THEORIES, REPORTS

2. Human society is in constant development.

Human society is continuously evolving. It is an ongoing process. There is no ideal society that remains timeless or unchanging.

3. Society is a consequence of the means of subsistence.

Human society is a consequence of how people support themselves. Whether they hunt and gather, farm, or rely on machines, society adapts accordingly.

4. The formation of society begins with the means of subsistence.

With the knowledge and tools (technology) that humans possess, they create a “cake” (economy), upon which they build their way of life (society).

Technology → Economy → Society

5. Inventions bring new technology.

Inventions and their innovations change technology, which in turn reshapes society.

6. Society is rooted.

Human society is grounded and grows from the grassroots. It is not divinely ordained or otherwise taken out of thin air, such as a theoretical social contract between rulers and the people. It is born from the earth.

7. The purpose of society.

The purpose of society is to ensure humanity’s long-term survival. It should not only provide food for today but also carry future generations forward. It is built from multiple interdependent parts and functions.

8. Societies have different characters.

Human societies throughout history vary in character—both in quality and quantity. In size, they may range from a small group to the entire world. They may be evil or good, open or closed, spontaneous or coercive, comprehensive or loose, extractive or supportive, and so on.

9. Delay.

A technological innovation (if in demand) is quickly adopted into daily life, while its broader impact on society occurs more slowly. Society has deep roots in history, culture, habits, and power structures, and does not change instantly. A rapid introduction of multiple innovations can therefore lead to a disjointed or lagging world.

10. Order.

Society (like all other organizations) is held together and protected from disintegration through violence, exclusion, ostracism, persuasion, norms, and consensus. Violence is the most powerful and overarching method. For any of these methods to work, it is essential that the object (individual or group) cannot escape and survive in another context.

ELEMENTARY ORGANIZATION THEORY (Theory)

An organization and its leadership should be analogous to (in harmony with) its operations. Otherwise, it becomes dysfunctional.

A static organization can be built upon something static; a dynamic one upon something dynamic.

A static organization applied to a dynamic operation performs poorly.

Or put differently:

A vertical organization should not be built upon something lateral.

NO CHANCE (Report)

The transition from the nation-state to The Global Society is fated. Two hundred states are to become one society—the global one.

This development cannot be stopped; the forces at play are too great. It is comparable to trying to stop the arrival of spring—impossible. Spring pushes forward everywhere, bit by bit, hour by hour, in all places. The Global Society is emerging in the same way—as a force of nature that cannot be halted.

At its core, this emergence is driven by the underlying global economy, which is so generous. It promises everything to everyone for nothing—and that is what people want. Through their daily choices—especially through what they purchase—billions of people across the planet choose such a world and such an order.

Not even today’s giants like the USA, China, or the EU, with all their accumulated power, can stop the development. To do so would require completely sealing their borders—using today’s North Korea as a model.

Globalization is the dominant force in today’s world.

It stands above the nation-state system and its powers. It gently but firmly steers them toward the final goal—that is, The Global Society. Nation-states can only acknowledge this and comply obediently.

(The Global Society today resembles what God once was. God was a higher power and guiding light—it was His commands and decrees that applied. For a period, the Catholic Church was the supreme authority, to which kings and rulers turned for guidance. The Pope issued instructions, and they were followed. His power was paramount. In the U.S., no president could be Catholic—until Kennedy—because a Catholic was assumed to be under the Pope’s control.)

Progress cannot be stopped.

No kind of development can ever be truