontstaan. De Verenigde Staten altijd een high-trust society geweest. De Amerikanen schrikken juist van dat keiharde individualisme, zoals zich dat uit in de toename van de criminaliteit en de civiele procedures voor schadevergoeding, het uiteenvallen van gezinnen, de corruptie, het isolement van grote groepen burgers en het wapenbezit. De culturele oorzaak is de te ver doorgeschoten burgerrechtenrevolutie, die de mens voorstelt als een sociaal atoom, een individu met alleen maar rechten en geen plichten. Protestantse ethiek van sparen, werken en vertrouwen op jezelf en je medemens. 'Een onderwijshervorming in de richting van algemeen, verplicht en homogeen onderwijs voor iedereen zou het maatschappelijk vertrouwen kunnen verhogen, het gemeenschappelijk ethos versterken, waardoor de culture wars tot bedaren worden gebracht.
 
Geert Mak, Trouw 22.9.2004. Protest tegen de afrekencultuur als permanente motie van wantrouwen. (..) Managerslaag inkrimpen die geen werkvloerervaring en vakkennis heeft, maar alleen maar kan afrekenen. (..) Overal in Nederland wordt op dit moment op grote schaal het sociaal kapitaal vernietigd dat vertrouwen heet. (..) Begin van herstel ligt in het erkennen van verantwoordelijkheid en vakmakschap: geef iedereen zijn eigen specialisatie terug, zijn eigen vak, zijn eigen waarde.
 
Loet
Leydesdorff, De non-lineaire dynamica’s van wetenschappelijke en technologische ontwikkelingen (2002)
het (lokaal) vrijelijk ontwikkelen van ideeën en op dat van het (boven-lokaal) vrijelijk kunnen kritiseren van die ideeën. Je zou kunnen zeggen dat het eerste niveau de variatie genereert, terwijl het tweede niveau een selectie-omgeving biedt. Wetenschappelijke specialismen kunnen dan als niches van gespecialiseerde communicatie worden beschouwd. Op het niveau van de culturele evolutie staan de systemen ook onder selectie-druk. een zelf-organiserend communicatiesysteem heeft een zelfreinigende werking, namelijk omdat men steeds opnieuw moet selecteren uit de mogelijke ontwikkelingsrichtingen met het oog op wat in het heden de meeste perspectiven lijkt te bieden. mensen als knopen in een communicatie-netwerk. Door te communiceren leert het netwerk in a distributed mode, dat wil zeggen volgens een eigen dynamiek. Anders dan virtuele communicatiesystemen zijn intermenselijke communicatiesystemen gekoppeld aan de leerprocessen in de humane dragers van de interactiesystemen. Met een biologisch begrip noemen we dit ‘structurele koppeling’
wetenschapsontwikkeling – technologische ontwikkeling – marktontwikkeling
1870-1910 periode van technologisch-wetenschappelijke revolutie. 20e eeuw: maatschappij steeds kennisintensiever. neo-evolutionaire theorie: selectie door communicatiesystemen. Relaties tussen universiteit, industrie en overheid vormen in toenemende mate een ‘triple helix’ die samen de kennisinfrastructuur van moderne maatschappijen biedt. Van een drievoudige dynamiek kan niet verwacht worden dat er blijvende stabiliteiten ontstaan. zelf-organisatie van de kennisintensieve ontwikkeling
 
Willem
Drees
fysische chemie (causale verklaringen) > biochemie (functionele verklaringen)
'Mensen zijn niet alleen evolutionair en genetisch bepaald, maar ook cultureel. De mens kan tegen de zelfzuchtige genen rebelleren (cf Dawkins) De culturele evolutie is een 'hogere' voortzetting van de natuurlijke evolutie, vindt Drees. Maar waar de evolutie ongericht oplossingen vindt, kunnen mensen gericht zoeken. Zo biedt de techniek steeds meer mogelijkheden om van natuurlijke beperkingen los te komen
 
A Brief Overview of Some Classic Ideas in Evolutionary Theory:
  System Level / Problem Investigator / Year of Publication Basic ideas Example Adaptations
  System Level: Individual
Problem: How to survive?
Charles Darwin / 1859 Natural Selection (or "survival selection")
The bodies and minds of organisms are made up of evolved adaptations designed to help the organism survive in a particular ecology (for example, the white fur of polar bears).
Bones, skin, vision, pain perception, etc.
  System Level:
Dyad

Problem: How to attract a mate and/or compete with members of one's own sex for access to the opposite sex?
Charles Darwin / 1859 Sexual selection
Organisms can evolve physical and mental traits designed specifically to attract mates (e.g., the Peacock’s tail) or to compete with members of one’s own sex for access to the opposite sex (e.g., antlers).

In most species, the effects of sexual selection are seen in males since they typically have a faster reproductive rate than do females.
Peacock’s tail, antlers, courtship behavior, etc
  System Level:
Family & Kin

Problem: Gene replication. How to help those with whom we share genes survive and reproduce?
William Hamilton / 1964 Inclusive fitness (or a "gene’s eye view" of selection, "kin selection") / The evolution of sexual reproduction
Selection occurs most robustly at the level of the gene, not the individual, group, or species. Reproductive success can thus be indirect, via shared genes in kin. Being altruistic toward kin can thus have genetic payoffs.

Also, Hamilton argued that sexual reproduction evolved primarily as a defense against pathogens (bacteria & viruses) to "shuffle genes" to create greater diversity, especially immunological variability, in offspring.
Altruism toward kin, parental investment, the behavior of the social insects with sterile workers (e.g., ants).
  System Level:
Dyad / Family & Kin

Problem: How to allocate resources among offspring to maximize reproductive output?
Robert Trivers / 1972 Parental Investment Theory / Parent - Offspring Conflict / Reproductive Value
The two sexes often have conflicting strategies regarding how much to invest in offspring, and how many offspring to have.
Parents allocate more resources to their offspring with higher reproductive value (e.g., "mom always liked you best"). Parents and offspring may have conflicting interests (e.g., when to wean, allocation of resources among offspring, etc.).
Sexually dimorphic adaptations that result in a "battle of the sexes," parental favoritism, timing of reproduction, parent-offspring conflict, sibling rivalry, etc.
  System Level:
Non-Kin Small Group
Problem: How to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with non-kin in repeated interactions?
Robert Trivers / 1971 "Tit for Tat" Reciprocity
One can play nice with non-kin if a mutually beneficially reciprocal relationship is maintained across multiple social interactions, and cheating is punished.
Cheater detection, emotions of revenge and guilt, etc.
  System Level:
Non-Kin, Large Groups Governed by Rules / Laws
Problem: How to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with strangers with whom one may interact only once?
Herbert Gintis, et al. / 2000, 2003 Strong Reciprocity
One can play nice with non-kin strangers even in single interactions if social rules against cheating are maintained by neutral third parties (e.g., other individuals, governments, institutions, etc.), a majority group members cooperate by generally adhering to social rules, and social interactions create a non-zero sum game (i.e., a bigger overall "pie" results from group cooperation).
Strong reciprocity may be a set of adaptations that were designed for small in-group cohesion during times of high inter-tribal warfare with out-groups.

Today the capacity to be altruistic to in-group strangers may result from a serendipitous generalization (or "mismatch") between ancestral tribal living in small groups and today's large societies that entail many single interactions with anonymous strangers. (The dark side of strong reciprocity may be that these adaptations may also underlie aggression toward out-groups.)
To in-group members:
Capacity for generalized altruism, acting like a "good Samaritan," cognitive concepts of justice, ethics and human rights.

To out-group members:
Capacity for xenophobia, racism, warfare, genocide.

  System Level:
Large groups / culture.

Problem:
How to transfer information across distance and time?
Richard Dawkins / 1976 Memetic Selection
Genes are not the only replicators subject to evolutionary change. "Memes" (e.g., ideas, cultural fads, etc.) can replicate and spread, and many of the same evolutionary principles that apply to genes apply to memes as well.
Language, music, evoked culture, etc. Some possible by-products, or exaptations: writing, reading, mathematics, etc.
  System Level / Problem Investigator Basic ideas Example Adaptations
Table from Mills, M.E. (2004). Evolution and motivation. Symposium paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference, Pheonix, AZ. April, 2004.
 
What is eventually needed is a theory that takes into account how cultural evolutionary "units" interact with each other - in the same way that our understanding of genetics underpins our understanding of biological evolution.
 
Prigogine, I., La Nouvelle Alliance (1979); NL Orde uit chaos, 1985.
Prigogine, I., La fin des certitudes (1996)
Ilya
Prigogine: complexe open systemen, zoals die voorkomen in de thermodynamica, de scheikunde en de biologie (vgl gesloten systemen in de (oude) natuurkunde die een constante hoeveelheid materie, energie, hoeveelheid van beweging bevatten en als stabiele systemen omkeerbaar in de tijd en deterministisch zijn). Open systemen uit evenwicht, bv convectiestromen in een vloeistof die van onderuit verwarmd wordt. Niet-lineaire processen (niet-evenredigheid tussen oorzaken en gevolgen). Een dissipatief open systeem realiseert een groter, complexer systeem ten koste van entropieproductie (afbraak van structuur) die als afbraakproducten naar de omgeving worden afgevoerd. Het betekent dat een dissipatieve structuur orde schept door wanorde te produceren. De nieuwe structuur die gevormd wordt voorbij een omslagpunt, is een dynamische structuur die voortdurend gevoed moet worden en waarvan de geproduceerde entropie afgevoerd moet worden. Chemische evolutie: anorganische > organische componenten. Ouderdom aarde 4.6 mijard jaar. Eerste microfossielen en eerste rotsformaties 3.8 miljard jaar: beide gevolg van spontane zelforganisatie. J. Monod: onverschillig heelal, mens als randverschijnsel. Prigogine: toekomst open en niet-deterministisch. Kleine oorzaken (acties vd mens) kunnen grote gevolgen voor ‘t geheel hebben. (..) Elementaire deeltjes zijn instabiel met een halfwaardetijd van 1030 jaar en dus ook niet in een evenwichts-toestand. Wetten en gebeurtenissen die mogelijkheden verwerkelijken die niet afgeleid kunnen worden van de wetten. Gebeurtenissen niet te reduceren tot afleidbare en voorspelbare consequenties van deterministische (natuur)wetten.
 

trias politica (wetgevende, uitvoerende, rechterlijke macht, Montesquieu, 1689-1755), en de daarbij gekomen: vierde macht (beleidsambtenaren), vijfde macht (belangenorganisaties, lobby’s), zesde macht (media)
 
The 2004 tsunami hitting the holiday-resorts around the Indian Ocean gave rise to a lot of media-coverage and compassion, compared to e.g. the Dafour catastrophy in Africa around the same time. The relative amount of human misery is not the measure for attention and help - in Africa effective help was completely frustrated, so it was no longer possible to cover it with positive stories.
 
Timmermans, W.,
Sociaal Kapitaal, 2001
Klassieke economie: drie factoren achter economische groei: land, arbeid en fysiek kapitaal (gereedschappen, machines en andere productieve vormen). Daarnaast menselijk kapitaal (human capital, Gary Becker, 1962: individuele vaardigheden en kennis), en sociaal kapitaal (menselijke relaties).
Deze scriptie onderzoekt het NL poldermodel (samenwerking, overleg en coördinatie) vanuit het sociaal kapitaalperspectief.
Sociaal kapitaal: vertrouwen (interpersoonlijke en veralgemeend), normen & waarden, netwerken. Is ‘meer’ sociaal kapitaal altijd beter (bv contra-productieve normen, verstarring in netwerken)? Putnam (1993): waarom sommige regio’s democratische en andere totalitaire tendens? Onderzoek van 20 zelfstandiger regio’s in Italië. P: een goed presterende overheid is allesomvattend (in taken en verantwoordelijkheden), intern consistent, betrouwbaar en democratisch (verantwoording afleggen). Volgens
Putnam blijkt de regionale overheid beter te functioneren, naarmate de burgers
actiever zijn binnen verenigingen (netwerken). Er blijkt een bijzonder sterke correlatie te bestaan tussen de mate waarin binnen een regio sprake is van een burgerlijke cultuur (civic culture) en de mate waarin de regionale regering goed presteert. In de meeste regio’s van Zuid-Italië zijn deze netwerken echter zwak aanwezig. Het openbare leven verloopt daar juist in verticale, hiërarchische verbanden, terwijl er weinig ruimte overblijft voor de horizontale samenwerking tussen vrije en gelijke burgers. (vgl Alexander de Tocqueville’s studiereis naar de VS, 1835). Granovetter (1985): mensen gedragen zich niet als ondergesocialiseerde atomen (vs Adam Smith), noch als overgesocialiseerde conformisten, maar "Their attempts at purposive action are instead embedded in concrete, ongoing systems of social relations." Sociale relaties ipv veralgemeniseerde moraliteit of instituties verantwoordelijk voor de productie van vertrouwen in de economische sfeer. Platteau (1994): dit werkt prima in traditionele maatschappijen, maar in complexere maatschappijen is meer nodig dan interpresoonlijk vertrouwen, nl een veralgemeend vertrouwen op het niveau van de gehele samenleving. Na de Franse revolutie vervielen koning, adel en kerk als geraamte van een hiërarchische maatschappij. In de VS rond 1835 veel samenwerkingsverbanden en verenigingen, volgens de Tocqueville "favorable to the prosperity and development of all classes into which society is divided". Intern: samenwerking, gezamelijke verantwoordelijkheid en gematigdheid tav onderlinge diversiteit. Extern: collectieve acties en gezamelijke ondernemeningen. Deelnemers meer sociaal vertrouwen en meer politiek bewust.
Interpersonal trust (microscopic level, OBW: netwerk-vertrouwen) – general(ized) trust (macroscopic level, OBW: publiek vertrouwen). Coleman (1988): ‘closure’ van sociale netwerken genereert vertrouwen in een sociale structuur. Ook Loury (1977,1992) en Bourdieu (1986, 1992) accent op het netwerk-vertrouwen. Putnam: algemeen aanvaarde normen van vertrouwen en wederkerigheid. Putnam ziet sociaal kapitaal als een mengsel van subjectieve sociale normen (vertrouwen) en objectieve kenmerken van een gemeenschap (netwerken) en uitkomsten (effectiviteit, efficiency). Er zijn volgens P. op zijn minst twee evenwichtige situaties mogelijk zijn waar alle maatschappijen die met het probleem van collectieve actie kampen naar toe zullen evolueren. In het eerste sociale evenwicht zijn hoge niveaus van samenwerking, vertrouwen, wederkerigheid, maatschappelijke betrokkenheid en collectief welzijn bereikt. Wantrouwen, lijntrekken, uitbuiting, isolatie, wanorde en stagnatie kenmerken het tweede evenwicht. Waarin men eenmaal een evenwicht heeft bereikt, zal dat ook blijven voortduren en is men dus gevangen in een vicieuze cirkel. In een complexe maatschappij neemt de relevantie van netwerk-vertrouwen af en die van publiek vertrouwen toe omdat daarin veel meer onpersoonlijke transacties (kunnen) plaatsvinden. De instituties van vandaag beperken toekomstige beslissingen. Een formele definitie van instituties is die van North (1990): Institutions are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, in part by helping them to form expectations of what other people do.
Putnam operationaliseert sociaal kapitaal door het meten van de mate waarin mensen familieleden, vrienden en kennissen bezoeken, kranten lezen, lidmaatschap in vrijwillige organisaties of de deelname aan referenda en verkiezingen. In Bowling alone, 1995 stelt P dat het sociaal kapitaal binnen de Amerikaanse samenleving de afgelopen decennia stelselmatig gedaald is. Volgens Putnam is dit een grote bedreiging voor een succesvolle instandhouding van de democratie in Amerika. Factoren: onderwijs (hogere opleiding, meer contacten, meer vertrouwen), werkdruk (meer werk leidt niet tot minder contacten en minder vertrouwen), mobiliteit (in niet-mobiele groepen ook erosie van sociaal kapitaal), werkende vrouwen (besteden echter ook veel tijd aan verenigingen ed), uiteenvallen traditioneel gezin (alleenstaanden minder vertrouwend), grotere overheid en groei welvaartsstaat (Fukuyama, 1995: overheidsinterventie ondermijnt de burgerlijke maatschappij door het private initiatief te verdringen; echter P: geen correlatie meer overheids(uitgaven) en sociaal kapitaal). P komt uit op het ‘generatie-effect’ als oorzaak van erosie van sociaal kapitaal: ouderen blijven sociaal betrokken, jongeren van na WO-II veel minder. Factoren: TV-kijken ipv participeren in ‘t maatschappelijk leven (Uslaner, 1998 vond echter geen bewijs voor dat verband; volgens U leidt optimisme tot vertrouwen). Paxton (1999): het sociaal kapitaal (in de VS) neemt niet af. Ook kijken naar de spreiding of variantie in verdeling van sociaal kapitaal. Paxton: sociaal kapitaal onderzoeken adhv vertrouwen in mensen en vertrouwen in instituties (kerk, onderwijs, overheid) + associaties (verbanden individu-gemeenschap: contacten buren, vrienden, verenigingen). Pa: vertrouwen in individuen neemt af over de periode van 1975 – 1994, dat in instituties niet, en associaties ook gelijk gebleven. Er zijn overigens grote verschillen tussen landen:

Trust refers to correct expectations about the actions of other people (Zucker, 1986, Dasgupta, 1988). Trust lowers economic transaction-costs (contracts and controls). Fukuyama (1995): general trust > big concerns (USA, Japan, Germany); interpersonal trust > small-scale family-companies (China, Korea, Singapore). Reputatie van betrouwbaarheid. ‘embeddedness’-hypothese (Granovetter, 1985): zowel de staat als de markt werken efficiënter als zij ingebed zijn in structuren van sociale relaties. Moraliteit > vertrouwen. Moraliteit: onderscheid goed/slecht, er naar handelen, gevoelens van schuld/schaamte bij ‘t er niet naar handelen (Schaffer, 1999). Arrow (1972): much of the economic backwardness in the world can be explained by the lack of mutual confidence. Vertrouwen in samenwerking > grotere productiviteit en lagere transactiekosten. Echter: meer sociaal kapitaal hoeft niet altijd beter te zijn. Hofstede (1980): vier culturele dimensies: machtsafstand, individualisme/collectivisme, masculien/feminien (Al naar gelang hun cultuurpatroon blinken masculiene en feminiene landen uit in verschillende takken van economische activiteit. Rijke masculiene culturen zijn in het voordeel bij massafabricage. Zij doen dingen efficiënt, goed en snel. Zij zijn sterk in zware industrie en bulkchemie. Feminiene culturen zijn in het voordeel bij dienstverlening, zoals advies en vervoer, fabricage volgens specificatie van de klant, en het omgaan met levende materie, zoals bij intensieve land- en tuinbouw, bio-industrie en biochemie.), onzekerheidsvermijding. Aziatisch onderzoeker vond een vijfde dimensie: Confuciaans dynamisme (lange/korte-termijngerichtheid. Lange-termijngerichtheid houdt onder meer verband met de volgende waarden: volharding, gevoel voor status, spaarzaamheid en schaamtegevoel. Korte-termijngerichtheid daarentegen houdt verband met kalmte, evenwicht, bescherming van je ‘gezicht’, respect voor traditie en verplichtingen nakomen bij groeten, gunsten en traditie.). Cultuur is echter een noodzakelijke, maar geen voldoende voorwaarde voor economische groei. Hofstede noemt ook de aanwezigheid van een markt en een politieke context die economische ontwikkeling mogelijk maakt als twee belangrijke voorwaarden. Inglehart (World Values Survey, 1994) deed onderzoek met de volgende waardenoriëntaties: permissiviteit, burgerschapsmoraal, cultureel conservatisme of gezagsgetrouwheid, institutioneel vertrouwen, intolerantie ten opzichte van afwijkende groepen, (post-)materialisme en vertrouwen in de medemens. Nyfer (1997) vond dat een grote machtsafstand en een sterke onzekerheidsvermijding een negatieve invloed hebben op vertrouwen in instituties en in de medemens. Verder valt op dat masculiniteit een negatief effect op vertrouwen in de medemens. Immers, in masculiene culturen geldt survival of the fittest. (..) Een samenleving met een hoog niveau van vertrouwen heeft sterkere prikkels om te innoveren en om fysiek- en menselijk kapitaal te accumuleren. Olson (The Rise and Decline of Nations, 1982): stagnatie door kleine belangengroepen (gevestigde belangen door specialisatie in oude technieken > tegenhouden nieuwe technologie). Meer sociaal kapitaal in de zin van sterkere belangengroepen > minder economische groei (cf handwevers die een fabriek met weefmachines in de brand staken na 1785). Olson (1982) suggereert dat een succesvol land institutionele rigiditeiten zal accumuleren, waardoor uiteindelijk de economische ontwikkeling zal stagneren. Vergelijk vandaag belangroepen en lobbygroepen (Aghion and Howitt,1998). Norton (1992): inefficiënte instituties zullen het verliezen van de efficiencte (institutionele evolutie). Knack en Keefer (1997): Een verandering in de variabele ‘vertrouwen’ leidt volgens hun model tot een aanzienlijke toename van de economische groei. De belangrijke conclusie uit het onderzoek van Alesina en La Ferrara (2000) is dat heterogene samenlevingen over minder sociaal kapitaal beschikken dan meer homogene samenlevingen. Temple en Johnson (1998) : social development index. - mate van massacommunicatie wellicht een proxy voor de sterkte van de ‘civil society’, zoals gemeten via de Putnam-groepen. Wat zijn de ‘ultimate causes’ van economische groei? Hall en Jones (1999): de sociale infrastructuur (instituties en overheidsmaatregelen). Fysiek en menselijk kapitaal versterkt door sociaal kapitaal. Wat opvalt is d at voor de meeste ontwikkelingslanden de verschillen in productiviteit de belangrijkste factor zijn voor het verklaren van de verschillen in productie per werknemer. Met andere woorden, verschillen in fysiek kapitaal en het genoten onderwijs verklaren slechts een bescheiden gedeelte van het verschil in productie per werknemer tussen landen. Lange-Termijn-Gerichtheids-index (LTG): volharding, spaarzaamheid, schaamtegevoel en weinig eerbied voor traditie. Verschuiving van traditioneel-religieuze waarden naar rationeel-legale waarden in het economische, poltieke en sociale leven (Putnam). Inglehart: doorverschuiving van materialistitsche naar post-materialistische waarden, vgl het vergelijkend onderzoek 1981 – 1990 naar World Values:

Hiërarchie van waardenpatronen (cf Maslow 1954). De ethos van de moderne tijd kunnen we karakteriseren door: individuele vrijheid, zelfontplooiing, zelfexpressie en creativiteit. Auteurs die een negatieve kijk op postmodernisering hebben noemen egoïsme, immoralisme, hedonisme, consumentisme en narcisme als neveneffecten. Halman (1995) beweert dat er geen sprake is van moreel verval, maar van een verandering in de basis en legitimatie van moraliteit. Inglehart (1977) baseert zijn theorie op twee hypotheses: de schaarste-hypothese en de socialisatie-hypothese. De schaarste-hypothese houdt in dat de prioriteiten van een individu de sociaal-economische omgeving van dat individu weerspiegelt. De grootste waarde wordt toegekend aan die goederen die relatief schaars zijn. Welvaart zal de tendentie om waarden omtrent algemeen welzijn benadrukken. Bij economische neergang en maatschappelijke wanorde of oorlog zullen juist de overlevings-waarden worden benadrukt. De socialisatie-hypothese beweert dat het verband tussen de sociaal-economische omgeving en de waarden-prioriteiten niet onmiddellijk wordt aangepast. De basiswaarden van een individu worden gevormd gedurende de kinderjaren en weerstaan verandering. Als beide hypothesen worden gecombineerd, dan voorspelt Inglehart dat vooral onder jonge mensen, de trend naar postmateriële waarden kan worden waargenomen. In het onderzoek van Inglehart (1997) zien we, zoals Fedderke et al. (1999) stelde, dat economische ontwikkeling leidt tot een transformatie van sociaal kapitaal. Discussie economisch (Marx) vs cultureel (Weber) determinisme. We kunnen niet altijd a priori zeggen of meer vertrouwen en samenwerking wenselijk zijn, vgl samenwerking van criminelen of terroristen. Optimaal niveau van ‘embeddedness’ van bv bedrijven of instituties. Als loononderhandelingen gecentraliseerd plaatsvinden, nemen vakbonden het inflatoire effect van een loonstijging mee in hun beslissing.30 Met andere woorden, ze weten dat excessieve looneisen tot meer inflatie zal leiden, zodat de reële lonen niet zullen toenemen. Deze inzichten leiden tot de conclusie dat in landen met of sterk gecentraliseerde of met een sterk gedecentraliseerde loononderhandelingen vaker loonmatiging plaatsvindt dan in landen die daar precies tussenin zitten. NL consensusmodel (samenwerking tussen werkgevers, werknemers en overheid. Van Waarden (1995): waterschappen als onze oudste democratische politieke structuren. ttv de republiek nieuwe samenwerkingsvormen: stedelijke besturen, gilden, schutterijen, liefdadigheidsinstellingen, compagnieschappen en rederijen. Ontwikkeling tot de eerste markteconomie ter wereld. Eind 19e eeuw verdere ontwikkeling oiv industrialisatie en verzuiling: basis gelegd voor het moderne verenigingsleven en een zeer stabiel politiek systeem. Ingroei van de vakbeweging en de socialistische zuil. 1919 Hoge Raad vd Arbeid. 1937 bindend verklaren van cao’s of ongeldig als ze in strijd zijn met ’t algemeen belang. 1948 plan voor een corporatistische herstructureren vd economie. Sociaal-Economische Raad als permanent adviesorgaan vd regering (werkgevers, vakbeweging en onafhankelijke leden, 1950). Het Accoord van Wassenaar (1982): loonmatiging en werkduurverkorting. Ontzuiling en vrouwen-emancipatie > explosieve groei van arbeidsaanbod voor vrouwen. Historisch gezien wijzigde mn Thorbecke na 1850 de toekomst van NL ingrijpend met een nieuwe grondwet, een nieuw kies- en belastingstelsel en een nieuwe economische politiek met het vrijheidsbeginsel als kern. In 1876 in NL al 456 NV’s. Na WO I grote bedrijven als hoogovens en Akzo. Na de crisis ging de overheid zich intensief bemoeien met lonen en prijzen. NL poldermodel een unieke combinatie van beleid, instituties en cultuur: loonmatiging, arbeidsmarktpolitiek, lastenverlichting en terugdringing van collectieve uitgaven. Angelsaksische en Rijnlandse model van economische organisatie. De kern van het Rijnlandse model wordt gevormd door: een horizontale besluitvormingsstructuur, georganiseerde decentralisatie, oriëntatie op maatschappelijke problemen en solidaire doeleinden en het vermogen tot leren (Delsen, 2000). De Verenigde Staten, Canada en het Verenigd Koninkrijk zijn varianten van het Angelsaksische model. Dit model is gebaseerd op de vooronderstelling dat correctie van marktimperfecties tot nieuwe imperfecties en rigiditeiten leidt. De Rijnlandse economien zijn consensuseconomieën, de Angelsaksische modellen worden vrije markteconomieën genoemd. Delsen (2000) benadrukt dat het Rijnlandse model en het Angelsaksische model niet bestaan. Er bestaan tussen deze modellen grote verschillen in institutionele vormgeving en economische resultaten. NL De gezamenlijke analyses en gezamenlijke diagnoses effenen de weg voor gezamenlijke oplossingen. Zonder dit geïnstitutionaliseerde frequente overleg en de lange overlegtraditie zou een doorbraak als het later Akkoord van Wassenaar of het voldoen aan de EMU-criteria onmogelijk zijn geweest. Consensus en samenwerking zijn echter onlosmakelijk verbonden met wederzijds vertrouwen, dus met de hoeveelheid sociaal kapitaal dat aanwezig is. Historische verschuiving van interpersoneel naar veralgemeend vertrouwen. Er zijn de afgelopen jaren een wijzigingen opgetreden in de consensuseconomie. In 1995 besloot het parlement bijvoorbeeld tot afschaffing van de wettelijke verplichting om over alle belangrijke aangelegenheden op sociaal-economisch terrein advies te vragen aan de SER. Begin 1996 is het aantal zetels van de SER en de STAR gereduceerd van respectievelijk 45 naar 33 en van 20 naar 16. De afnemende rol en de invloed van overleg op centraal niveau, waarbij instemming werd vervangen door aanbevelingen, raakt de kern van het poldermodel. De overheid trekt zich steeds verder terug en krijgt een minder centrale rol. De behoefte aan differentiatie en maatwerk binnen collectieve regelingen wordt steeds meer benadrukt. Deze decentralisatie is niet zonder risico’s. De overlegeconomie wordt deels verlaten en vervangen door de markt als coördinator. In navolging van het Nederlandse bedrijfsleven streeft de Nederlandse vakbeweging steeds vaker kortetermijn doelstellingen na (Van Witteloostuijn, 1999). Meer marktwerking kan de voorraad sociaal kapitaal (onderling vertrouwen, normen en waarden) en daarmee de basis voor economische groei ondergraven. De vraag is echter of het poldermodel-oude-stijl voldoende ruimte biedt voor aanpassing en vernieuwing in het licht van de globalisering en de snelle technologische ontwikkelingen. Belangrijke kenmerken van de Nederlandse economie zijn groeps- en verenigingsvorming, samenwerking tussen concurrenten, overleg, zelfregulering, corporatisme en marktordening. Loon- en prijsrigiditeiten (contracten) zijn niet noodzakelijk symptomen van te weinig marktwerking. Deze instituties en conventies verminderen immers onzekerheden en verbeteren hiermee de marktwerking in die zin dat alle marktpartijen een beter resultaat van de ruil weten te verwerven. NL begin jaren tachtig een dramatische situatie. Vijftien jaren later NL een van de best presterende westerse landen. Werknemers, werkgevers en overheid hebben gezamenlijk gewerkt aan loonmatiging, investering in werkgelegenheid en sanering van de overheidsuitgaven. Deze opmerkelijke eensgezindheid staat inmiddels bekend als het Nederlandse ‘poldermodel’. Ook belangrijke factor: koppeling gulden aan de DM, daardoor loonmatiging > prijsvoordeel op onze belangrijkste exportmarkt. Verder stijging huizenprijzen > grote consumptieve bestedingsimpuls. Relativering werkgelegenheidsprestaties: Twee typisch Nederlandse fenomenen houden onze werkloosheidscijfers kunstmatig laag: het grote aandeel van deeltijdbanen in de geschapen werkgelegenheid en het grote aantal gedeeltelijk arbeidsongeschikten. Volgens onder andere Hans Wijers (2000) werkt de overlegeconomie remmend. Deze ex-minister pleit in zijn recente Den Uyl-lezing voor het vaarwel zeggen van het poldermodel. Er moet volgens hem meer worden overgelaten aan de markt en meer worden geïnvesteerd in de kenniseconomie. De op consensus gerichte overlegstructuren van dit besluitvormings-model zijn teveel naar binnen gericht en te traag, aldus Wijers, omdat ze vooral hun eigen belangen dienen. Hij stelt dat de manier waarop de economie reageert op veranderingen in de omgeving grotendeels de prestaties bepaalt. Maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen als individualisering, vergrijzing, internationalisering en nieuwe technologieën vereisen een sterker aanpassings- en vernieuwingsvermogen van een economie. Wijers is niet de eerste geweest die stelt dat het Nederlandse model de bloei van de economie zouden belemmeren. Zo wordt er al een aantal jaren gesproken over de ‘wurggreep van de belangengroepen’ door onder andere Bomhoff (1994) en Fortuyn (1994). -74-Van Waarden beweert dat het vrije-marktdenken, dat ook in het regeringsbeleid zijn intrede heeft, gedaan gevaarlijk is. Volgens hem dankt Nederland haar sterke concurrentiepositie mede aan haar specifieke instituties. Hij noemt deze "coöperatieve concurrentie" of "georganiseerd kapitalisme": het zijn voorzieningen die de concurrentie wel ordenen en matigen, maar niet wegnemen. Als samenwerking en consensus is verankerd in de Nederlandse cultuur, is het dan verstandig een weg in te slaan die tegen onze cultuur ingaat? Het consensusmodel leidt tot minder onzekerheid en lagere transactiekosten. Dutch crossing: zeggen dat je behoefte hebt aan duidelijke procedures, maar je er niets van aantrekken als ze er eenmaal zijn. Nederlanders hechten aan zekerheid in de groep en aan formalisering van de horizontale groepsrelaties. NL instituties een gematigd en pragmatisch karakter, bv gekanaliseerde concurrentie. Flexibele rigiditeiten. De snelle en efficiënte aanpassing van instituties aan veranderende economische omstandigheden zijn op lange termijn belangrijker dan statische efficiency. Het is belangrijk om de dynamiek, dus de innovatieve kracht, van ons land en onze instituties kritisch te blijven volgen. De consensuseconomie is derhalve een belangrijke vorm van sociaal kapitaal. Erosie van de voorraad sociaal kapitaal kan verstrekkende gevolgen hebben voor de economische prestaties van Nederland. Als we sociaal kapitaal kunnen beschouwen als ‘ultimate cause’ van economische groei, dan zal het einde van de consensuseconomie een overstroming van de polder betekenen. Belangrijk is ook de conclusie van Alesina en La Ferrara dat de groepsparticipatie (en derhalve de hoeveelheid sociaal kapitaal) in heterogene gemeenschappen kleiner is dan in homogene gemeenschappen.
 
relation well-being – GNP 1995

 
World Values: values map 2004
(traditional – secular/rational values vs survival – self-expression values)

 
Hoofdbedrijfschap Ambachten: Gevolgen van
markttrends voor de toekomst van het ambacht, 2004. Doel van het onderzoek is "het vergroten van de pro-actieve weerstand van het ambacht tegen van buiten komende marktveranderingen". Trends in alle sectoren: globalisering, vestingplaatsconcurrentie, e-commerce, outsourcing, EU wet- en regel-geving, maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen. Trends in de handel in consumentengoederen: machtsverschuiving aanbieder naar koper, marge-druk, sterk wisselende vraag, grote concurrentie, dalend aantal vestigingspunten en toenemende benodigde verkoopruimte per verkooppunt, winkels zoeken de plaatsen op waar mensen komen. Ambacht-specifieke markttrends: 28 marktontwikkelingen, enz.
 
Trouw, 29.9.2004 Verslag van het doodsfeest van de volkszanger André Hazes in de Arena met 40.000 bezoekers – deze bijeenkomst en het goed geregiseerd op TV vertonen ervan was binnen een paar dagen georganiseerd. De vrouw van Hazes koos het bedrijf Endemol voor de tv-registrate, "want die vertrouw ik". (..) De soepele samenwerking in de aanloop naar het concert is volgens de Tros-programmaleider het gevolg van een vertrouwensband die alle partijen (sc. Endemol, Tros, Mojo, Arena) als ‘oude bekenden in het circuit’ met elkaar hebben. "Normaal gesproken sluit je contracten af bij dit soort evenementen."
 
More order with less law. On contract enforcement, trust and crowding, ???, 2000
Wintrobe (1995): The absence of enforceability generates a demand for trust. The costs
of trust formation are lower, when the two parties share common traits, such as a common language, ethnicity, and so on. (..) ???, 2000: More order can be achieved by relying on trust–based relationships where the parties are able to predict each other’s likelihood of cooperation. (..) a Latin American quip: "A los amigos todo, a los enimigos nada, al extrano la ley." (For friends everything, for enemies nothing, for the stranger the law.). (..) Honesty- vs Money-types of actors. If honesty leads to forsaking profitable opportunities such that a typical H–type earns less than a typical M–type, honesty will be crowded out. On the other hand, honesty will be crowded in if individuals are in an environment favoring honesty such that, on average, H–types earn more than M–types. (..)Our model suggests that the rules of the game determine which preferences dominate. More specifically, it predicts that low levels of legal contract enforcement crowd in trustworthiness. As first movers cannot trust the legal system, they only enter a contract if they can trust the second movers. They are careful when deciding whether to enter a contract, thus making trustworthiness a successful trait. (..) Cross–cultural differences: Yamagishi, Cook, and Watanabe (1998), e.g., argue that Japanese are less are less trusting and less trustworthy than American subjects because contract enforcement mechanisms and assurance structures are more prevalent in Japan than in the United States. (..) With high levels of contract enforcement, when contracts are completely specified, interpersonal trust is replaced by institutional trust in the legal system. First movers enter a contract because second movers are deterred from breaching.(..) With intermediate levels of contract enforcement, second movers are not yet deterred from breaching, and for …rst movers entering is financially more attractive than the outside option. Interpersonal trust is replaced by institutional trust in the legal system and genuine trustworthiness is crowded out. (..) If there is enough time for the crowding dynamics to unfold, low enforcement–probability environments can produce outcomes as e¢cient as high levels of contract enforcement.
 
Culture both our construction and environment (Laland e.a. 2000, 2001).
 
OBW Never accept or allow violent intimidation of the innocent – it’s the root of growing evil.
 
Praag, B.v. & A. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Happiness Quantified, 2004 (bespreking in NRC, 1.10.2004). Economen spreken doorgaans liever over nut of tevredenheid, maar Van Praag en Ferrer meten ‘geluk’ als gewogen gemiddelde van de antwoorden op ‘satisfactie-vragen’ aangaande werksituatie, sociale situatie, gezondheid, financiële situatie en vrijetijd. De meeste economen kijken naar het keuzegedrag van consumenten en leiden daaruit af aan welke pakketten van goederen of diensten de consument het meeste ‘nut’ ontleent. Vergelijkbare onderzoeken naar geluk, satisfactie of welzijn zijn vaak moeilijk met elkaar te rijmen. Vergelijk de onderzoeken van de VN (Noorwegen, Zweden en Canada hoog) met die van het World Values Survey (Inglehart e.a.): in Nigeria de gelukkigste mensen. Van Praag: voor internationale onderzoeken bepaalt vaak een commissie wat je moet optellen en aftrekken om tot een juiste maatstaf te komen – ons gaat het er nu juist om dat mensen zelf beoordelen hoe hun situatie is.
 
invloed op vertrouwen van ‘nieuws’ op één dag in één krant (NRC, 1.10.2004, ochtendeditie):
veiligheid: twee agenten neergeschoten door drugscrimineel, één overleden; Leeuwarden: nieuw geval van dodelijk zinloos geweld (Manuel Vetter neergestoken door ‘mannen met korte lontjes’, recidivisten oiv drank of harddrugs); dertig gewonden bij treinbotsing; voorzorgslanding airbus na bommelding; 34 kinderen gedood bij aanslag in Irak; iraakse ontvoerders doen goede zaken.
voedel en geneesmiddelen: pijnbestrijder Vioxx (Merck) uit de markt; slechter voedsel (bv met meer bestrijdingsmiddelen) door prijzenslag supermarkten Columbiaanse president: drink meer koffie, dan minder illegale gewassen en minder terreur.
openbaar bestuur: Mark van der Horst (VVD-wethouder Amsterdam, NRC, 1.10.2004): de ‘wet van klets’ in het openbaar bestuur. Nederland heeft een inefficiënt, vervet openbaar bestuur: te veel politici (50%), te veel bestuursorganen, te veel ambtenaren (25%), te veel wetten en regels. De bestuurlijke vernieuwing van het gemeentelijk dualisme heeft als gevolg dat alles bureaucratischer, duurder en inefficiënter is geworden – bewijs dat meer politici leidt tot meer ambtenaren en meer geklets, maar niet tot meer of beter bestuur. Meer wetten en regels veelal geweten aan ‘Brussel’ (60%) – onderzoek van de Jong en Herwijer komt echter uit op 16%; algemene politieke beschouwingen in de Tweede Kamer geen echt debat over ‘participatiestaat’ (van Aartsen) versus ‘investeringsstaat’ (Bos).
bedrijven: wereldwijde procedures rond het supermarktconcern Ahold – vervolging vroegere bestuurders; Ahold – staat: hoogste schikking ooit in NL van 8 miljoen.
wetenschap: het vooroordeel van jonge vrouwelijke onderzoekers te weinig hart voor hun vak hebben, leeft ‘t sterkst bij hooggeplaatste vrouwelijke wetenschappers (bijenkoningin-complex), Naomi Ellemers.
 
Vertrouwen-wekkend: de nobelprijs voor de vrede gaat in 2004 naar een Afrikaanse vrouw (Wangari Maathai, Kenia, bekend om haar inzet voor herbebossing, "Want wanneer we onze hulpmiddelen vernietigen en die hulpmiddelen schaars worden, gaan we erom vechten.".
 
Trouw, 27.11.2004. Naarmate er meer criminologen kwamen, nam de criminaliteit toe (Theodore Dalrymple, Leven aan de onderkant, 2004). vgl de abolitionist Hulsman (1979): een moord wordt pas crimineel door deze als crimineel te benoemen – bij afschaffing van het strafrecht vermindert de criminaliteit, de ‘crimineel’ is niet verantwoordelijk maar slachtoffer. Effect van onder meer dit soort hooggeleerde geachtenkronkels: Nederland hoort bij de westerse landen met de hoogste criminaliteit. Dalrymple maakt duidelijk dat de onderklasse de gevangene is geworden van het morele en culturele relativisme van de afgelopen veertig jaar – de ontkenning dat iedereen van nature en uit ervaring het verschil kent tussen goed en kwaad, waarheid en leugen, mooi en lelijk. Het morele relativisme wordt gepropageerd door intellectuelen die er niet over peinzen het op zichzelf of op hun eigen kinderen toe te passen (drugsgebruik, criminaliteit, onderwijs-uitval). Cynische hypocrisie om een eigen, betere positie te bevechten?
OBW zelfvertrouwen en verantwoordelijkheid ondermijnd door veertig jaar relativisme en slachtofferdenken.
 
Hans Goslinga (Trouw, 28.11.2004): democratie is niet een rivaal van godsdiensten (vs Hirsi Ali die schoolkinderen liet ‘kiezen’ tussen Allah en de grondwet (wie vind je belangrijker?). HG: Democratie maken tot een rivaliserend geloof (..) kan leiden tot een ongekende polarisatie, zo niet tot een burgeroorlog. OBW De liberaal-sociale democratie geeft ruimte aan verschillende godsdiensten voor zover zij zich houden aan de spelregels van vreedzaam samenleven. Een theocratische islam presenteert zich echter wel degelijk als rivaal van de liberaal-sociale democratie, de militante vleugel ervan heeft de ‘civil society’ bij herhaling de oorlog verklaard.
 
Bronnen van extremistisch geweld. Armoede? Niet eenduidig, want verreweg de meeste armen grijpen niet naar geweld en extremisten/terroristen komen opvallend vaak uit rijke en goed geschoolde gezinnen. Godsdienst? Niet eenduidig, want verreweg de meeste godsdienstigen grijpen niet naar geweld en extremisten/terroristen vind je onder fundi van allerlei richtingen (extreem links, extreem rechts, extreem nationalistisch, extreem katholiek, extreem protestants, extreem islamitisch).
Violent extremism is a personal inclination. The supply lines that feed violent extremists have to be cut off. Incorrigible violent extremists preferably have to be isolated, if necessary eliminated.
 
Crisis-management (ArjenBoin, Paul ‘t Hart, Trouw 28.11.2004)

  1. hoofdzaken van bijzaken, feiten van geruchten, analyse van adviezen scheiden
  2. kritieke beslissingen, coördinatie bestuurlijk apparaat (>operationele acties)
  3. gezaghebbende communicatie naar de betrokkenen / de samenleving
  4. verantwoording afleggen op de juiste momenten (niet te snel zwarte-pieten)
  5. lessen trekken voor toekomstig beleid (bv preventie voorkomt niet alle nieuwe crises)
 
NRC 4.12.2004 de ideale ambtenaar wordt niet gekenmerkt door kennis van zaken, ervaring, betrouwbaarheid en rationalisme, maar is een overheids-manager die flexibel, dynamisch, authentiek en zonder kennis van zaken is: volledig ingesteld op verandering en vernieuwing. Ook is de graaiculturele topambtenaar erg geïnteresseerd in spiritualiteit en mystiek: ze worden in een klooster te Vught getraind in het spreken met bomen door Irene van Lippe Biesterveld. Als zo’n topambtenaar de volgende dag een klacht moet afhandelen over een verzorgingstehuis waar de wc’s niet worden schoongemaakt, is een reactie te verwachten als: "Kunnen ze niet tegen een boom plassen? Hebben ze meteen een goed gesprek."
 
spreektaal – cultuurtaal - bestuurstaal
Mohammed Chafik: Imazighen – de Berbers en hun geschiedenis, 2005.Algerije 2000 jaar geleden spreektaal Berbers, cultuurtaal Grieks, bestuurstaal Foenicisch. Na overwinning Rome Latijn (de Berber Augustinus schreef daarin). In het huidige Algerije zijn de spreektalen Berbers en een Algerijns-Arabisch dialect, de cultuurtaal Frans en de bestuurstaal Arabisch. Stammenstructuur als verdediging tegen sterke overheersende staten (koloniale machten). De Berbertalen hebben nu en Marokko en Algerije een officiële status gekregen en er wordt geprobeerd een schrijftaal te ontwikkelen.
 
Afkomst, talen en tradities vormen naties (sociale eenheden), die daarna staten (politieke eenheden) kunnen vormen of die binnen staatsvormen gedwongen worden. Veel Europeanen staan tamelijk sceptisch tegenover staatsvorming. Scheiding kerk en staat – (OBW naties en staat – bv het Europa van de naties kent veel loyaliteiten) maakt staatsvorming mogelijk maar er blijft een voortdurende spanning tussen nation-building & state-building. Krachtenspel: democracy (Wilson), economy (Hamilton), defense (Jefferson), agression (Jackson) – cf W.R. Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and how it changed the world.
De argumenten voor toekomstige agressie (ten bate van de bescherming van eigen belangen) worden al uitgetekend door Fukuyama in zijn nieuwste boek: omdat in grondstofrijke landen met zwakke regeringen de corruptie onuitroeibaar lijkt (bv in Afrika ten zuiden van de Sahara), is de enige hoop voor deze gebieden een neo-koloniale benadering bv in de vorm van mandaatgebieden (..) wat het Westen zal moeten doen.
 
Democratisering van keuze-vrijheid (macht), kennis en vermogen op zo’n manier dat het verwerven met inspanning meer (maar niet excessief meer) beloond wordt dan het verwerven als compensatie (wegens gebrek aan verwervingsvermogen).
 
culture as ‘soft power’ in the evolution of societies
The role of soft power in international relations (..) CONNOTATION OF SOFT POWER (..) Joseph Nye, (..) attract other countries by ideas, values and ideology (..) Ray Cline, as early as the 1970s2 proposed "strategic goals" and "national will" as important components of national power. (..) The international contribution capacity includes a positive attitude toward being engaged in international affairs and contributing to international society. Survival ability concerns national will and friendly alliances. Coercive capability emphasizes a country’s capability in managing its foreign relations. (..) Nicholas Spykman, from the United States, also considers such soft power as national homogeneity, social comprehensiveness, political stability, and national ethics to be an important part of national power. (..) E. B. Taylor, a British anthropologist, has defined culture as a complex entity including knowledge, belief, art, morality, law, custom, and any ability or habit people can draw from society. (..) culture is the sum of material and spiritual wealth created in the history of human society. In a more narrow sense, culture is the social ideology and related systems and institutions, including ideas, thoughts and related systems in politics, law, morality, art, religion, and science. From whichever angle, culture is not a static entity, but a dynamic process. (..) At present, the United States has stronger traditional hard power than any other country. It also has resources of soft power in ideology and institution that can assure its leadership in the newly interdependent countries.7 From this strategic perspective, Nye pointed out that the United States should enhance the co-optive power of its culture and the attraction of its lifestyle in order to become preponderant not only in hard power, but also in soft power. (..) On the contrary, if the national strategy is infeasible, blind or dangerous, the soft power would misguide people and play a negative role, leading to loss of national enthusiasm, a frustrated national will, and reduction in hard national power. (..) In the national security strategy report, Clinton clearly set "encouraging the development of foreign democracy" as one of three pillars of the US security strategy and foreign policy. (..) In today’s international society, all peoples are striving for peace and development. The so-called East-West issue and South-North issue have profound cultural backgrounds. In the final analysis, such hot problems as terrorism, national separatism and religious extremism are all cultural problems. (..) In the Cold War, the competition over soft power was manifested in the antagonism and struggle between two different social systems, values and ideologies. After the Cold War, this antagonism and struggle did not come to an end, but increased. (..) In the contemporary world, power is being transferred from the one who has capital to the one who has information. (..) intervention in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights (..) supplemented by recent "new interventionism," and have carried out "humanitarian intervention" as a new international relations idea (..) the United States and other Western countries take advantage of their strong national power to inflict their will on international organizations in order to convey Western values and serve their interests. (..) . The U.S. has successfully established a framework for the institutionalization of capitalism. (..) Samuel Huntington admitted in his The Clash of Civilizations that "the West is in effect using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests, and promote Western political and economic values". (..) They set their values and human rights standards as universal principles, making the U.N. play its role in a way that is in their own interests. The so-called U.N.-led humanitarian interventions are often assumed by some Western countries that make them excuses for their pursuit of power politics, interfering with others’ internal affairs, and impinging on other countries’ sovereignty. (..) According to statistics, the U.S. occupies 75 percent of the world market in film and television. (..) The knowledge economy highlights the importance of human capital. People’s wisdom and will embody soft power. (..) the development of, and contending for, excellent human resources has become the focus of cultural power competition. (..) the developing countries lost in human resources about 2,000,000 during the period from the 1960s through the 1990s. The direct economic loss of this is about US$100-200 billion; the indirect loss is incalculable. (..) In the United States, mass media is called "another government". (..) The U.S. television industry is called "the throne of the electronic king". (..) In contemporary international society, U.S.-led Western developed countries monopolize the Internet technology. (..) Culture is a complex entity containing ethnic and religious factors. (..) The ethnic and religious conflicts in the Balkans, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus have been the hot focus of the world. (..) History has shown us that ethnic and religious problems are complex and sensitive their "settlement cannot rely on foreign force intervention, which can only intensify the problem and leave long-term hidden troubles. (..) Soft power comes from such side factors as ideologies, social systems, organization mechanisms, lifestyles, development models, cultural traditions, values, ethnic characteristics, religious beliefs, information resources, interdependence, mutual trust, etc. In this sense, soft power can be called cultural power. (..) Alastair Iain Johnston wrote in 1995 that different states have different predominant strategic preferences rooted in the early or formative experiences of the state. (..) Francis Fukuyama focuses on the sociability of culture or social trust in his book Trust: Social Virtue and Creation of Prosperity. A nation’s welfare and competitiveness, he argues, are conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic. This is social trust at work as a precondition for success in the global economy. (..) Culture determines the degree of social trust and influences the nature of cooperative institutions. (..) cultural convergence thesis (..) the basic features of all advanced economies are relatively uniform (..) Many agree with Huntington that cultural differences will lead to conflicts (..) But the clash of civilizations must not be exaggerated (..) international relations are interactions among cultural systems. (..) Toynbee (..) idea of cultural convergence (..) Ernest Gellner held that the industrialized mode of production uniquely determines the culture of society: the same technology canalizes people into the same type of activity and the same kind of hierarchy. The result would be a global continuum of a basically homogeneous industrial culture. (..) U.S. put forward the strategy of peaceful evolution, using cultural power to conduct its strategy in a deliberately planned way. (..) In recent years, the United States, Japan, Russia, China and European Union have readjusted their strategies one after another aiming at bilateral or multilateral constructive and cooperative relations, friendly and cooperative relations, or strategic partnerships. (..) Culture, as a soft power, is the major root cause of the evolving model of contemporary international relations. (..) the integration of different cultures facilitates the interdependence of major powers, increases the probability of pursuing common interests and consensus, and then replaces the rule of zero-sum game with that of plus-sum game. (..) The interdependence of soft powers does not mean that everything is harmonious. Cultural differences necessarily lead to conflicts in international relations. (..) the national leaders’ ideas and decision-making criteria are shaped by long-term cultural evolution. (..) With the globalization of the world economy, national interests increasingly overlap and international interdependence expands. In the process of globalization, the cultural conflicts during interactions will be definitely limited and reduced. (..) the Western culture has many branches in its evolution. (..) Our world is rich and colorful. The diversity of civilizations is the basic feature of human society and also the driving force behind the progress of human civilization. (..)

Chris Welzel, Mass Beliefs and Democracy. How Values Shape Societies, 2002
All great historical empires (..) were organized in a strictly hierarchical and authoritarian way that forced ordinary people into rigid community discipline (..) In general, civilized society was characterized by imposing severe communal restrictions on human choice, except for the small number of privileged people. (..) exceptions are inherently linked with the institutions of the market, of citizenship, the rule of law, and of course: democracy. (..) the idea of democracy is inherently linked with a very specific conception of the human being and human nature. (..) human beings, including ordinary people, do not serve as means but as ends in the creation of societies. We may reasonably call this the prime premise of Humanism. (..) religious answers (..) individual free will and personal autonomy (..) -worldly salvation (..) Greek philosophy (..) human choice in private life and public affairs (..) Western Europe: the emergence of a commercialized market society (..) translated into another important institution: citizenship (..) citizenship implies the existence of individual rights (..) that limit predatory government (..) Thomas Jefferson, author of the declaration of Independence in 1776 A.D., derived his assertions from the humanistic principles of Greek classicism: human beings are born with the ability of self-determination (..) hence the only human and legitimate form of governing the people is governing by consent of the people (..) - (..) which is the very principle of democracy. (..) Herodotus (..) drawing a sharp line between civilized societies (the Greek city states) and barbarian societies (oriental despotic empires) (..) U.S.-governments divide the world into good and evil states (..) linkage between the beliefs and virtues of the people and the character of the regimes by which they are governed (..) a despotic empire is not able to mobilize the intrinsic motivation of their exploited people (..) precisely the mass motivation factor explains why the liberal societies of the West rather than the autocratic Soviet societies succeeded in the Cold War. (..) century B.C., Aristotle (..) differentiated three types of regimes defined by the scope of the number of rulers: one, some, many. And each form was divided in an ideal one and a perverted one, depending on whether the rulers actions were driven to achieve the public good or the rulers own profit. If there is only one person who governs, there can be a monarchy (ideal form) or tyranny (perverted form). Similarly, the rule of some people can manifest itself as aristocracy (ideal form) or oligarchy (perverted form). And finally, the rule of many people or the majority can appear as the polity (ideal form) or democracy (perverted form). (..) eighteenth century, Charles de Montesquieu reached surprisingly similar conclusions (..) people get the form of government they deserve (..) The English civil war and the Glorious Revolution (1689), which set a definitive end to absolute monarchical power, announced the beginning of the era of revolutions (..) mass-based legitimacy is the prime source of regime stability (..) coercive regimes invest large proportions of their available means into unproductive purposes, limiting their ability to provide public goods, such as social security systems as well as basic infrastructure in the fields of education, health service, communication and transport (..) The most consequential result of the political inclusion of the masses has been the evolution of modern democracy in the 19th century. (..) The principle no taxation without representation was born and introduced into the representative bodies of the late medieval age. (..) electoral reforms during the 19th century. The most decisive steps were the inclusion of the industrial working class and of females. Thus, the full evolution of modern democracy was accomplished at about the turn from the 19th to the 20th century (with New Zealand as the first full-fledged modern democracy). (..) Modern democracy is distinguished from classical democracy in its emphasis on representation. (..) market relations integrated all individuals as producers and consumers (..) explosion of economic productivity (..) mass prosperity (..) public goods and services (..) economic citizens (what Hegel called the bourgeois) (..) political citizenship (citoyen in Hegels terms (..) democracy (..) the only system that organizes the relationship between citizens and government interactively (..) Max Weber (..) argued that mass beliefs determine peoples economic behavior and through this the economic success of whole societies (..) Protestantism-Thesis (..) individualistic achievement-ethic of Protestantism gave rise to Western capitalism (..) Tawney turned back to a more materialist explanation, arguing that urban market capitalism was in place before Protestantism (..) spread of civic trust (..) the triangle that stood at the beginning of the modern age: (1) economic development and markets, (2) mass beliefs entailing a good deal of humanistic liberalism, and (3) liberal and social democratic citizenship. (..) citizenship was a real historical innovation, since the default case of civilized societies was predatory government in tribute-taking empires. (..) Democratic government, by contrast, may even take more revenues and taxes (depending on majority preferences) but is pressed to reinvest these resources for public goods and services in order to avoid of being deselected. (..) Liberal Western democracies have proven superior to any authoritarian alternative--whether fascist, communist or fundamentalist. (..) advantage of democracies: they leave room for peoples creativity, stimulate their economic, intellectual and civic initiative and thus also create greater collective achievements, both in terms of economic and cultural productivity. (..) 20th century history shows some decisive setbacks, illuminating how fast an almost perfectly designed democratic system can be replaced in face of severe economic crisis and social turmoil. (..) psychological research on the traits of the authoritarian or democratic personality (..) Milton Rokeachs distinction between the open and the closed mind. (..) that an open-minded person is relatively self-confident, tends to trust (..) feels free from anxiety and threat, is initiative, engaged, creative and achievement-oriented. (..) An authoritarian personality, whom one can find among adherents of right-wing ideologies (Falter 1982), shows opposite attitudes: relatively low self-esteem (often compensated by a cult physical strength), moral rigidity, resistance to innovations, little tolerance and trust (..) social psychology (..) Alex Inkeles (..) societal level: the more educated, urbanized, and industrialized a society on the whole, the larger the proportion of people with modern attitudes. (..) question why Weimar failed (..) Unlike institutionalists and elitists who believe that the stability of political orders is basically a matter of constitutional engineering or elite commitment, culturalists take it for granted that mass beliefs and attitudes are even more important. (..) Harry Ecksteins congruence theory (Eckstein 1961, 1966) (..) maintains that the authority rules of the political institutions must be congruent to the authority orientations that people have learnt in non-political institutions, such as the workplace and the school. Otherwise these political institutions are unstable. (..) systems theory (..) differentiated structures that fulfill unavoidable functions for the persistence of the whole system. The evolutionary premise, outlined in Talcott Parsons Evolutionary Universals in Society (1964), maintains that social systems are in a struggle for survival (..) Easton divided this cycle into two major strings: the input string carrying the citizens supports and demands to the institutions, and the output string carrying official policies to the citizens. (..) Over the years, the economic prosperity, social security and political stability that came along with the new German democracy have contributed to legitimize this system in the eyes of most of the Germans (..) - (..) in marked contrast to the experiences of Weimar. (..) The Political Action Study by Barnes and Kaase et al (..) It became obvious from the Political Action study that a massive cultural shift had taken place in which civic (i.e. non-violent) forms of unconventional participation did not replace but extend the citizens repertory of political action. (..) unconventional participation is always issue-oriented and issue-specific (..) Like civic associations, social movements may be considered as schools of democracy (..) Eastern Europe, dissident civic movements (..) from Industrial Society to Service Society (..) This is what Daniel Bell called the postindustrial society. (..) modern societies entered a third shift in which a growing proportion of the workforce intrudes into the knowledge sector, indicating the emergence of information society. (..) Party systems in representative democracies are politicized social structures. (..) Stein Rokkans Cleavage Theory (..) three major cleavages (..) a center-periphery cleavage (..) a religious-secular cleavage (..) urban-rural cleavage (..) In all Western democracies, the major conflict axis appeared between leftist socialist or social democratic parties, on one hand, and rightist Christian or conservative parties, on the other hand. And in all Western democracies the major substantial point of conflict was the economic balance between the welfare state and the market. (..) the growing proportion of employees in the service sector does not constitute an integrated social class that is attached to either a leftist or a rightist party. (..) the political process seems to become more issue-specific and this may increase the potentiality of direct democracy. (..) New politics points to cultural rather than economic conflicts, focusing on post-materialist goals that lay emphasis on questions of ecology and state authority versus individual liberty. (..) Logics of Party Formation (1989), Herbert Kitschelt (..) state-market cleavage (..) authoritarian-libertarian cleavage (..) theory of post-materialist value change (..) Inglehart (..) people tend to aspire for those goals that are most suited to the needs, demands and constraints of their social conditions. (..) value formation runs from the society to the individuals rather than the reverse. (..) , the concept of cultural fitness (..) Durham 1992) (..) modifications in the transmission of values from one generation to the next (..) According to Maslow, human needs are structured along a hierarchy, beginning with primary and secondary needs and ending with final needs. (..) Inglehart applied the logic of Maslows hierarchy of needs to the development of Western societies after World War II. (..) preferences Materialist Values (..) post-war generations took physical security and material prosperity merely for granted, which directed their motivations towards higher ordered needs (..) knowledge workers (..) fulfill their professions relatively autonomous, are used to process and communicate information and have learned to base decisions on their own judgement and expertise. (..) erosion of discipline and authority norms, if and insofar these norms restrict individual choices (..) new values and policy goals (..) criticism against the dominance of a merely economic and materialistic rationality (..) environmental movement and the Third World movement (..) anti-globalization movement (..) Inglehart (..) argued that the materialistic cleavage that so far divided the old left and right into adherents of the welfare state and adherents of the market will be replaced by a post-materialistic cleavage establishing a polarity between adherents of more libertarian, emancipatory and participatory goals (the new left) and adherents of more conservative, authoritarian and disciplinary goals (the new right). (..) The evidence, however, that Inglehart could provide had been debated in at least three aspects: (1) the usefulness of ranking-scales compared to rating scales; (2) the dimensionality of his materialistic and postmaterialistic attitudes; and (3) the trend towards postmaterialism (..) Test of the Theory of Postmaterialism (..) EUROBAROMETER (..) time series, ranging from 1973 to 1992 (..) no general decrease of materialistic preferences (..) Ingleharts theory of postmaterialistic value change has initiated a debate (..) A considerable part of these debates dealt with the usefulness of Ingleharts item-batteries and especially the fact that these batteries are organized as ranking scales. (..) Klages and Gensicke (1999) (..) People may apply different rankings, depending on the social situation. And many people may not see a trade-off between different values and may therefore give them equal priority. (..) Klages and Gensicke found out that many Germans have mixed value priorities, which means that people do not necessarily consider different goals as being conflicting. (..) Klages and Gensicke identified conventionalists who put emphasis on diligence, loyalty, and security. (..) idealists who emphasize social engagement and political participation. (..) hedonists on the other hand, who prefer private enjoyment, living standard and enforcement. (..) conventionalists and hedonists share an emphasis on diligence; idealists and conventionalists share an emphasis on helping others; and hedonists and idealists share an emphasis on creativity and openness. (..) realists, who highly emphasize simultaneously the goals of all three value types. (..) nihilists, who seem to have no values at all because they rate all values very low. (..) not post-materialism but rather post-authoritarianism, reflected in an emphasis on self-expression. (..) Flanagans (1987) critique against Inglehart (..) two different dimensions of value change (..) : the shift from economic to non-economic priorities (..) and the shift from authoritarian to libertarian value orientations (..) shift from authoritarian to emancipatory values (..) disagreement whether this change goes together with a decline of materialistic concerns, as the theory of postmaterialism maintains. (..) Schwartz (1990; 1992) (..) item battery of more than 50 different goals (..) survey in about 20 societies of very diverse cultural traditions (..) If human values are not structured in a general way, there can be no general theory of value change. (..) clarify whether the basic structure of human values is universal or not (..) two pairs of opposing principles. One dimension represents a polarity between the principle of self-enhancement, including power and achievement values, and the principle of self-transcendance, including universalism and benevolence values. The other conflict-axis reflects a polarity between the principle of openness to change (or choice & creativity), including self-direction and creativity values, and the principle of conservation (or order & discipline), including conformity and security values. (..) shift from conformity values to emancipatory values (..) suppressing a culture of choice & creativity creates civic malaise, while fostering a culture of choice & creativity helps to enhance civic benevolence. (..) cultures of choice & creativity (..) will tend to reach greater human achievements in terms of a societys technological, intellectual and artistic performance. (..) evolutionary advantage to societies that are based on cultures of choice & creativity in comparison to those societies that are dominated by cultures of order & discipline. (..) the concept of social capital (..) Robert Putnam (..) defines social capital as the norms and networks enabling and stimulating citizens to cooperate and to engage for collective goals. (..) current conceptions of civil society (Cohen & Arato 1992). (..) civil society organizations are part of the public sphere (..) they only include voluntary organizations (..) relevance of generalized interpersonal trust (..) Putnam (..) differentiates vertical forms and horizontal forms of trust (..) vertical (..) Horizontal (..) generalized trust (..) the proportion of people having trust (..) is a good predictor of a societys economic performance and other measures of societal benevolence, such as a low criminal record, little state repression, low corruption and good human rights performance (Knack & Keefer 1997). (..) Consensus of the Civics School (..) it is basically the character of the people, rather than that of the institutions and the elites, that determines a societys overall performance and development. (..) This position is strongly opposed by the institutionalists school (..) Making Democracy Work (..) Putnam (..) performance among the 19 autonomous regions of Italy (..) where the norms and networks of civic cooperation are more strongly developed, the political institutions and elites perform better (..) , Putnam (..) tries to invalidate the modernization theoretical argument that both social capital and public good provision are dependent on a third factor, namely socio-economic development. (..) it is civics, not economics that accounts for public policy performance. (..) , the emergence of social capital is something that evolves through history and cannot be easily created from scratch. (..) From my point of view, this is the least convincing point (..) there are also differences in economics (and not only in civics) that go back for centuries. (..) in the late medieval age (..) a diversified urban market society arose in the cities of the Po valley of Northern Italy (..) experience that trust (..) social capital (..) works in favor of democracy. The claim and the evidence, however, that social capital precedes economic development are weak. (..) 2. (..) The Bowling Alone Thesis (..) Putnam (..) (2000) (..) that networks and norms of civic cooperation are in general on a sharp decline in the U.S. since the mid 1970s. (..) tendencies of individualization (..) trend data indicating declines in political participation (voter turnout), religious bonds (church attendance), in membership rates in associations (..) , as well as in general social activities, like entertaining friends at dinners (..) since at least the mid 1970s (..) counter-trends, namely the florescence of self-help groups, local initiatives, NGOs and the networking of people through the Internet. (..) replacement of conventional by unconventional forms of civic engagement (..) conceptual confusions (..) ad hoc qualifications (..) symbolic identities connect people beyond the narrow circle of personal relationships (..) virtual communication eliminates the sources of prejudice (..) Putnam (..) confuses the bonding character of friendship with the bridging character of social trust (..) another trend: societal change towards increasing education, information and communication facilities, the increasing mobilization of peoples cognitive skills in their fields of work and increasing occupational as well as social diversification emancipate people from rigid social controls, dissolve them from social hierarchies and clientelistic ties and diminish the necessity of survival values that pronounce order, discipline and conformity. (..) trend of an emancipatory value change (..) cross-national differences in self-expression values (..) ranging from impoverished societies, like Nigeria, that show an extremely weak emphasis on self-expression, to nations, such as the Netherlands, that show a very strong emphasis on self-expression. (..) self-expression values are the most fundamental ingredient of a mass culture in which democracy flourishes (..) principle of exchange (..) the natural Giving-and-Taking (..) the Tit for Tat principle (..) the most successful strategy in exchange with others (..) encounter other people in a permissive and open-minded way (..) the openness-component is reflected in moral tolerance and social trust (..) strong secular orientation (..) liberty aspirations, civic protest, moral tolerance, life satisfaction, secular orientation and social trust (..) Considered as mass characteristics, these attitudes are more closely associated with each other than considered as individual characteristics. (..) Robinson (1950) was among the first who detected that the relationship between two variables can be very different at the individual level and the aggregate level. (..) alert us against simple cross-level inferences (..) As noted by Landes (1998:xx), 200 years ago the income ratio of the richest to the poorest nations was approximately 5:1. But uneven economic growth has dramatically risen this ratio up to 400:1 today. (..) The presence of self-expression values among the populace indicates a culture that is oriented to human emancipation. (..) human beings unique information processing capacities, allowing them to learn techniques and to plan projects (..) self-consciousness (..) the human psyche does not only consist of cognitions but also of emotions (..) the combination (..) produces a strive for positive self-experience in each human being (..) Usually, people tend to adapt their aspirations to these constraints (..) aspiration adjustment (..) Southern Italians distrust their fellow citizens and therefore support rigid community discipline. These citizens tend to put much emphasis on social control, public order, hierarchy, moral rigidity and strong authority - typical conformity values which prevail under restrictive human conditions. (..) we refuse the seemingly neutral position of cultural relativism (..) Measured against humanity and human nature, cultures of conformity are definitely inferior to cultures of emancipation because conformity values impose more serious constraints on unfolding the human potential in societies. (..) Liberty aspirations include negative as well as positive freedom (Rose 1995). Negative freedom implies the protection of an individuals private choices against public force, while positive freedom offers an individual public choices in the selection of office holders and official policies. (..) people with stronger liberty aspirations tend to show more social trust (..) emancipatory orientations imply a critical stance towards hierarchies and authorities. (..) the proportion of people having participated in petitions, demonstrations and civic boycotts increased considerably from 1974 to 2000 in five Western societies (..) the level of collective activity in modern democracies did by no means decline (..) networks, however, are increasingly informal and volatile (..) distinguish formal (i.e., merely constitutional) democracy and effective democracy. (..) Indian case (..) formal democracy (..) most Indians do not have the resources enabling them to exert their rights effectively. (..) elite integrity (..) distinguishes effective democracy from formal democracy (..) we operationalize effective democracy as the interaction between constitutional freedom and rule of law. (..) . Legitimacy, Communitarism, or Emancipatory Culture (..) the legitimacy camp (..) (Fuchs & Klingemann 1995; Klingemann 1999; Gibson 1995; Mishler & Rose 1998; Seligson 2001) (..) maintain that it is sufficient, if enough people have confidence into a societys basic institutions (..) attitudes and behaviors of a broader social concern are more important for democracy (..) networks and beliefs that integrate individuals into community life are of the utmost importance (..) active membership in voluntary associations (..) and interpersonal trust (..) as the civic ground on which democracies flourish. (..) The emancipatory approach argues (..) liberty aspirations (..) attitudes and behaviors that stimulate and activate people in favor of democracy (..) World Values Surveys (..) institutional confidence (..) has no significant impact on effective democracy. (..) association membership (..) no significant on effective democracy (..) Social trust (..) however, does have a pronounced impact on effective democracy (..) Each component of the self-expression value syndrome has a strong relationship to democracy. (..) Among the various components of self-expression values, liberty aspirations are clearly the one with the strongest partial effect on democracy. (..) the whole syndrome of self-expression values, as well as liberty aspirations as its most important single component, outperform support for democracy in predicting effective democracy. (..) effective democracy is best understood as the institutional reflection of an emancipatory culture (..) Bratton and Mattes (2001 (..) Afrobarometers (..) what people believe about the policy performance of democracies is a considerably better predictor of their support for democracy than is their emphasis on self-expression (..) This reflects again that self-expression values are not a necessary condition to generate support for democracy. (..) Support for democracy is too much inflated by instrumental motives (..) intrinsic support provides a stronger and more fundamental motivation (..) Democracy (..) normative model (..) emphasizing human agency, responsibility, choice and emancipation (..) moral commitment to the humanistic ethos of emancipation, as it is reflected in self-expression values (..) , these commitments only evolve with the cultural shift from conformity values to emancipative values. (..) social trust (..) liberty aspirations (..) creates an intrinsic preference for democracy. (..) doubts (..) one could argue that self-expression values are themselves a product of democratic traditions (..) However, this effect becomes very small once controlling for resource accumulation (..) These findings suggest that the emergence of self-expression values reflects primarily an increase in available individual resources, which then intensifies peoples attention to the entitlements granted through democracy.
(..) What we observe over the period from the 1980s to the 1990s is the most outstanding global series of transitions to democracy in human history (Kurzman 1998; Dorenspleet 2000). (..) decreasing Western support for allied authoritarian regimes, the World Banks good governance approach and the nullification of the Breshnev-doctrine are among the most obvious factors that settled the opportunity for an unprecedented series of transitions to democracy (Starr 1991; Siverson & Starr 1994; Robinson 1996). (..) Adherents of the elitist approaches insist that elite actions are always the most proximate factor in establishing democracies. (..) : liberty aspirations are an evolutionary phenomenon that accumulates rather slowly over time (..) conclusion that freedom rights tend to get adjusted to peoples emphasis on liberty and self-expression: freedom rights changes are adaptive to given mass emphasis on human emancipation. (..) international factor (..) windows of opportunity (..) international conditions unfold a timing effect (..) while the emancipative aspirations of the people provide a grading effect, influencing the degree to which these transitions proceed in different countries. (..) Summing this up, one can conclude that in the relationship between democratic institutions and emancipatory cultures the stronger causal arrow runs from culture to institutions. (..) The Theory of Human Development (..) three basic changes among societies: resource accumulation, rising cultures of emancipation, and the growth of democracy (..) Overall, societal levels of individual resources, emancipatory values and effective democracy tend to correspond to each other, as previous analyses have clearly shown. (..) conventional wisdom of classical modernization theory (..) What is new, is the empirical evidence that has been added in recent years (..) Nevertheless, we still lack an integrated theory of social change. (..) fundamental question: What is the common denominator underlying accumulating resources, rising emancipatory ambitions and democratic institutions? (..) We unfold a concept based on the principle of human choice. (..) the concept of Human Development as an integrating framework. (..) Anand and Sen (1998) (..) arguing that human choice, or the capability of human beings to choose the lives they want, should be the ultimate measure of social progress. (..) Welzel (2002), arguing that resource accumulation, rising emancipatory values and democracy work together in promoting human choice (..) Socioeconomic development includes a bundle of processes, such as urbanization, social mobilization and occupational differentiation, which increase social complexity and multiply social transactions between human beings (Bendix 1974; Durkheim 1988; Simmel 1984; Blau 1994). (..) replace vertical authority relations by horizontal exchange relations, giving people greater autonomy over their resources. (..) it also enlarges the amount of these resources (..) In short, socioeconomic development contributes the means-component to human choice. This view is as old as Aristotle and has been argued from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to Amartya Sen (2000). (..) The emancipatory change of values is the second subprocess relevant to human choice. (..) by giving self-expression values greater weight, the cultural shift from communal conformity to human emancipation contributes the motives-component to human choice. This is consistent with the notion that choice is not only a matter of ones means but also of ones mind and motivation (Rokeach 1960). (..) The third component of Human Development, liberal democracy, institutionalizes legal guarantees of choice in the citizens private and public activities. (..) traced back to Mill and Dewey who saw legal guarantees for individual self-development (Macpherson 1977: 44-76) as the core value of democracy. (..) Available individual resources, self-expression values and effective freedom rights are the three core elements of Human Development that represent its means-, motives- and rules-components. These components are provided by socioeconomic development, emancipatory cultural change and democratization, respectively. (..) The three components of Human Development all coincide in their focus on human choice. (..) Human Development is by no means a teleological concept. (..) Societies can move in either direction, towards more or towards less Human Development (..) concept of Human Development (..) having both a wider scope and a sharper focus (..) its scope is comprehensive, integrating major changes in the socioeconomic sphere, the cultural sphere, and the sphere of institutions. On the other hand, this concept is sharply focused on one theme: the growth (or decline) of human choice. (..) This insight is important. It implies that effective democracy is a developmental phenomenon rather than the product of enlightened elites or clever institutional engineering. (..) If the linkages of Human Development cover different cultural zones, then these linkages are universal, since they operate across cultural zones and not only within specific cultural zones. (..) Weber (1958), Eisenstadt (1986), Huntington (1996) and many others emphasized that nations cluster into larger units labeled country families, cultural zones, or civilizations. (..) the effect of individual resources on self-expression values and that of self-expression values on effective democracy remain highly significant across nations, even controlling for diffusion within cultural zones. This confirms that the two linkages of Human Development are independent of cultural zones to a considerable degree. (..) cultural zones and Human Development are not competing factors in a true sense. Instead, they represent interplaying factors that function complementary. (..) (1) nations belonging to regions and cultural zones that are more advanced in resource accumulation show also stronger emphasis on self-expression; and (2) nations belonging to regions and cultural zones where there is stronger emphasis on self-expression do also show higher degrees of effective democracy. (..) In conclusion, the linkages of Human Development are not culture-specific. They are universal.
(..) Mass emphasis on self-expression tends to produce integer elites who extend or sustain constitutional freedom. (..) There is little reason to assume a reverse causation behind the relationship between self-expression values and elite integrity. (..) growing individual resources and emancipatory values tend to strengthen and widen popular civic rights movements (..) more liberalizers among the elites (..) The Growth of Choice as a General Theme in Human Evolution (..) growth of choice operates as the basic motive linking biological and cultural evolution (..) the complexity of the nervous and sensory system determines the information processing capacities of living beings (..) a diminishing relevance of instinctive reactions in favor of an increasing degree of freedom in expression and behavior (..) . In a way, any religion appeals to the ideal of human freedom. The only peculiarity of religion in this respect is that it postpones the fulfillment of this ideal to the after-world, through the promise of salvation. Salvation in this sense is an emancipative act of personal liberation from this-worldly conditions that impose existential constraints on human choice (Nolan & Lenski 1999). (..) secular philosophies (..) consider the ideal of human choice as one that has to be realized in this-world. (..) Modeling options and processing choices is the most typically human ability. (..) self-consciousness (..) emotions (..) Different Environments (..) ecological factors (..) The relationship between geography and economy still exists (..) tropical climates are less conducive to economic development (..) Yet, it is possible to overcome disadvantageous ecological conditions by technology. (..) air conditioning machines (..) Biological evolution can be considered as the accumulation of life experience through coding these experiences chemically in our genetic code. (..) extremely slow process (..) advances through random mutations (..) no conscious learning in this selection process (..) The social evolution from less to more complex societies runs several thousands times faster than the genetic evolution from less to more complex organisms. (..) With the human brain, a new source of evolution appeared: a deliberate trial and error process in search of solutions to environmental challenges. Since that time, evolution has been accelerated and entered a new level: It shifted from the level of random genetic mutations to the level of active learning (Durham 1998). (..) Social evolution presupposes that life experiences of individuals be accumulated, becoming part of a collectively available pool of experiences. (..) the social accumulation of knowledge and experience is decoupled from genetic evolution, entering a new and independent field of evolution: human history (..) The pool of collectively shared experiences, as well as the norms, values, rules and standards that emerge from them, is what defines the culture of a community (Durham 1998). (..) accumulate knowledge and experience on a global scale (Cavalli-Sforza 1996). (..) Evolutionary Breakthrough: Mass Prosperity and Mass Democracy (..) mass democracy for the first time in history (..) about 150 years ago (..) societys cultural achievement was no longer measured by the luxury of its elites but by the wealth and well-being of the populace at large (..) This drove the Western societies into a competition for mass prosperity that propelled Human Development on a mass-scale. (..) Why the West? (..) North Western Europe (..) different conditions in solving the irrigation problem proved to be differently suited to fuel a societys Human Development (..) Considered in light of the polarity between conformity and emancipative values, the Oriental empire probably represents the historical configuration with the most rigorous emphasis on conformity values. (..) earned resources were not at the disposal of the individual, which was reflected in a complete absence of legal guarantees for private property (..) And without individual property there were no human rights and no civic entitlements. (..) The institution of citizenship, which includes the right for political representation, originated in societies with militia systems. Typical examples are free peasant republics and city republics. Militia systems, citizenship and republicanism are historically closely linked. (..) large landowners (..) nobility system (..) aristocratic system of governance (..) less democratic than are systems of governance under militia constitutions (..) also less autocratic than a despoty (..) over-taxation is a typical tendency in societies whose constituents have no exit- and voice-options (i.e., no human choice) (..) It ever was and still is the most significant indicator of low Human Development that everything is scarce and expensive, except human labor (Reinert 1994). (..) It is no accident that researchers characterized the Oriental empires as cleptocracies (Diamond 1997) or plundering machines (Tilly 1997). (..) Oriental civilizations were permanently exposed to the raids of nomads (..) In terms of the seed-yield ratio, soil productivity in the Oriental river basins clearly outperformed even that of Holland, which was the most productive agriculture in late medieval Europe. Thus, oriental agriculture allowed for and required a much denser population (..) The major advantage of the North Western climate are moderate differences in seasonal temperatures and above all sufficient and continuous rain fall (..) the individual availability of the most important economic resource, water, is guaranteed (..) farming can be conducted individually and autonomously within smaller social units, such as the nucleus family (..) extraordinary length of the European coastline (..) Closeness to the sea plus the dense net of navigable waterways facilitate transport, trade, communication, cultural diffusion and so: civic exchange in general (..) Thus, horizontal exchange relations between social entities gained at least the same significance as the vertical authority relations within them. (..) The settlement frontier expanded in an accelerated way from the 10th century onward. (..) settlers were attracted by privileged conditions into new frontier areas (..) This marks one decisive origin of Human Development: the scarcity of the human factor, which increases its economic value and consequently also its ethical value. (..) As a system of autonomous local entities, the feudal system resulted from the dissolution of the Roman Empire (Pirenne 1982 (..) Northwestern Europe, was far beyond the reach of the raids of the nomadic steppe peoples of Central Asia. (..) As soon as the raids of the Norman Vikings came to an end in the 11th century, Northwestern Europe was completely saved from any nomadic threat. (..) Being isolated from the empire-building forces of the Orient and not disposing of the natural conditions that command centrally planned economies, European monarchs were unable to establish a sustainable continental empire. (..) Exit-options and the scarcity of the labor force, gave rulers an incentive to treat their subjects less repressive (North 1981: 129). (..) the feudal system of Europe (..) was based on mutual obligations (..) This minimum sense of human dignity reflects a spirit that found a more explicit philosophical expression later on in the humanistic ethos of Renaissance and Protestantism. (..) The European agricultural economy was less labor-intensive than the Oriental agriculture (..) the right of young men to marry was tied to their ability to sustain an own household (..) directed the incentives of the young men at accumulating savings and improving their working skills (..) Northwestern Europe (..) its particular type of rainfall farming was linked with a low labor-intensity and high labor-productivity. This was a crucial precondition to accumulate individual resources. (..) ordinary Europeans had better clothing, more varied food, more furniture and more household utensils [while] century after century the standard of living in China, India, Mesopotamia and Egypt hovered slightly above or below what might be called the threshold of pauperization (..) The nuclear family came into existence much earlier and served as a precondition to the commercial revolution in the 14th century. (..) Commercial Revolution (..) agrarian surplus (..) differentiated division of labor (..) money economy (..) This Commercial Revolution rested on productivity growth in the agricultural sector (..) From those capital-intensive (Tilly 1997) areas emerged Europes central city belt (..) The towns, far-distance trade and the monetized economy began to flourish since the 12th century (Pirenne 1982: 191-232). (..) capitalism manifested itself as the dominating economic pattern (..) This commercial revolution signifies the outbreak from the poverty trap of Oriental civilizations. (..) low labor intensity and the high intensity of animal capital and physical capital in the Northwestern economy (..) increased the labor-productivity (..) the horse- or ox-trekked iron plow (..) represented the core technology of the Northwestern agriculture (..) the application of mills, in particular water mills (..) Furthermore, in the 13th century there was a rapid spread of windmills again in Northwestern Europe. (..) more balanced relationship in the availability of field crops and animal products, enriching the Europeans nutrition with animal protein (Mann 1989: 15). Better nutrition in turn improved health and life expectancy among Northwestern Europeans (Landes 1998: 37). (..) improvement of housing conditions (..) Housing technology suitable to control the indoor climate improved substantially with the use of the chimney, coal and glass for windows. (..) What Francis Bacon could label as the three greatest inventions of all mankind - the compass, gunpowder and printing - were all developed in China (Sowell 1994: 248). But in China such innovations were guarded like state secrets, while in Europe innovations came rapidly into popular use. (..) Similar differences apply to the patterns of commerce and trade. Chinese trade served the luxury needs of courts and palaces. (..) the European economy was very early targeted at the demands of the masses (..) Europe (..) spared from climatic disasters (..) nomad raids (..) Russia, by contrast, was thrown back in its development for centuries under the rule of the Mongols. (..) The economic value of the human factor created the material basis of its ethical appraisal. (..) Not by accident, the humanistic ethos of the Renaissance did not emerge before but after the Commercial Revolution; and not by accident did it not occur in the rural areas but in the most vivid urban centers of European capitalism: Northern Italy and Flanders. The humanistic ethos emerged after the Commercial Revolution in the most commercialized areas. (..) Protestantism may have strengthened capitalism but it did not cause the rise of capitalism, as some interpreters of Max Weber suggest. Capitalism was prior to Protestantism. (..) small property farming (..) In addition, further improvements of the legal system had been achieved in promoting the commercial dynamic. (..) Property rights and contractual laws enhanced trust (..) in bargaining procedures, which facilitated economic exchange. (..) Another improvement in the rule of law occurred in the 15th century: the introduction of patent rights that protected technological innovations. (..) The selective incentives worked in favor of experimenting, learning and innovating activities, widening the scope of human choice. (..) The need for innovations in turn directed attention to research, discoveries and the sciences. (..) A market for the distribution of know-how and experience emerged, launching a boom of book printing. Only twenty years after Guntenbergs death (1468), there were about 1,700 printing machines in use across 300 Western European cities (Jones 1985: 61). (..) conditions that gave rise to a culture that emphasizes choice and creativity - precisely the principles that fuel the emancipative strive for freedom and civic rights (..) Europes political disunity facilitated competition and experimentation (..) Just in the moment when China, the most prominent candidate for a technological breakthrough into the industrial age, decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world, Europeans began to explore the world and to dominate it. (..) Holland and England became the centers of Atlantic Capitalism. (..) English and Dutch colonial activities derived from commercial initiatives and were financed and managed by private organizations, the East India Companies. Hence, it was not the monarchy but the commercial middle class that profited from colonial enterprises. This strengthened the middle classs bargaining power against the monarch. (..) The Commercial Revolution prompted what Depak Lal (1998) calls Smithenean growth. (..) the Promethean growth that came with the Industrial Revolution. (..) Europe was spared from being united within a continental empire. Instead of an empire, Europe represented a multipolar system of rivaling territorial units (..) under high competitive pressure (..) the number of sovereign territorial units shrank from about 200 in 1390 to about 25 in 1890 (Hall 1989: 239; Tilly 1997: 42). (..) In order to strengthen their military capacities (..) the monarchs exerted many measures to increase the wealth and prosperity of the population (Mieck 1981: 177). (..) The town burgers and other property-owning estates conceded to the monarch the right to raise taxes in exchange for their right to vote on royal projects in particular assemblies: the parliaments. (..) No taxation without representation was the core principle that governed this constitutional arrangement. (..) the representative constitution established citizenship and civic rights (..) In both Athens and Rome (..) crises when increasing land concentration in the hands of a few large property owners shattered the free farmer structure (..) transition from the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire--a military dictatorship resembling more and more an Oriental despoty (..) From the logic of their genesis, freedom rights are the concession to the emancipative aspirations of those who possess something. In the sense that capitalism increased property and enlarged the circle of property owners, capitalism is the cradle of Human Development. (..) the two powers of the capitalistic center, England and Holland, where the absolutist onslaught failed early and decisively; and the three powers of the capitalistic periphery, Prussia, Austria and Russia, where absolutism manifested itself early and thoroughly (..) the power of Western monarchies derived from a commercial-societal development rather than from a military-bureaucratic development. The commercial florescence opened up affluent tax sources for the monarchs. The price to be paid for tax extraction, however, was the parliamentary representation of the tax payers (Downing 1992: 36-38). (..) The Atlantic Revolutions in 17th and 18th century Holland, England, France and Northern America were just anti-tax rebellions (Moore 1966; Wallerstein 1974). To carry through the demand no taxation without representation was driving the Dutchs fight for independence against the Spanish Habsburgs (1572-1648), the English parliaments war against the absolutist Tudor kings (1642-48), the war of independence of the New England colonies against English sovereignty (1776-83) as well the French Revolution (1789) that ended the Bourbons absolute rule. In a sense, these Atlantic Revolutions (Wallerstein) were conservative. They carried through the principle of assembly-power against the ambitions of monarchs aiming at establishing absolute rule. (..) It was the evolutionary logic of the representative principle that allowed for this co-evolvement of available resources, duties to the state and personal as well as political rights. (..) This commercial society was characterized by horizontal networks of economic exchange, and it nourished a civil society that created horizontal networks of civic exchange. (..) The florescence of civil society was reflected in a multiplicity of autonomous judicial corporations (..) only in combination with the commercial weakness does the geo-political situation explain the Eastern tendency to militarism (..) England, Switzerland and the Netherlands were those countries that had the weakest absolutistic tendencies. (..) capital-poor East, Prussia, Austria and Russia (..) military-absolutistic constitution (..) Spain (..) The state-driven exploitation of the silver mines in Latin-America provided the Habsburgs external resources, making their activities independent from tax endowments of the commercial middle class. (..) The imperialism of the Spanish Habsburgs received additional support through its coalition with the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Great Inquisition gave the monarchy the legitimacy to suppress any form of non-conformism (Chirot 1986: 15). (..) in Scandinavia elements of absolutist royal rule were replaced by a representative constitution long before industrialization (..) the decisive turning point in favor of absolute rule, in France as well as in Prussia, occurred with the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). (..) the splendor of the Bourbon’s court ended up in financial bankruptcy (..) quest for new taxes (..) was one of the reasons of the French Revolution in 1789, by which the bourgeoisie terminated absolutism in France. (..) Switzerland and the Netherlands (..) Like England, these nations managed an evolutionary transition from the aristocratic representative constitution of the late Medieval commercial era to the democratic representative constitution of the modern industrial era. (..) the usual connection between the existence of highly commercialized economic centers and strong liberal-representative institutions did not manifest itself in Germany and Italy for a long time (..) The stage for the Industrial Revolution was settled in the centers of Atlantic capitalism, Northwestern Europe and Northern America, through the agricultural and commercial revolutions (North 1981: 161). (..) the economic improvement of human conditions was reflected ethically, in the humanistic philosophy of the Renaissance and the human rights doctrine that has been pointed out during the Enlightenment by Kant, Locke and Jefferson. (..) early industrialization was equal to pauperization (..) Only the second phase of industrialization produced increasing incomes on a mass-scale (..) at about the end of the 19th century (..) the introduction of a general income tax (for the first time in England 1843) strengthened the demand for general suffrage (..) Extending the principle of representation to all social classes meant to transform the liberal representative system into a democratic representative system. Through this step, modern mass democracies were born. Modern democracy is different from ancient democracy in that it includes almost all adults into the political community. (..) labor movement (..) solidarity, which implies strong pressure into group conformity. (..) no accident that human rights have been invented in the English, American and French Revolutions in the pre-industrial age (..) members of the working class (partly because of low education) are significantly more authoritarian (..) constituents of the commercialized Western societies were open to emancipative ideas, such as those proponed by the philosophy of Humanism or the conception of ‘individual priesthood’ that Protestantism had propagated. (..) the representative constitution had been consolidated against the idea of royal absolutism through the ‘Atlantic Revolutions’ (Braudel). In the centers of Atlantic Capitalism, the state obtained only limited coercive means. And these means were under full civil control by parliaments whose influence reached into the government itself. (..) two markedly contrasting constellations (..) a weak civil society with a strong coercive state in the periphery of Atlantic Capitalism (the ‘coercive’ model), and a strong civil society with a weak coercive state in the centers of Atlantic Capitalism (the ‘civic’ model). (..) What the societies of the civic tradition achieved already in the industrial age, the societies of the coercive tradition achieved only in the post-industrial era. (..) Failure and Success of Democracies in Colonial Areas (..) The growth of individual resources tends to give rise to an ethos that emphasizes human autonomy and emancipation. (..) liberal democracy is the third element of an improving human condition (..) because it establishes civic rights that define legal guarantees for choice in one’s private and public activities. (..) Anglo-American colonies (..) egalitarian society of free farmers and merchants (..) Latin-American colonies (..) aristocracy (..) plantation economy that conscribed Non-Europeans to forced labor (..) coercive state (..) Europeans established plantation economies in most of Africa and Asia. This implied the conscription of the native population to forced labor and made it necessary to sustain coercive regimes that served European interests. (..) independence in the early 1960s (..) parasitic state (..) parasitic class of state-agents (..) prevented economic growth and most developing societies remained poor until today (..) To sum this up, we can conclude that the emergence of liberal regimes, civic rights and democracy is connected in each era and area with the availability of individual resources and the preeminence of emancipative over submissive values. Available resources, emancipative values and civic rights represent a universal threefold. These three elements converge in widening human choice in societies. (..) An Evolutionary Theory of Democracy (..) evolutionary advancement (..) available resources and emancipative values (..) improved the material and ethical conditions of human choice (..) why did democracy outperform alternative systems (..) The answer is that alternative systems impose constraints on human choice, while democracy institutionalizes legal guarantees of choice. (..) it is the evolutionary advantage of democracy to be the system that suits best the most unique feature of human nature: the ability and strive to experiment, to learn and to process choice. (..) democracy is based on informational pluralism and discourse. This increases the potential for collective learning, which is an evolutionary advantage in itself. This advantage, too, rests on the principle of human choice: choice among information, interpretations, and solutions. This is a feature in human evolution that will probably become even more prominent in the information age. (..) broader evolutionary process, in which the scope of human choice is widening (..) The connectedness of democracy to this evolutionary process gives it a competitive advantage in the regime selection process. (..)
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http://www.iu-bremen.de/imperia/md/content/groups/welzel-group-content/teachingmaterial/17.doc.
 
Peter Turchin, Historical Dynamics (..) ch. 3 GROUPS IN SOCIOLOGY (..) ultimately sociological theories should be based on the properties of individuals (..) human groups are more than simple collections of individuals (..) First, (..) understand how group dynamics arise from individualaction (..) and then (..) use group properties to model polity dynamics (..) the tendency to draw social boundaries and the capacity for group-oriented action (..) demarcate group membership (..) recognition markers (..) language (..) Phenotypic similarity (..) visible resemblance of facial and body form (and evenodor); movement patterns, facial expression, and behavioral stereotypes (..) kinship (..) religion (..) territory (..) how societies can hold together (..) precontractual solidarity (..) the functioning of society can only be understood as a mixture of self-centered (rational) and group-centered ("extra-rational") behaviors (..) we need a theory for how group-promoting norms could arise in the process of social evolution (..) reciprocity, punishment, kin-selection, and group selection(Richerson and Boyd 1998) (..) Reciprocity as a mechanism for building trust and cooperation in long-continued interactions (..) simple strategy, "tit-for-tat" (..) solution in the repeated prisoner’s dilemma game (..) mechanism for evolution of altruism is multi-level selection (Sober andWIlson 1991), (..) isleveling institutions, such as monogamy and food sharing (..) segmentation, conformism, and parochialism (..) Once the barriers imposed by kinship and reciprocity are breachedby cultural group selection, it is not clear what the next natural evolutionary limitto scale of cooperation is" (Richerson and Boyd 1998:91-92). (..) some kind of group selection (..) one emphasizing the biological ("genetic") as-pect (Sober and WIlson 1991), and the other emphasizing the cultural aspect(Boyd and Richerson 1985) of group selection (..) ethnicityOne very important type of human collective is the ethnic group. (..) boundaries between "us" and "them". (..) Ethnic groups appear to be quintessential human groups. (..) The reason, mostlikely, is that ethnicity was the basis of social organization in humans during mostof their evolutionary history. (..) Ethnicity has been defined by Brass (1991:18) as a sense of ethnic identitythat consists of the subjective, symbolic or emblematic use by a group of peopleof any aspect of culture, in order to create internal cohesion and differentiate themselves from other groups. (..) religious sects (..) example (..) theYoruba and Ibo (Muslim and Christian) in Nigeria. (..) . Most people think of themselves as having several ethnic identities, nested within each other. (..) ethnos is typically used for that level of ethnic groups that roughly corresponds to modern nations (..) Metaethnic identity (..) an Egyptian is also an Arab, aSunni Muslim, and finally, a Muslim (so we need several meta’s to designate these identities). (..) the strength of collective solidarity usually varies with the scale of ethnic group (..) second term, ethnie (..) Smith 2000 (..) two types of ethnies (..) The first is lateral or aristocratic ethnie (..) The second type is vertical or demotic ethnie (..) The important point is that lower strata of an ethnie can have a variable sense of solidarity with the elites. (..) "the best-organized group usu-ally wins, and that means the group with the most internal solidarity" (Collins1992:26, see also Richerson and Boyd 1998). (..) theoryThe fourteenth century Arab thinker Ibn Khaldun was probably the first sociolo-gist in the modern sense (Gellner 1981). (..) theory of political cycles (..) the key concept of his theory: asabiya, which Rosenthal translates as "group feeling". (..) In general, asabiya arises from "the social inter-course, friendly association, long familiarity, and companionship" (..) Ibn Khaldun (1958:II:119-122) essentially argues that access to luxuries causes increased intraelite competition and eventually intraelite conflict. As a result, asabiya rapidly declines. (..) another major factor that causesthe disintegration of the state: (..) general prosperity leads to population growth, which in turn leads to scarcity, increased oppression by the elites, and eventually state collapse (..) explicit connection (..) between ethnie and polity dynamics (..) key concept (..) passionarity (..) Individuals with high passionarity (passionaries) purse, with great energy, some goal that is usually extra rational. (..) motivated (..) by some higher goal (..) second key concept (..) ethnogenesis (..) the process by which (..) members of an ethnie become passionaries (..) , ethnicity and polity are variables that may be dynamically connected (..) relation between the process of ethnogenesis and enhanced collective solidarity (..) Durkheim(1915, 1933). (..) Durkheim contrasted two kinds of solidarities: mechanical that was basedon similarity between individuals and organic that was based on complementarityor mutual interdependence. (..) the Durkheimian concept of organic solidarity appears to be primarily applicable to industrial societies. (..) social capital (..) Putnam (..) social trust (..) Fukuyama1995 (..) "Social capital here refersto features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks, that canimprove the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action" (Putnam et al. 1993: 167). (..) two forms of social capital: bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or exclusive) (Putnam 2000:22). (..) Examples of bonding social capital include ethnic fraternal organizations and exclusive country clubs, while civil rights movement and ecumenical religious organizations are examples of bridging social capital. (..) social capital may have its "dark side" (..) power elites exploiting social capital (..) social capital as a much more useful (..) concept than collectivism (..) lack of interpersonal association, trust, and cooperation (..) leads to ineffective and corrupt local government. (..) Gambetta (1988, 1993:77) (..) endemic distrust is the crucial difference (..) settle on asabiya as the term for the central concept in the theory (..) the group’s capacity for collective action (..) the ability of a group to defenditself and its resources (..) we want to generalize the notion of asabiya to apply to all kinds of agrarian polities. (..) I will restrict the term asabiya(the capacity of a group for collective action) to agrarian and extractive societies. (..) quantitative data (..) willingness to provide recruits for the army and to pay taxes (..) solidaristic behaviors (..) impose costs on the individual performing the behavior, but yield group-level benefits. (I distinguish solidaristic from altruistic behaviors: whereas the latter benefit other individuals, the former benefit the group as a whole.) (..) Individuals are embedded in a system of hierarchically nested ethnic groups—family, community, subethnie, ethnie, and metaethnie. (..) two main dimensions along which polities are structured (..) The first isthe socio-economic stratification, where we can distinguish elites who hold power from commoners concerned with producing goods. The second is the ethnic di-mension, where we can distinguish core ethnies from the rest (alloethnies). (..) ethnie and polity exist in astate of dynamic interaction (..) both are components of an ethnopolitical system (..) conditions that (..) increase intergroup variation and decrease intragroup variation (..) Intergroup conflict (..) The ratio of population to resources (..) In-ternally divisive issues will eventually destroy the asabiya of the large group,unless "disciplined" by an external threat. (..) my third proposed factor that enhances evolution of asabiya (for large-scale groups) is location near a major ethnic boundary (..) Exclusionary religions are those that disallow simultaneous membership in other religions or cults. (..) A riverine environment, therefore, is an excellent place for an ethnicgroup to grow up in scale. (..) The new empire is initially governed by highly solidary elites, and is successfulin maintaining internal peace (all warfare is transferred to the frontiers). (..) specific cultural structures that enable asabiya to scale up (..) Religion. (..) exclusionary religions (..) Christianity (..) Muslimworld (Dar al-Islam) (..) Primogeniture.An example of a political structure that increases group cohesion is the institutionof rulership, in which one group member becomes a symbolic focus for thewhole group. (..) , why did agrarian polities on the North African frontier only reach regional size, while on the Inner Asian frontier they typically expanded to imperial size? (..) evolutionary pressure for scaling up (..) resulting in huge empires on both sides of the frontier (..) External conflict–internal cohesion theory. (..) If a group is lacking in basic consensus, external threat may lead to apathy, and the group disintegrates (..) Frontiers in history. (..) frontier between the agrarian China and steppe-dwelling nomads (..) consensus that frontiers played an extremely important role in history (..) frontier location (..) puts a lot of pressure on ethnic groups, so that only the most capable survive (..) diffusion of technology (..) frontiers are characterized by a great amount of cultural variation, which, according to the theory of multilevel selection, should speed up cultural evolution (..) world-systems theory (..) One basic premise shared by researchers working within the world-systems paradigm is that dynamics of any single polity or society are not endogenous, but are a consequence of complex interactions among local, regional, and global processes (..) the metaethnic frontier theory (..) says that only those semiperipheries where imperial frontiers coincide with metaethnic faultlines should be the sources of aggressive challenger states. (..) Ethnogenesis. (..) (2000, 2001) (..) defines a frontier as a region or zone where two or more distinct cultures, societies, ethnic groups, or mode of production come into contact. (..) Frontiers are zones where ethnogenesis, ethnocide, culturicide, and genocide are common (..) conditional altruists are likely to follow selfish strategies,because they do not wish to be taken advantage of by free riders (..) it is the logistic that matches best the hypothesized dynamics of asabiya growth (..) asabiya(capacity for collective action). (..) what conditions favor evolution of collective solidarity (..) location near a center of large polity (..) should promote asabiya decrease (..) Low population density (..) favoring the increase of asabiya (..) location near a major metaethnic faultline (..) Metaethnic frontiers are regionswhere all three factors (intergroup conflict, population density, and deep ethnic divides) work synergistically. (..) With over 50 cultural regions and 19 centuries I have close to a thousand area-centuries, which are my main data units for analysis of shifting frontiers in Europe0–1900 CE. (..) four components, based on differences in religion, language, way of life, and the pressure of warfare. (..) Essentially all large polities that are found on the map of Europe during the 500–1000 CE were organized by peoples who went through ethnogenesis on the frontier of the Roman Empire. (..) geographical position does not affect either positively or negatively the eventual polity size (..) I argue that the metaethnic frontier theory provides a coherent explanation for the spatio-temporal pattern of political development in the post-Roman Europe. (..) the general explanation, based on the link between frontiers and collective solidarity should work outside of Europe. (..) although the frontier model predicted correctly the majority of large territorial polities (at least for Europe 500–1900 CE), it did not predict a few others. This observation suggests that there may be other mechanisms,in addition to the frontier one, that explain the genesis of large territorial polities. (..)
source:
http://www.santafe.edu/files/gems/coevolutionV/collectivesolidarity.pdf
 
Hans-Peter Müller, Local traditions in global competition.
Cultural indicators of the non-European world - (..) a new tool for determining national performance in development (..) Hans-Peter Müller, University of Zürich (Switzerland) (..) culture as a specific configuration of institutional settings of past or present societies (..) impact of the cultural heritage on development (..) Strong correlations between traditional ways of life and socioeconomic indicators (..) cultural "diversity" is increasing (..) National structures and dynamic results from an interplay of forces, one local, one global. (..) commercial capitalist systems in expansion (..) extricate persons from their embeddedness in 'traditional' relations and (..) reintegrate them as individual subjects in a more abstract set of contract and monetary relations in which personal and kinship relations become increasingly marginalized (..) (Friedman 1994: 27) (..) culture-oriented authors frequently take an isolationist and essentialist position (..) Materialistic explanations (..) Evolution is defined as an accumulative process of economic, social and political growth, with modern development as its most recent historical expression. (..) Lenski and Nolan (1984) (..) separated countries with pre-colonial plough agriculture from countries with traditional horticulture (slash and burn technology and garden production). (..) In their empirical analysis all the agricultural societies were Asian, and all the horticultural societies African, including Papua New Guinea. They found that countries with agricultural traditions occupy higher development positions than countries with horticultural traditions at the present time. (..) The value school (..) Idealistic approaches define culture as a dominant factor which explains the rest (..) example (..) Max Weber's thesis on the contribution of Protestantism to the development of European capitalism. (..) Edward Banfield's The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (..) social ties and moral obligation (..) limited to the nuclear family (..) outside of this, individuals did not trust each other (..) In a highly stimulating book entitled "Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity", Fukuyama (1995) argues in favor of an institutional interpretation of values. (..) "The most effective [modern] organizations are based on communities of shared ethical values. These communities do not require extensive contract and legal regulation of their relations because prior moral consensus gives members of the groups a basis for mutual trust" (..) widespread distrust in a society imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity. (..) four fundamental factors: (1) the degree of identification with others in a society - the radius of trust, or the sense of community; (2) the rigor of the ethical system; (3) the way authority is exercised within the society; and (4) attitudes about work, innovation, saving, and profit. These factors flow from the overarching world view of a society, what social scientists refer to as 'cognitive orientation' or 'cognitive view'" (1992:10). (..) In social anthropology, the term "culture" designates whatever has been created and is socially transmitted through symbolising activities. (..) . Generic culture refers to the universality of the human elaboration of symbols. (..) All human societies must fulfil certain tasks if basic human needs are to be satisfied. I am going to call these tasks core functions (..) (1) the modes of production (..) (3) public order (..) (4) socialization (..) Differential (..) culture describes the specific institutional settings in space and time which ensure the fulfilment of the core functions. (..) (1) technology; (2) social organization; and (3) symbols (..) A functional and structural model of culture. (..)  

(..) Those institutions not linked to structural complexity will be defined as cultural style. (..) It is commonly assumed that the modernization of economic, social and symbolic means will automatically result in improved functional performance. Empirical evidence rather points to the contrary (..) Cultural traits which are relevant neither for core functions nor structural growth constitute the cultural style. (..) Societies with the same mode of production (structural complexity) may show great variations in cultural style (e.g. Fiske 1991; Hofstede 1980). (..) example (..) European (..) undifferentiated kinship system (..) initiation rites (..) symbols of cultural identity and social cohesion (..) energy-intensive and individualistic patterns of Western life-style (..) "development" (or "civilization") is always multidimensional, including weaponry as much as priestly knowledge, machinery as well as education and human rights. (..) data (..) (1) a data bank of economic, social and political traits in approximately 3000 precolonial cultural units in Africa, Asia, and Melanesia; (2) a data bank of cultural indicators for 95 non-European countries, 29 Chinese provinces and 25 Indian states; (3) a collection of 36 regional maps locating the precolonial cultural units and showing the distribution of the cultural traits . (..) the data open an amazing view of the cultural diversity of the precolonial past (..) The final list contains a set of 51 variables in total, most of them selected from the "Ethnographic Atlas" by G.P. Murdock. (..) 87 non-Western nations in Africa, Asia and Oceania: Sociopolitical differentiation and Agro-technical Efficiency (..)

(..) The linguistic homogeneity and heterogeneity of nations. (..) Linguistically homogenous countries where the Linguistically heterogeneous countries where the dominant language is spoken by at least 90% dominant language is spoken by 1/3 of the (..) of the national population. national population at most. (..)   (..)   (..)   (..) It is remarkable that among the 18 linguistically homogeneous countries, all but Burundi and Rwanda belong to the Asian or Arab group. This is in sharp contrast to the 13 linguistically most heterogeneous countries, all of which (with the notable exception of India) are in Africa, south of the Sahara. (..) Religious universalism (..) Countries normally have several spoken languages, but only one dominant body of religion. (..) kinds of competition between the religions (..) On the one hand, monotheistic or universalistic world religions compete with animistic, local or kinship based religions. On the other hand, there is competition among "universalistic" religions. (..) local religions (..) replaced by religious forms which transcent local social networks (..) "universalistic" (decontextualized) and "local" (contextual) religions (..) Figure 6 shows the situation in non-European countries in Africa, Asia, and Melanesia. On the vertical axis, the proportion of people adhering to a dominant world religion is indicated. The horizontal axis indicates the proportion of believers in local cults. (..) Homogenous and heterogenous countries in terms of religion (..)

(..) Religion defines relatively large areas of shared meanings and symbolic practice. (..) Cultural Style (..) 1) Variations in the traditional type of subsistence economy: (..) - the relative importance of animal husbandry for the daily diet; (..) - the relative importance of nomadic cattle-raising compared to sedentary agriculture. (..) 2) Variations in the traditional type of kinship organization: (..) - the elaboration of a lineage organization in marriage und kinship; (..) - the relative importance of patri- vs. matrilinear rules in inheritence. (..) 3) Variations in the type of "decontextualized" religions prevailing in 1960: (..) - % of christians in the national population; (..) - % of muslims in the national population; (..) - % of "non-theistic" religions or moral systems (Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism etc.) in the national population; (..) correlations indicate two distinct and broad cultural complexes: on the one hand, different configurations of nomadic herders with a tendency to patrifocal kinship organization and the islamic religion (clear exception: Mongolia); on the other hand, configurations of various agri- and horticulturalists. It should be noted that the distincion between pastoralism, based on animal converters, and agriculture, based on vegetable converters, first of all reflects adaptations to different environmental conditions, not different stages in cultural evolution. (..) Links between culture and development are discussed under the premises: (I) that culture is not reduced to religion, language and art, i.e. to symbolic expressions, and (II) that the cultural heritage from the past is expressed as properties of modern states. (..) "Culture" defines a specific, socially institutionalized way of life. Three central areas of cultural functioning are distinguished: (I) zechnology; (II) economic, social, and political organisation; and (III) normative codes and values. (..) Two-level analysis for an explanation of economic development

strategies of development (..) yield the best qualitative results when they start out explicitly from specific cultural preconditions (Kottak 1990). (..) development can also be conceived as cultural change (..) the cultural core shifts from the religious to the technological. (..) shift from ancestors, priests, temples and palaces to material infrastructure, health, education and mass consumption, and from rejoicing in family and inter-generational continuity to a fascination with individual self-realisation and technological control of the environment. (..) Whereas the main differences in economic style could be interpreted, to a large extent, as adaptations to different climatic conditions, the differences in kinship organization and religion seem to reflect rather arbitrary historical particularities. (..) Quantitative (..) and qualitative (..)

economic (..) organization of societies (..) According to Nolan/Lenski (1984), efficiency was operationalized in terms of energy conversion and output per hectare (Adams 1988; Debeire 1991), (..) social (..) and political organization (..) the sociopolitical differentiation (SPD) together with the degree of territorial homogenization in terms of religion and language are strong predictors for successful nation building, power and bargaining capacity in the world system. (..) qualities of the local kinship (..) social units within which trust is rational behavior (..) In the world system, political power depends on the economic capacity to extract ressources from other countries, partly civilized by international norms. (..) symbolic (..) field (..) in three domains: religion, language, and kinship organization. (..) qualitative properties of the symbolic universes are expected to matter a lot in the constitution of world society (..) I expect that the role of women in development, their productive and reproductive choices, and their civic, cultural and political participation at all levels (UNESCO 1995: 273) are influenced by the type of traditional kinship organization. (..) However, the principles of efficiency, power, and legitimization are ambivalent since they play both an integrative and a disintegrative role in the process of globalization. (..) As long as secure access to jobs, ressources, and political influence continues to be the privilege of small minorities in the world population, contextualized identity space should not be delegitimized too early by global ideologies reflecting, after all, highly particularistic interests of a particular social class. In a context of increasing social polarization, the majority of people remain in too marginal a position to reasonably turn to Western individualistic strategies and value patterns. As long as the dominant actors are not willing to change the rules of the game, poor people may find themselves better-off when they reproduce or construct social networks which are inspired by traditional notions of power, legitimization, honor, shame, and gender roles. (..) It is my hypothesis that modern changes more often than not reproduce pre-existing historical differences. (..) ATE = Agro-Technical Efficciency (..) Some hypotheses on structural complexity. (..) The cultural heritage may be understood as a baseline for the processes of cultural transformation. The institutional and psychological features of particular cultures constitute local resources for development. (..) Economic (and structural) growth is a necessary, though not a sufficient condition of development in the poorer section of the world system. (..) strategies under particular external conditions, like climate, soil, raw materials, world market prices, position in international networks, strategic interests of external powers, and so on (..) the influence of cultural heritage varies with the long economic waves. During phases of economic expansion with increasing prices for raw materials, and higher capacity to absorb labor force and guarantees for social security, traditional networks and knowledge systems are quickly eroded and eventually become redundant. During shrinking phases, or in areas with stagnating economies, anomie increases, and people as well as political leaders tend to reactivate local resources of organisation, solidarity, and legitimization. (..) cultural homo-geneity contributes to the capacity for social mobilization (..) relevance of the traditional social complexity for industrialization is increasing rather than decreasing (..) today's governments not only invest more in technical infrastructure, but also in education. These human investments enhance the learning, monitoring and managing capacity of national systems (..) the agro-technical efficiency (ATE) is much weaker as a predictor than SPD (..) F. Fukuya ("Trust" 1995) draws attention to "familism" - not necessarily "immoral" in the sense of Banfield or Putnam, but rather as "family centered norms" or simply kinship orientation. (..) a cultural heritage with greatly extended kin groups ("Familism") reduces modern economic growth via the intervening variable of fertility (..) the path from "familism" to economic growth probably leads via analphabetism (negative) as well as via fertility (positive). (..) The wider and more elaborate the traditional kinship system, the higher fertility and the lower the economic growth rate. (..) In the macro-social approach, priority is given to the long-term reproduction of power structures. National mobility, then, is deduced from the structural position in the world system (dependence theory). If, however, the focus is on the microsocial processes, the traditional kinship system seems to be more relevant. (..) modernization theory.
source:
http://www.ethno.unizh.ch/mitarbeiterinnen/profiles/folder_hpm/global_competition/global_competition.html
 
Peter J. Richerson (..) Robert Boyd , COMPLEX SOCIETIES (..) The Evolutionary Origins of a Crude Superorganism, Human Nature, 1999, vol. 10, no. 3 pp. 253-289.
key words: Complex societies; Conflict; Cooperation; Gene-culture coevolution (..)
We hypothesize that two sets of social instincts underpin and constrain the evolution of complex societies. One set is ancient and shared with other social primate species, and one is derived and unique to our lineage. The latter evolved by the late Pleistocene, and led to the evolution of institutions of intermediate complexity in acephalous societies. (..) Tribes are held together by sentiments of common membership, expressed and reinforced by informal institutions of sharing, gift giving, ritual, and participation in dangerous collective exploits (..) 10,000 years ago, plant domestication (..) Agricultural societies (..) Institutions of formal coercive power (..) 5,000 years ago (..) the first states (..) People's egalitarian impulses and love of autonomy rebel at the striking inequality and coercion present in complex societies. (..) Great debates (..) whether the evolution of such societies is voluntaristic or coercive, whether their operations are to be understood as resulting from conflicts between individuals or as functioning wholes, and whether the right unit of analysis is the individual or the social institution (e.g., Carneiro 1970; Kirch 1984; Service 1975). (..) . Using the tools of evolutionary analysis, we construct a hypothesis that mixes the elements of classical positions. (..) Humans must have social instincts that distinguish us from the other apes. By social instincts we mean patterns of behavior which occur in all human societies and which therefore are highly likely to be rooted in genes. (..) What are the instinctive rules that cause us to be different from our ape ancestors? How did they evolve? (..) Much evidence suggests that humans have two sets of social instincts. (..) The ancient social instincts were shaped by the familiar evolutionary processes of inclusive fitness and reciprocity. Humans have a complex family life and frequently form strong bonds with individual partners. (..) in respect to such behaviors we do not depart drastically from other primates. (..) The second set of instincts is that which allows us to interact cooperatively with a larger set of people, the tribe. (..) Theory suggests that neither kin selection nor reciprocity can easily be scaled up to account for large-scale social systems. (..) Why aren't human societies small in scale, like those of other primates? We argue that the most likely mechanism is group selection on cultural variation. (..) cultural group selection in the Pleistocene (..) social instincts became better adapted to life in culturally cooperative groups, cultural evolution (..) could produce still more cooperation. (..) First, humans developed the capacity to operate systems of moralistic punishment. (..) Second, we are ethnocentric or, more generally, innately prone to detect and act upon symbolically marked group memberships. (..) the combination of instincts and institutions produces an operational social system (..) Genes constrain human societies in important ways, but social structure is also very flexible. (..) The tension between the small-scale loyalties dictated by self-interest, kin selection, and reciprocity, and the larger-scale loyalties generated by tribal institutions, is unresolved in humans. (..) Institutions that minimize the conflict inherent in the gene-culture system will be favored by the processes of cultural evolution (..) In some well-attested cases, tribal institutions become so weak or badly organized that something akin to the Hobbesian war of all against all takes place (..) coevolution of social instincts and cultural institutions (..) displacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern people about 35,000 years ago (..) Neanderthals perhaps lacked the tribal social instincts, at least ones as strong as Moderns have. (..) Population densities of Moderns seem to have been about 10 times higher than for Neanderthals. (..) The most egalitarian and least politically sophisticated foragers and horticulturalists have problems maintaining internal peace and rallying responses to external threats (..) Other ethnographically well-attested foragers did have considerably more complex societies. (..) Cross-cultural analyses show that many tribal societies reduce the violence of internal conflict by means of institutions that break up or cross-cut patrilineal extended families. (..) probably three or four levels of segmentation--band, subtribe, tribe, tribal alliance (..) COMPLEX SOCIETIES AS A NATURAL EXPERIMENT (..) The ability of large-scale complex social organization to produce public goods like defense, and economic security, and intangibles like an interesting life-style, powers the race (..) In the face of a psychology adapted to life in small, egalitarian societies, cultural evolution (..) led to beliefs and institutions that allow deep hierarchy, strong leadership, inegalitarian social relations, and an extensive division of labor. These institutions are built on top of a social “grammar†adapted to a simpler world. (..) THE WORK-AROUND HYPOTHESIS (..) Large scale makes routine, peaceful interactions with outgroup members commonplace. (..) Innovations that, at the margin, simultaneously make larger-scale society possible while preserving (or recreating) the sense of living in a small-scale society will tend to spread, thus working around the constraints otherwise imposed by the instincts. People will prefer such arrangements and will adopt them given a choice. (..) Complex institutions that make the most creative use of our instinct-constrained raw material will function best. (..) There is good reason to expect variation in quality of work-arounds between different societies. (..) The Holy Grail of innovation in complex societies is change that increases both individual happiness and social function. (..) command and control institutions that can systematically organize cooperation, coordination, and a division of labor in societies (..) Coercive Dominance (..) command backed up by force (..) no complex society can be based purely on the coercion. (..) Segmentary Hierarchy (..) A common method of deepening and strengthening the hierarchy of command and control in complex societies is to construct a formal nested hierarchy of offices (..) hierarchical nesting of social units (..) inefficiencies (..) remote leaders (..) Symbolic Systems (..) monumental architecture to serve mass ritual performances (..) one of the oldest archaeological markers of complex societies (..) rise in inequality of prestige goods in burials (..) Many problems and conflicts revolve around symbolically marked groups in complex societies. (..) The ongoing evolution of social systems can evolve in unpredictable, maladaptive directions (..) worldwide growth of fundamentalist sects that challenge the institutions of modern states (..) the case of modern nationalism (..) Legitimate Institutions (..) . Rationally administered bureaucracies, lively markets, the protection of socially beneficial property rights, widespread participation in public affairs, and the like provide public and private goods efficiently, along with a measure of protection of individual liberties. (..) individuals who do not trust (..) the current institutional order's justness are liable to band together in revolutionary organizations, such as the terrorist groups of the contemporary world. Trust (..) varies considerably in complex societies, and variation in trust (..) is the main cause of differences in happiness across societies (Inglehart and Rabier 1986). (..) The German army thus took much greater pains than did the Americans to build the segmentary system from the bottom up. (..) Territorial recruitment of the German army contributed to a sense of tribal solidarity (..) toward the end of the war, mixed units (..) performed much more poorly (..) much like a tribal leader modern officers are expected to behave (Malone 1983). (..) Malone advises leaders of small units to display such traits as humility, justice, tact, and selflessness, as well as more conventional military virtues--courage, decisiveness, dependability, and loyalty. (..) At every level of the chain of command, the German army trained its soldiers to seize opportunities and act on individual initiative, rather than await orders. (..) attribute much of the success of the German leadership system in WWII to a dramatic democratization of the German officer corps (..) "the tug of this rough democracy, this meritocracy based on character and achievement". German officers and NCOs routinely had more personal charisma than those of competing forces. (..) The training and leadership system of the Israeli army is even more democratic than the German (..) The Role of Ideology (..) Fair and Humane Rules (..) The German army took great care to demonstrate concern for individual soldiers. (..) By paying such meticulous attention to the needs and motives of ordinary troopers, the Wehrmacht constructed a sort of virtual reality that successfully simulated the situation of a segmentary society fighting for its existence. (..) The evolution of complex societies depends upon the prosocial tribal instincts, assisted by cultural group selection favoring functional large-scale institutions, ever undermined by social instincts and ongoing selection favoring narrower loyalties and individual advantage. (..) NOTES (..) Tribes are a unit of social organization that incorporate people of relatively low degrees of biological relatedness into a common social system without depending upon formal authority. (..) Birdsell's (1953) classic study estimated that the average Australian hunter-gather tribe incorporated around 500 people (..) Usually, descent from a common ancestor, often fictitious, honorific, or metaphorical, forms the core of the ideology enjoining feelings of solidarity, which are in turn the main wellspring of common action. (..) Current knowledge does not allow us to say much about the actual division of labor of genes and culture in human evolution and development. The coevolution idea suggests that it may be most complexly tangled. (..)
source:
http://www.santafe.edu/files/workshops/bowles/Complex_for_Human_Nature_IV.rtf
 
Todd Zywicki, Evolutionary Psychology and the Social Sciences (..) From Humane Studies Review Vol. 13, No. 1 (2000). Understanding of the genetic basis of much of our physical and mental natures (..) evolutionary psychology, which is can be classified as a subset of evolutionary biology of "neo-Darwinism." (..) misunderstanding of the import of evolutionary psychology, and in particular in the belief that evolutionary psychology believes in the perfect determinacy of human behavior. This latter belief makes evolutionary psychology anathema to those concerned about issues of free will and personal autonomy. (..) Social Darwinists committed the classic naturalist fallacy, reasoning from the empirical observation that evolution operated according to the principle of the "survival of the fittest" to the normative conclusion that it should be the job of society to weed out the weak so as to further this evolutionary imperative. (..) individuals will flourish only if they act consistently with their evolved natures (..) The task of the philosopher and social scientist is to understand the degree to which certain predilections are hard-wired into human psychology, and thereby to determine what set of institutions and incentives are necessary to restrain, modify, or channel these predilections into pro-social behavior and away from anti-social behavior. (..) evolutionary psychology does not imply biological determinism (..) behavior is a function of the mutual interaction between evolved traits and one’s environment (..) only comparative degrees of fitness relative to a given environment (..) evolutionary psychology rejects the claims of current theorists who argue that one’s personality is entirely socially constructed and thus infinitely malleable (..) evolutionary psychology (..) provides a warning against indulging in the utopian schemes characteristic of the twentieth century (..) Just as we have physically evolved to solve a number of common problems that arose in our evolutionary environment, we have similarly developed psychological skills necessary to operate in the social environment of our evolutionary ancestors. (..) human societies place a fundamental premium on the ability to interact with other human beings in a social environment (..) The evolutionary environment for humans is the body of institutions, rules, customs, and expectations of others. Thus, the fundamental evolutionary difficulty for humans is to solve inherently social puzzles as to how to interact with others. (..) different chimpanzee cultures (..) see:
http://www.chimp-st-and.ac.uk/cultures/database.htm (..) our minds are molded to solve the social problems of our human ancestors (..) during the Pleistocene Era several million years ago (..) our human ancestors lived in small, stable hunter-gatherer bands characterized by stable social groups, repeated interaction over time, and relatively long life spans (..) we live in high-speed global economies characterized by rapid economic change, although our essential natures remain essentially hunter-gatherer in nature. This creates a mismatch between some of our innate desires and the realities we confront on a daily basis. See F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988) (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, W. W. Bartley III ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press). For Hayek, therefore, the purpose of culture and institutions is to control our self-destructive impulses to impose our small-group sentiments on modern society. Robert Wright, by contrast, builds on the foundation of human sociability and argues that biological and cultural evolution share the common trait that they both have a tendency toward increasing complexity driven by the mutual benefits of "non-zero-sum exchange." See Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (2000) (New York: Pantheon Books). (..) commentators such as Robert Wright have suggested that evolutionary psychology calls into question the entire concept of free will by reducing human action to a predictable set of impulses (..) Studying animal behavior provides insight on possible solutions to various problems of human societies, such as problems of collective action, conflict resolution, and the like. (..) Social animals are confronted with many of the same problems as human societies, of keeping internal peace and resolving conflicts over scarce resources. And they do so without any sophisticated cultural or institutional mechanisms. (..) Four Paths to Cooperation (..) that evolutionary biologists have identified as mechanisms for creating social peace without the necessity of a central rule-making authority (..) much cooperative behavior is in fact natural and rooted in human nature. (..) Hobbes (..) question — how can selfish individuals be induced to cooperate with one another? (..) biologists begin their analysis with selfish genes. See Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (2d edition, 1989) (..) Lee Dugatkin (..) Cooperation Among Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective (..) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). (..) Four mechanisms have been suggested by evolutionary biologists to explain the evolution of cooperation in nature: (1) kin selection, (2) cooperation for mutual advantage, (3) reciprocal altruism, and (4) group selection. (..) Kin Selection (..) family of ground squirrels (..) a hawk circling above (..) Even though sounding an alarm call is dangerous to the individual caller’s survival, it is favorable toward the caller’s genes. (..) This tendency to act altruistically toward one’s kin is called "inclusive fitness." (..) The theory of inclusive fitness predicts that natural selection will favor altruism among kin (..) the observed tendency to act altruistically towards one’s spouse must rest on some other basis than the theory of inclusive fitness. (..) instinct (..) to call alarms when they are near their homes (..) Most creatures are diploid (..) making for a 50% degree of genetic relatedness (..) Ants, by contrast, are haplodiploid (..) ants share an expected 75% expected genetic relatedness with siblings (..) This high degree of genetic relatedness explains the remarkable social cohesion among ant communities (..) folly in some current schemes to break down the family as the basic social unit of society (..) the family, even more than the individual, that is the basic social unit of society (..) Thus, while utopian reformers may talk about treating strangers as one’s brothers, this rhetoric really tends to miss the point. (..) Cooperation for a Given End (..) or by-product mutualism (..) Group hunting provides an excellent example of cooperation for a given end. (..) Group activity raises the threat of free riding by members of the group. (..) group hunting is generally engaged in only when economically efficient (..) unusually good hunters are rewarded with a disproportionately large share of the social surplus (..) the bulk of this analysis rebuts the traditional myth that primitive societies are socialist in orientation (..) social egalitarianism is often misunderstood as economic socialism (..) As to non-kin, animal and human societies universally practice an ethic of conditional sharing. (..) Male chimpanzees who attempt to free ride by trying to participate in eating without participating in hunting "tend to receive little or nothing." (..) Compassion and sympathy toward those who are unable to help themselves appear to be as much a part of human nature as the unwillingness to feel much sympathy for shirkers who subsequently seek to share in the social product. (..) Amy Wax, "Rethinking Welfare Rights: Reciprocity Norms, Reactive Attitudes, and Political Economy of Welfare Reform," Law and Contemporary Problems (Forthcoming Fall 2000)]. (..) . Cooperation for a given end presupposes the existence of some uniform goal (..) Society and economy, however, are characterized by a plurality of ends (..) cooperation for a given end (..) does not provide a general theory for organizing society. (..) At the level of the social abstraction of an economy and a society, the fundamental question is how to coordinate these disparate goals peacefully and efficiently. (..) Evolutionary biology teaches us that selfishness is the norm, but that short-term selfishness can sometimes be subsumed into a joint project. (..) Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone presents an interesting recent example of the error of viewing all of society as having a common purpose, and as all members of society working cooperating to accomplish this end purpose. (..) stressing these unifying purposes of civil society (..) Hannah Arendt and Ernest Gellner, stress the importance of civil society as serving as a guardian of individual liberty and as a counterweight to the tendency of the state to atomize individuals into democratic rent-seekers and to infantilize individuals into passive recipients of the state’s largesse. (..) the organs of civilization not only help to build social unity (..) but also to preserve a sphere of personal autonomy and pursuit of a diversity of human ends (..) short-term gains offered by cooperation for a given end (..) Reciprocal Altruism (..) like kin selection and cooperation for a given end, reciprocal altruism is really rooted in self-interest. (..) But the mutual gains from reciprocal altruism are produced over time (..) the benefits are traded over time (..) Robert Trivers, generally credited with identifying the model, defines reciprocal altruism as "the trading of altruistic acts in which benefit is larger than cost so that over a period of time both enjoy a net gain." See Robert Trivers, Social Evolution (Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings, 1985) (..) a system of reciprocal altruism requires a large number of supplementary psychological and social institutions to develop (..) On a social level, reciprocal altruism requires sufficient stability of population that the long-term benefits of social cooperation can accrue over time. (..) As de Waal poses the challenge, "Reciprocal altruism differs from other patterns of cooperation in that it is fraught with risk, depends on trust, and requires that individuals whose contributions fall short be shunned or punished, lest the whole system collapse." (..) division of labor and credit-based relationships (..) reciprocity opens the possibility of social surplus on a scale unimaginable for kin-based and by-product cooperation (..) reciprocal altruism raises a classic prisoner’s dilemma. If you give me meat today, how do you know that I will give you meat next week when I am the lucky one? (..) Robert Axelrod (..) popularized the notion that the "repeat" or "iterated" prisoners’ dilemma provides a cooperative solution to the prisoners’ dilemma game (..) optimal strategy (..) tit for tat (..) Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984). (..) evolutionary benefit for those who develop a natural tendency to engage in guarded cooperation of the tit for tat strategy (..) tit for tat is an "Evolutionary Stable Strategy," or "ESS," meaning that it cannot be invaded by a small group of outsiders playing some other strategy. (..) conclusion of the evolutionary value of pursuing a strategy of guarded generosity (..) The instinctive nature of reciprocal altruism is illustrated by vampire bat societies. (..) share excess blood with unsuccessful bats (..) unusually large neocortex regions of their brains (..) processing information relating to social arrangements (..) help to sustain a system of reciprocal altruism (..) Reciprocal altruism requires that individuals will interact repeatedly and over long periods of time. (..) this requires a relatively small and stable social group characterized by repeat interactions among the members of the group (..) The relationships of the group must be largely egalitarian (..) preconditions for the evolution of reciprocal altruism; for example, long lifespan, low dispersal rate, life in small, mutually dependent and stable social groups, and a long period of parental care leading to extensive contacts with close relatives over many years. (..) early human society was also highly egalitarian, making reciprocal benefits and punishments available to all (..) the tendency toward reciprocity is universal, not culture-specific (..) the recent interest in "norms" theory in legal scholarship is incomplete (..) a theory of norms is flawed without accounting for the hard-wired tendencies of human beings to generate reciprocal relationships (..) vampire bats, sea bass, and chimpanzees all exhibit promise-keeping and reciprocal relationships without any social norms instructing them to do so (..) underlying similarities among most cultures throughout the world and throughout history. See The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby eds.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). (..) Group Selection (..) Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). (..) Reciprocal altruism (..) providing a theory of cooperation in small-group, face-to-face settings (..) group selection holds out the possibility of encouraging cooperation on a large-scale society-wide basis directly (..) biological group selection and cultural group selection (..) Altruism builds trust and reciprocity, thereby reducing the transaction costs of living together in a given society. Greater trust spurs trade, specialization, and the growth of wealth. (..) Cultural group selection (..) operates on "memes" of rules, customs, institutions, and norms. (..) Both biological and cultural group selection arguments have been attacked on similar grounds. (..) Selfish members can thereby free ride on altruists. (..) group selection should be understood as an empirical question, not an a priori question (..) criteria: (1) benefit to the group from the biological trait or cultural rule; (2) some mechanism for intergroup competition, so that "more fit" groups can displace "less fit" groups; and (3) some mechanism for policing intragroup free riding. (..) Beneficial adaptations are those that reduce transaction costs and conflict, and thereby allow for the growth of economic wealth and population (..) property, contract, and the rule of law (..) tendency toward guarded generosity suggests that socialism and the welfare state rest on an unsound evolutionary foundation (..) evolution suggests that voluntarily-provided social services would tend to be provided on a local level and embedded in a network of social connectedness and reciprocal relationships (..) By embedding the charitable relationship in this social and reciprocal context, it is likely that this system will be more rewarding and empowering for both the donor and donee. (..) The evolution of norms and customs can only be properly understood within a framework that also includes evolutionary psychology. (..) Just as norms theorists have recognized that norms lie behind law, evolutionary psychologists have long recognized that evolution lies behind norms. (..) Law would also benefit from understanding how animals generate solutions to certain social problems. (..) In hierarchical relations, disputes over resources or breeding opportunities are decided by the highest-ranked, or "alpha," individual in the pack or group. (..) More complex societies rely less on hierarchy and more on systems of private property, or territories, to resolve disputes. (..) Animals and small children exhibit instinctive evidence of property rights and territoriality, suggesting that the desire to claim and protect property is hard-wired. (..) For a fascinating discussion of the instinctive basis of property, see Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999). (..) Evolutionary psychology also has potentially revolutionary implications for political science. (..) A common strand in the Straussian view of evolutionary psychology and politics is the emphasis on innate human inequality of abilities and character (..) Boehm, by contrast, stresses the egalitarian tendency of humans in contrast to hierarchy. (..) Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (..) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). (..) public’s tendencies to support anti-establishment "outsider" political candidates such as John McCain and its attraction to populists and political underdogs. (..) Although individuals are naturally social and enthusiastic about egalitarian reciprocity-based interactions, this type of interaction is distinct from political interactions. (..) politics is primarily about the expropriation of wealth by politically powerful coalitions or individuals. (..) The insights of evolutionary psychology also cast a powerful influence over the study of economics. (..) casts doubt on the belief that preferences are primarily socially constructed and that they therefore can be changed through the moral force of law or changes in norms. (..) evolutionary psychology also tends to justify the emphasis of the public choice school on building political systems on the basis of self-interest rather than public beneficence. (..) see (..) Jack Hirshleifer, "Evolutionary Models in Economics and the Law: Cooperation versus Conflict Strategies," Research in Law & Economics 4: 1-60 (1982); and Gordon Tullock, see The Economics of Non-Human Societies (Tucson, AZ: Pallas Press, 1994). (..) Adam Gifford, see "Being and Time: On the Nature and the Evolution of Institutions," Journal of Bioeconomics 1(2): 127-149 (1999); Hebert Gintis, Game Theory Evolving (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)
Source:
http://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty/papers/docs/00-35.pdf
 
Patrick Francois a,b and Jan Zabojnik, Trust, Social Capital and Economic Development, 2003,
Abstract
Many argue that elements of a society’s norms, culture or social capital are central to un- derstanding its development. However, these notions have been difficult to capture in economic models. Here we argue that ‘trustworthiness’ is the economically relevant component of a so- ciety’s culture and hence comprises its social capital. Individuals are trustworthy when they perform actions they have promised, even if these do not maximize their payoffs. The usual focus on incentive structures in motivating behaviour plays no role here. Instead, we emphasize more deep-seated modes of behaviour and consider that trustworthy agents are socialized to act as they do. To model this socialization, we borrow from a relatively new process of preference evolution pioneered by Bisin and Verdier (2001). The model developed endogenously accounts for social capital and explores its role in the process of economic development. It captures in a simple, formal way the interaction between social capital and the economy’s productive process. The results obtained caution against rapid reform, provide an explanation for why late developing countries cannot easily transplant the modes of production that have proved useful in the West, and suggest an explanation for the pattern of reform experiences in ex-communist countries.
Lit: Bisin, A. and T. Verdier (2001) The economics of cultural transmission and the dynamics of preferences, Journal of Economic Theory, 97, 298-319
Source
http://www.economie.uqam.ca/CIRPEE/Conference_Pallage/P_Francois.pdf
 
Angelo Antoci , Pier Luigi Sacco , Paolo Vanin, Economic Growth and Social Poverty: The Evolution of Social Participation, May 22, 2001
Abstract
We develop an evolutionary model of growth in which agents choose how to allocate their time between private and social activities. We argue that a shift from social to private activities may foster market- based growth, but also generate social poverty. Within a formal frame- work that merges a game theoretic analysis of the evolution of social participation with a model of dynamic accumulation of its effects on social environment (i.e., of social capital accumulation), we show that growth and well-being may evolve in opposite directions (a plausible outcome for advanced and affluent societies).
Concluding remarks
We developed an evolutionary model of growth in which agents choose how to allocate their time between private and social activities. Participating to the latter ones requires time and forgoing some private consumption, but they provide an individual utility which depends both on her own and on ag- gregate participation, as well as on the opportunities available in the social environment. Agents may defend themselves from a poor social environment by shifting to private activities, less exposed to external effects. If this strat- egy spreads over, private activities will be fostered, but at the expense of social activities. Since both effects accumulate over time, the outcome may be a joint occurrence of economic growth and social poverty. On one side, this is likely to increase social costs (from crime prevention to children and elder keeping [see Coleman (1990)], from schooling in most diseased areas [see Benabou (1993)] to monitoring and transaction costs for firms, to the lost of real opportunities provided by social links [see Granovetter (1973)]); on the other side (and most importantly, since higher private growth could in principle allow an economy to face higher social costs), economic growth needs not be optimal in terms of well-being. A possible alternative outcome is that of a large amount of time spent in social activities, which brings about a rich social environment (i.e. growth in the social opportunities available to the individuals), but may act as an obstacle to private growth. When both these outcomes are possible, the present framework shows that the latter is Pareto-superior to the former one (a plausible result in advanced societies). Our analysis has introduced a certain number of innovative features, which call for a deeper investigation in future. The present model may be ex- tended first of all by allowing for the possibility of a balanced growth between private and social activities. Two effects might be relevant from this point of view. On one side, social capital increases productivity in the private sec- tor, as well established in the quoted literature, and this renders even more serious the problems created by under-investment in social activities (social poverty traps), while, at the same time, it allows a balanced growth when so- cial participation is high enough. On the other side, market activities might themselves contribute to create new relations, thus rendering less serious the problem of social poverty and, in turn, allowing a balanced growth even with a low social participation. Since the two effects are counterbalancing, our basic results should still hold under these extensions. A second extension of the model would be to consider contexts in which, on one side, physical and human capital accumulation may be taken into account, and, on the other side, social capital accumulation may be more deeply investigated by regarding it as a socially differentiated process. It will also be interesting to compare the present results with the ones that can be obtained outside an evolutionary context, e.g. in an infinite-life agent model or in an OLG context. The analysis in terms of well-being may be extended as well, since social evolution not only determines how actual needs are satisfied, but it directly influences the formation of such needs too (an aspect that is particularly difficult to capture, and that can be legitimately ignored in a short run or even in a medium run horizon, but that appears crucially relevant for any long term analysis of well-being). Finally, as the concepts of relational goods and of social capital are still unusual in the most known economic literature, it may be worth to conclude with a brief consideration about their methodological status. In particular, they fit well Granovetter’s (1985) program of considering together individual actions and social structures, and are well compatible with an extended form of methodological individualism, in which individuals are still the starting point, but they are no more seen as atoms isolated from one another [see Donzelli (1986) and Boland (1982)]. Moreover, the investigation of the rela- tional dimension of individual choices is likely to lead us to extend the scope of economic analysis to consider how cultural and social factors influence needs and purposes of people. Of course, any strict disciple of Robbins’s (1935) epistemology would reply that economics deals with the allocation of scarce means to given alternative purposes and does not discuss the sense of these goals. In contrast, our opinion is that, as well-being and growth may depend to a relevant degree upon the specific motivational structure belong- ing to agents within a certain culture, it might be worth for economists to directly tackle their determination and evolution [for examples of analyses of this kind see Joireman et al. (1996), Menicucci and Sacco (1996), Sacco (1997), Sacco and Zamagni (1997)]. Indeed, this question develops somehow the same core as methodological individualism (since its starting point is made of intentional choices), but it brings beyond it, because it recognizes that purposes themselves are not a primum of the analysis, as it is well ac- knowledged in other social sciences [see e.g. the category of sense, which is always presupposed by that of purpose, in the analyses of Heidegger (1927) for philosophy, of Habermas (1981) for sociology and of Greimas (1983) for semiotics].
Source:
http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/papers/papers/2001/bgse13_2001.pdf

 
RONALD INGLEHART & CHRISTIAN WELZEL
Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence
The political culture school is divided into three camps, with adherents of each camp emphasizing different types of mass values as most important in strengthening democracy. We label these approaches the legitimacy approach (or system-support approach), the communitarian approach (or social capital approach) and the human development approach (or emancipative approach).
Adherents of the legitimacy approach hold that mass support for democracy as a system of governance, and mass confidence in public institutions, are the sources that provide democracies with the legitimacy that they need to remain stable and to operate effectively (see Gibson, 1997; Klingemann, 1999; Mishler and Rose, 2001; Seligson, 2002). Two other approaches--the communitarian and the human development approach- -follow the tradition of the civic culture school in arguing that democracy is more than a limited set of institutional mechanisms that regulate only the remote domain of official politics. Instead, democracy is viewed in the perspective of Alexis de Tocqueville (1994 [1837]): as a system of government whose principles are practiced at the grassroots of society, involving citizens who experience and practice democratic norms in their daily lives. Consequently, making democracy work requires more than just having confidence in institutions and preferring democracy to alternative systems of government. It requires a broader set of civic values that make democratic norms alive at the grassroots. In this context, adherents of the communitarian approach emphasize those values that link the citizens to daily public life and strengthen their social ties and their loyalty to the community (Bell, 1993; Etzioni, 1996). According to Putnam (1993; 2000) such communal orientations create social capital and are reflected in people’s activities in voluntary associations and in their trust to their fellow citizens. Thus, communitarians and social capital theorists emphasize voluntary activity in associations and interpersonal trust as the "communal" ground on which democracies flourish (see Norris, 2002: chapter 8). Another camp in the communitarian debate emphasizes the citizens’ obedience to laws and their loyalty to rules of good conduct, or what they call "civic honesty" or "trustworthiness", as the moral resource that sustains and strengthens democracy (Huntington, Crozier, and Watanuki, 1975; Levi, 2000; Rothstein, 2001)."
Human development theory is a theory of human choice, or--more precisely--a theory of the societal conditions that restrict or widen people’s choices. Democracy is one of these conditions. It institutionalizes civil liberties, providing people the legal guarantees to exert free choices in their private and public activities. And since human choice is at the heart of democracy, the civic values that make it work effectively, are those that actually emphasize human choice--which we term self-expression values. . Thus, not all communal values and not all sorts of social capital are relevant to democracy but only those ones involving emancipative citizens whose communal engagement is the result of their intrinsic choices and not of their compliance to conformity pressure, exposure to social control or blindfold loyalty to the community. Human development theory considers democracy primarily as an emancipative achievement that empowers people. Therefore, it sees the cultural basis of democracy in mass values that are of an inherently emancipative nature, namely self- expression values.
Source:
http://www.iu-bremen.de/imperia/md/content/groups/welzel-group-content/papersmanuscripts/2.pdf
 
AUTHORITY ORIENTATIONS AND DEMOCRATIC ATTITUDES IN EAST ASIA
A TEST OF THE "ASIAN VALUES" HYPOTHESIS
RUSSELL J. DALTON AND NHU-NGOC T. ONG
September 2003
Abstract
Our research focuses on a central question for the nations of East Asia: how is the political culture of the region related to its democratic development? Political culture theory argues that the social authority relations in a society often influence the political regime choice of a nation. Consequently, much of the literature on East Asia emphasizes the importance of family, hierarchy, community, and traditional social authority relations as a consequence of Confucian cultural traditions, and asks whether these values are compatible with positive orientations toward democracy. Drawing upon the newest wave of the World Values Survey (WVS), this article analyzes public opinion in China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, as well as the established Pacific Rim democracies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. We begin by assessing orientations toward authority among these publics. Then we link these sentiments to support for democracy. The results contradict the core tenets of the Asian values literature, and offer a more positive view of the prospects for modernization in the region. In addition, the weak relationship between authority orientations and democratic attitudes raises questions about the congruence thesis that is a basic premise of political culture theory.
 
Anirudh Krishna, COLLECTIVE ACTION AND SOCIAL CAPITAL: DOES THEORY SUPPORT EXPECTATIONS?
Social capital is expected to engender mutually beneficial collective action and produce (..) superior outcomes across multiple levels and issue areas. But what are the bounds to this (..) achievement? Limits to the efficacy of social capital are explored here through an analysis (..) of alternative theories of collective action. (..) Social Capital (..) reference to those features of social (..) organization such as networks, norms and social trust (..) that facilitate coordination and (..) cooperation for mutual benefit, (..) mutually beneficial collective action (MBCA) (..) whether social capital should be conceived as cause or effect (Foley and Edwards 1998; (..) Jackson and Miller 1998) (..) The causal chain is expected to run as (..) follows: (..) Norms and Networks => Collective Action => Optimal Outcomes (..) The Sequence Question Putnam (..) et al. (1993) and Fukuyama (..) (1995) view social (..) capital as the product of societies distinctive patterns of historical and cultural (..) evolution (..) . (..) On the other hand, Schneider et al. (1997: 82) maintain that levels of (..) social capital can be altered through induced structural change. (..) The Levels Question If social capital is a property of small, well-knit groups, how (..) does it aggregate upward to produce societal outcomes? Conversely, if social (..) capital is embodied in institutions at the societal level, how does this feature assist (..) problem solving by small groups? (..) The Issue-Area Question Can groups that come together to discuss and act upon (..) any specific issue develop norms and procedures that have broad influence for a (..) larger set of social problems? (..) If social capital is a property of any (..) particular network, how does it spill over to influence the behavior of persons (..) associated with other more or less unrelated networks? (..) The Optimality Question Does a high level of social capital invariably produce (..) socially optimal outcomes? (..) Does trust (..) and the shared expectations associated (..) with trust (..) induce stasis or does it promote change? (..) (1) (..) Social capital is not a necessary condition for mutually beneficial collective (..) action. Collectively optimal outcomes can also be achieved by other (..) means, which carry few of the connotations associated with social capital. (..) (2) (..) Social capital is helpful and it can help to promote cooperative outcomes. (..) However, stocks of social capital may not automatically convert into flows (..) of benefits, and agency may be required for this purpose. (..) (3) (..) Even where benefits are derived, however, optimality is not guaranteed. (..) Spillover effects over across levels and issue areas are both weaker and not (..) so automatic as is commonly assumed. (..) (4) (..) No clear conclusions emerge in connection with the Sequence Issue. (..) Inducement and historical determinism are both supported. More (..) important, these two claims may not be mutually exclusive. Historical (..) endowments can be both strongly or weakly reflected in present behaviors. (..) Three broad streams of analysis (..) rationalist, culturalist and structuralist (..) Rationalists assume that individual interests are the basic (and sole) factor of (..) explanation. (..) Culturalists abjure the subject-object dichotomy of the rationalists. Individuals are (..) as much the products, they believe, of the ideational world in which individuals live, as (..) ideas are the products of individuals. (..) Structuralists do not accept the primary explanatory role of either ideas or (..) interests. Both of these are assumed by them to be the products of institutions (state, (..) religion, class, etc.) which impose severe limits on individual choice. (..) The remarkable feature of social capital is the ease with which this concept merges (..) interests, ideas and institutions into a single all-encompassing explanation (..) task of disentangling social capital into its elemental (..) components (..) many rationalists have constructed models that explicitly (..) incorporate other-regarding behavior. Sen (1977) introduces sympathy and commitment. (..) Margolis (1982) sees individuals as having two different utility functions -- an S- (..) function, incorporating perfectly self-interested preferences, and a G-function, for group- (..) interested preferences. (..) Proposition 1: Collective Action in the rationalist approaches is not contingent upon the (..) prior existence of any social capital. At best and given the fulfillment of some very (..) specific conditions, social capital may develop in parallel with and as a by-product of (..) institutional development. (..) Proposition 2: Not one of the rationalist approaches supports the optimistic outcomes (..) expected by supporters of social capital. Collective action does not spill over from one (..) level of social aggregation to another, nor does it easily encompass multiple issue areas. (..) Optimality may under certain circumstances be achieved by specific groups working with (..) particular issues of critical importance to all members, but generalized optimality is not (..) inherent in individual optimizing behavior. (..) Institutional, or Structure-Based, Resolutions (..) distinguish between theories that: (..) (a) predict optimal vs. sub-optimal outcomes, and (..) (b) regard institutional change as evolutionary or intended. (..) trust (..) in the organizational (..) context, is embodied in the order of routines, sustained by a confidence that appropriate (..) behavior can be expected most of the time...[it] is based on a conception of (..) appropriateness more than a calculation of reciprocity (..) The impulse for institutional change might emanate from groups seeking lower (..) transactions costs and it may be expected to lead toward optimal outcomes however, (..) asymmetries in power distribution between change-seekers and power holders mutes this (..) impulse toward optimality. (..) Development of social institutions (..) norms are not independent variables that cause social outcomes; they (..) are as much consequences of social structures and technical developments (..) Proposition 3: Only one approach, S2, regards social capital as possibly helpful for (..) collective action. The model of individual behavior described by S2, however, holds out (..) no assurance for optimal, or even comparably better, outcomes (..) Sociological Approaches to Social Capital (..) Social capital is defined by its functions (..) aspects of social structure (..) property of particular social structures (..) Coleman identifies three forms that can be taken by social capital: obligations and (..) expectations, the flow of information, and norms accompanied by sanctions. (..) Organizations adopt forms and practices that are legitimized with reference to (..) institutional logics prevailing in their external environments. (..) The institutional logic of (..) capitalism is accumulation and the commodification of human activity. That of the state is (..) rationalization and the regulation of human activity by legal and bureaucratic hierarchies. That of (..) democracy is participation and the extension of popular control over human activity. That of the (..) family is community and the motivation of human activity by unconditional loyalty to its members (..) and their reproductive needs... (..) Proposition 5: Depending upon the prior selection of normative order, membership in (..) networks can result in high or low, extensive or restricted, social capital. (..) Proposition 6: Trust (..) and reciprocity in one network will not spill over automatically into (..) other networks. (..) Social capital is a politically neutral multiplier, according to Berman (1997), and (..) high social capital can lead to good, bad or indifferent results. What matters critically for (..) results is the nature and capability of mediating agency. (..) Communities that have high social capital do not always have better development results. (..) It is only where a high stock of social capital goes together with effective agents that (..) communities are able to achieve copious flows of economic benefits. (..) Proposition 6: Optimality is not assured (even within particular issue areas) merely by the (..) presence of high social capital. In addition, capable agency also needs to be available. (..) groups are not condemned by their cultural heritage to live in a low- (..) level equilibrium, as Putnam (..) et al. (1993) seem to suggest.
Source:
http://www-pps.aas.duke.edu/people/faculty/krishna/paper/collective.pdf
 
Christoph H. Loch, Susan Schneider, Charles Galunic, Me versus We: Balancing Cooperation and Competition in Groups through Emotional Algorithms, 2003.
human emotions (..) powerfully direct humans (..) to compete or cooperate (..) Most of human history happened in relatively small groups of between 50-150 people (..) (Dunbar 1996a) where individuals were naturally and frequently faced with a (..) fundamental dilemma: the pursuit of self-interest versus the pursuit of group interest. (..) this dilemma of (..) cooperation versus competition (..) property rights and incentive systems (..) norms of (..) mutual reciprocity and (..) emotional interdependence (Niamir-Fuller (..) 2002) (..) strong evidence that rational reasoning alone does (..) not enable humans to make good social decisions if divorced from their emotions (e.g., (..) Damasio 1994, LeDoux 1996). (..) The role of emotions in cooperative versus (..) competitive behavior, however, has been under-explored (..) certain emotional responses are algorithmic in nature (Le (..) Doux 1996, Damasio 1999) and tightly intertwined with the dilemma of cooperation vs. (..) competition that has been ever present throughout the evolutionary history (..) fundamental (..) stereotypicity, automaticity, and regulatory purpose of the emotions (Damasio 1999: 51) (..) Others have also suggested that emotions operate as an unconscious, "hard-wired" (..) intelligence, which proved"on average"adaptive in the past (Plotkin 1993) and serve a (..) regulatory role (..) These "me versus we" algorithms are triggered (..) by generic social circumstances and, in turn, arouse emotions. (..) As they are not emotions (..) themselves, we will simply refer to them as emotional algorithms. (..) each of us is endowed with (..) specialized emotional algorithms that help us to balance our personal interests with group (..) interests (..) these emotional algorithms include (..) short term (myopic) pursuit of material goods and status-seeking behaviors, which (..) encourage competition, as well as reciprocity and group identification, which encourage (..) cooperation. (..) these emotional algorithms"for competition and cooperation"balance each other (..) Resource Striving (..) the craving, and accumulation (..) of material goods and resources; (..) often short term, myopic desires (..) - (..) Status Seeking (..) the craving of status as an end in (..) itself (..) Reciprocation Need (..) the longing to return to others in-kind and to (..) develop friendships, with the demand of (..) fairness from others and the spontaneous (..) suspicion of a violation thereof (..) Group Identity Seeking (..) the longing to belong and associate with a (..) group, and to protect and give advantage to (..) those within your group (..) they (..) are sufficient to describe an enormous range of social behaviors, and this includes social (..) dilemmas of competition versus cooperation (..) Researchers have found that this nice feeling corresponds to higher serotonin (..) levels, which are both a cause and an effect of higher status, as demonstrated in studies of (..) the relationship between serotonin levels and spontaneous changes in dominance in male (..) vervet monkeys. (..) the striving for status is "built (..) into us," triggering basic emotions (such as anger, sadness, happiness) depending on (..) whether status is achieved or not (..) reciprocity algorithm (..) works by triggering (..) emotions (..) I feel gratitude, and I like that person (..) our minds were highly sensitive to, and searched for, evidence of (..) cheating (..) we have a (..) "cheating module" in our brain (..) from economic transactions to relationships based on "friendship and altruistic (..) attachments" (Uzzi 1996, 681). (..) Uzzi called this phenomenon (..) "social embeddedness." (..) Another example of the reciprocity algorithm is fairness, which universally (..) (across cultures) raises strong emotions of anger when violated (Scherer 1997, Nowak et (..) al. 2001, Sigmund et al. 2002). (..) Hamilton (1975) (..) group selection (..) compels individuals to neglect their own interest for the benefit of the group (..) One instance of group selection and an associated emotional algorithm is (..) nepotism (..) , or kin solidarity (..) own genes that survive (..) inclusive fitness (..) In the culture of the highly aggressive Yanomam tribe in the Amazon (..) forest, in which men have a low life expectancy, women may have children from several (..) men, not only their husbands. Here, men invest as much or more parental care into their (..) sisters sons than into the sons of their wives, who may be fathered by someone else. (..) Apparently, they invest in the sons with the highest average degree of genetic relatedness (..) (Alcock 1989, 535 " 537). (..) Individuals are more willing to help ingroup members (Tajfel 1982) and to view them as (..) trustworthy and cooperative (Kramer 1991, Chatman et al. 1998). (..) In society at large, ethnic differences are a natural basis for group formation and (..) have systematically led to hostilities and violence over history. (..) we are cognitively and emotionally prepared to readily identify with a new (..) group along new criteria with intense emotional force (Barkow 1989, Goodall 1994, (..) Kurzban et al. 2001) (..) What is missing, however, is an attempt to view these algorithms (..) holistically, as a system. (..) In sum, a (..) considerable amount of research has pointed to the universality of certain human (..) emotional algorithms but which are expressed in culture-specific ways (see also (..) Campbell, 2002). (..) Proposition 1. (a) (..) The balance of collaborative versus competitive behavior within (..) groups is influenced not only by the rational pursuit of future individual benefits, but also (..) by biologically programmed emotional algorithms (desire for resources, status, (..) reciprocity and group identity). (..) (b) (..) These emotional algorithms serve as psychological (..) goals that trigger emotions when fulfilled, missed or obstructed. (..) (c) (..) The emotional (..) algorithms are universal across cultures, although cultures define both the "trigger (..) points" by which the algorithms are activated and the balance points for the cultural (..) expressions of competition and cooperation. (..) Status and resource striving also reinforce each other, such that gains in resources (..) lead to gains in status, and gains in status lead to gains in resources. (..) attenuating influence on cooperative and competitive behavior is the (..) cotemporaneous presence of the other set of emotional algorithms (..) status differences weaken reciprocity and friendship, and vice versa (..) Reciprocity and friendship also erode the competitive striving for resources (..) a strong (..) group identity tends to reduce status differences within the group (..) resource scarcity and a growing group size heighten the potential for interest (..) conflicts, decreasing reciprocity (..) external threats (..) heighten the benefit of cooperation (..) the dynamics of such a system (..) the collaborative balance in (..) a group evolves dynamically over time (..) , the focus of behavior in (..) resolving dilemmas of "me versus we" shifts repeatedly, engaging different expressions (..) of these basic emotional algorithms (..) Proposition 2. (a) (..) Emotional algorithms represent a system in which several algorithms (..) may act simultaneously, whether upon a single individual or through distinct algorithms (..) being experienced by different individuals within the group. A group’s collaborative (..) behavior changes dynamically over time, influenced by events and group composition. (..) (b) (..) While this evolution is path-dependent and cannot be fully predicted, there are (..) moments of intense focus on one or a few algorithms, where interactions temporarily (..) emphasize individual rewards, status, both resources and status, friendship, or group (..) identity. Over the longer run, however, the system of emotional algorithms has a (..) balancing tendency, with human groups resorting to some cultural-specific equilibrium (..) or balance point. (..) all emotional (..) algorithms may run to the extreme if not balanced by the others (..) Proposition 3. (..) The balance of self versus group interests can derail and lead to extreme (..) behavior: self interest that endangers the group and even the individual, or altruism (..) leading to the destruction of the individual and, possibly, to the detriment of the group. In (..) the long run, selection pressures will favor some semblance of balance, even though the (..) exact balance point will vary. (..) the strong emotional reactions to violations (..) of fairness and our hard-wired ability to quickly detect and process evidence of social (..) cheating represent "safeguards" to keep exploitation and free-riding in check (..) emotional algorithms are not, once again, simply synonymous with emotional (..) states"they are also cultural. (..) various symbols and criteria of wealth, status, (..) friendship, group identity (..) not only biology begets culture but how culture begets culture and, (..) possibly, how culture begets biology (..) Fiske (2000) (..) : the (..) four algorithms (or principles) may function like a "universal grammar" (..) selection operating both at the individual and at the group level has (..) forced our species to balance competition and cooperation (..) both competition and cooperation are natural to human beings and have (..) an important role to play in regulating group behavior (..) Human evolution has seemingly given us two, rich dynamics (..) which help motivate members and regulate group functioning (..) embrace and utilize both.
Source:
http://www.insead.edu/~loch/articles/Emotional%20Algorithms.pdf
 
J.H. Barkow, MISSING THE REVOLUTION,OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. In preparation, 2004/2005
While social scientistshave been learning the vocabulary of hermeneutics and "gazes"and "narratives," of "discourses" and "texts," of "trope" and"power," of "othering" and "alterity" and imagined communities, of essentialism and agency and embodiment, otherdisciplines have been having their own revolution: Darwin srevolution. (..) invitation to social-cultural anthropologistsand sociologists who have been missing the great evolution-revolution of our time (..) no one really believes in single genes causing complex behaviors (..) culture is both our ownconstruction and our environment (Laland, Odling-Smee and Feldman2000, 2001) (..) Social-cultural constructionism (..) many social scientists seem to be defining their interests and identities in opposition tothe biological (Bauerlein, 2001), (..) the integration of biological arguments into the human sciences (..) evolutionary psychology (..) human nature as a product of biological evolution (..) Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Barkow,Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992) (..) Evolutionary Psychology is the Infrastructure of Culture and Society. (This last term,abbreviated as EPICS (..) If physics was the pre-eminent field of most of the Twentieth (..) century, biology is queen of the first part of the Twenty-first (..) Stephen K. Sanderson and his important (2001) work,The Evolution of Sociality (..) There has been a split within anthropology between those who think of themselves as doing scientific anthropology, with concerns about data, hypotheses and objectivity; and those who see anthropology as largely a political and moral exercise sharing far more with the humanities than with the natural sciences (..) Sources of intolerance for the Darwinian gaze (..) First (..) mis-use of biology in social science (..) Second, (..) dominance of two strands of Cartesian thoughtin the social sciences, the fixed idea that there is a huge gulfbetween humans and other animals; and the belief that body andmind are separate rather than one and the same (..) Third, (..) Durkheimian fallacy, the idea that collectivities can share representations in ways somehow independent of the psychology of individuals (..) Fourth (..) the 19thcentury utopianism of Marx (..) romantic idea (..) social relations right, all social inequality will be abolished (..) Fifth (..) idealistic belief (..) that the social sciences have a mission (..) , to oppose oppression and inequality (..) species-centrism (..) still seems self-evidently right to many people (..) now our separateness and superiority are due not to our esprit but to our culture (..) deeply conservative, even reactionary impulse (..) to keep a chasm between ourselves and the rest of Creation (..) legal systems, reflecting our Cartesian folk psychology (..) Given this folk psychology, legal responsibility can be mitigated by bodily failings (..) In our folk psychology, it is the body and not the mind that is (..) the product of evolution (..) no more excusing male anger by pointing to its evolutionary roots than a physiologist is advocating obesity when discussing the formerly adaptive aspects of lipid metabolism (..) Agency is the term social scientists use to recognize that there is such a thing as human volition and choice. (..) well-developed psychological literature on decision-making (e.g., Gigerenzer,2000; Kahneman & Tversky, 2000) (..) Evolutionary psychology is an essential aspect of understanding the problems our species faces and finding solutions to them (..) myth of the executive gene (..) evolutionarypsychologists do not usually study genes or genetics (..) Between genes and behavior lie the mechanisms. (..) Evolutionary psychology says little about genes but much about these mechanisms (..) the focus of the evolutionary psychologist is not on the DNA but on the adaptive problems our ancestors faced and the mechanisms that may have evolved in response to them (..) The ontological status of the mechanism construct is a controversial one but that debate is about ontology and ontogeny, not genetics. (..) We do not need to understand the biological bases of the mechanisms in order to understand their social consequences. (..) evolved physiological mechanisms to regulate our temperature and our caloric intake and our blood sugar level and our sexuality and so forth (..) These mechanisms are not in contrast to adaptation by natural selection, they are its products. (..) There is no reason to imagine that the mechanisms of the central nervous (..) system are any less complex than those of other bodily systems. (..) behavioral mechanisms enable and constrain our social-cultural behavior. (..) Some evolved psychological mechanisms involve what can loosely be termed learning. (..) we both shape and are shaped by the information pools in which we swim (..) natural selection (..) for the ability to test socially transmitted informational items, to challenge them, revise them, add to them and delete them (..) social constructionism, the belief that rather than our living in areadily knowable out there reality, we dwell in a world that is socially constructed, constructed by our experience with others and validated consensually and communally (Berger & Luckmann,1966). (..) To speak of objective knowledge strikes the social constructionist as embarrassingly naïve. (..) Evolutionary psychology requires social constructionism (..) Social construction is (..) a major aspect of our evolved psychology (..) Understanding the evolutionary bases of social constructionism prevents the anything goes approach (..) notion of culture as anarena for (informational) conflict (..) Evolutionary wisdom is past wisdom,adaptation to previous environments (..) Advertisers use our evolved mechanisms in myriad ways remote from genetic fitness as they seek to associate their products with sex and status (..) Can culturally-patterned behavior be maladaptive, either in the technical sense of reducing genetic fitness or the every-day senseof reducing health and well-being? The answer is yes, for both senses. (..) believe me, buy my snake oil, religion, political party, etc. will solve all your problems (..) evolutonary psychologists (..) are not essentialists (..) both the evolutionist s distal and the ethnographer s proximal perspectives are entirely valid (..) very different but mutuallycompatible theories and data (..) Evolutionary psychology partakes of the notion of vertical orcompatible integration (Barkow 1989; Cosmides, Tooby and Barkow,1992 (..) The naturalsciences follow the compatibility rule, meaning that apparent incompatibilities with current consensus in related disciplines (..) are considered to be indicators of error in one field or the other and a justification for further research. (..) What evolutionists are asking is only that sociology and social-cultural anthropological accounts be compatible with what we think we know of human evolution and psychology: that is all! (..) psychology cannot be reduced to evolutionary biology (..) Reduction is foolish because different levels of organization have emergent properties, properties that cannot be readily predicted from lower levels (..) A theory in social-cultural anthropology or in sociology that incorporated assumptions that are impossible in terms of modern biology and psychology should at the least be considered suspect. (..) For example, suppose our implicit or explicit assumption is that human females and males are psychologically identical except for matters directly touching on reproductive physiology. As we see from Campbell s contribution to this volume,this assumption is incompatible with an immense amount of psychological(and also neuroendocrinological) research. (..) Latour argues that modern thinkers have developed "three distinct approaches to talking about our world: naturalization,socialization and deconstruction" (..) He chooses the work of E.O. Wilson as emblematic of the first perspective, the"naturalizers;" Pierre Bourdieu is taken as emblematic of the second, the socializers or sociopolitical (the latter is my own term); and Jacques Derrida as emblematic of the third, the discourse analyzers (..) The problem with these three modes of analysis (..) their mutual exclusivity (..) evolutionary analysis of globesity, the obesity pandemic. (..) In the modern era, the manufacturers of industrial foods have taken full advantage of our evolved chemical-detection/preference mechanisms by producing food stuffs super-rich in fat, salt, and sugar. (..) resulting in ill health (..) There are parallels between commercially successful industrial foods and commercially successful mass media. (..) attentional mechanisms (..) The weather, physical danger from any source, scarce resources these topics readily capture our attention. (..) also the topics that commercially successful Hollywood and Bollywood movies focus on (..) Evolution is always a good place to begin but remembering the lessons of vertical integration seldom a good place to end. (..) I found, in Maradi, that those shut out of other paths to high relative standing by the ruling government fonctionnaires were turning to Islam (..) creating a powerful resurgence of religion(Barkow, 1975) (..) Are there political orders that work well because of their match with our evolved psychology, and others that fail for lack of such a match? (..) Fukuyama (2002:106) argues that ...Contemporary capitalist liberal democratic institutions have been successful because they are grounded in assumptions about human nature that are far more realistic than those of their competitors. (..) The great weakness of the Marxist and Marxian critique of capitalism and struggle against oppression is their failure to predict the recurrence of inequality. History shows that after the revolution comes...another revolution. Social problems recur, with each set of solutions leading to new problems, while slow reforms often only palliate. (..) endless recurrence of social inequality, of people wanting more resources and respect for themselves and their children and their friends than they want for others. (..) Social stratification is a reflex of the evolutionary fact that people want more for their own children than they want for the children of others (Barkow, 1992; Tiger & Shepher, 1975): (..) But biology is not destiny unless we ignore it (Barkow, 2003). (..) An anti-nepotistic, meritocratic ideology makes for far better-qualified administrators than does a favor-your-children-and-other-relatives ethic. (..) we can work around our tendency towards nepotism (..) The term work around comes from the work of evolutionists Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd (1999, 2001). (..) The German military’s work-around involved: 1)organizing the army in terms of units of men from the same region who shared a local dialect; 2) training officers to look after the men and to take responsibility for their welfare; and 3) promoting strong bonding among the men and between enlisted men and officers. (..) the claim to moral superiority is just another kind of claim to status. (..) Still, an evolutionary praxis will often simply frame the familiar in terms of the Darwinian metanarrative. (..) kind of broad framework to understand the universe (..) powerful generator of theories and hypotheses (..) we evolved in terms of small groups that often competed against one another (..) we readily fall into such groupings (..) today and seize on badges of group identity. (..) So it is with the anti-evolutionary, anti-science, unexamined social constructionist stance so often held by sociologists and social-cultural anthropologists. (..) Those in advantageous positions will continue to follow strategies to maintain their privilege, from military means to ideologies and religions that preach that the status quo is good for all and perhaps divinely sanctioned. (..) an evolutionist perspective on human nature and society merely remind us that we have to work very hard and keep on working hard if we are to have sound laws and good governments (..) in playing the game of life and politics we often experience great happiness, cooperate mightily, create magnificent works of art and frequently act with much generosity and even nobility. (..) our bodies are still adapted to the diet of our forager/hunting-gathering ancestors, rather than to the very high carbohydrate diet prevalent since the beginning of agriculture (..) Evolutionists (and others) argue that we are very poorly adapted to our currentindustrial diet of highly-processed foods.
Source:
http://www.dal.ca/~barkow/MissingIntro.PDF
 
Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel, 1997. Poor and rich explained by bio-geographical differences (in stead of racial and religious differences).
Jared Diamond, Collapses, 2004. Collapses of civilazations often soon after reaching a demographical peak combined with a scarcity of resources and a short-term policy that did not deal with both but only/mainly with power and self-enrichment. Long-term development should be based on bio-geographical characteristics of the area involved. For example: south-east Azia first improved health care as basis for economic growth. Development of writing: China (fortune-telling), Mexico (royal propaganda), Middle-East (trade).
 
Phases in ways of life, work and trust
(..)
Phase consciousness development challenge trust
Nomad self tools construction familiarity
Agrarian group ideologies war asabiya
Urban mankind sciences competition social capital
Network universal virtuality simulation  
 
There is no sharp spacetime boundary between the different phases. The phase-specific properties are the predominant ones of that phase and hold for most people after the turning point in some spacetime location. Properties of previous phases still play a role in the next phases, but they are encapsulated within the properties of the next phases. The fact that minorities are still or already in a different phase, can be one of the sources of local conflicts.
 
phase – typical ways of life (shelter, food, work)
 
consciousness
 
development of what is new in human cultural evolution
 
challenge
 
predominant types of trust –
 
turning point – year around which a majority of mankind can be characterized by the specific phase-properties that become predominant

scale – quantified as the min/max number-of-people of the typical polities (political units of that phase)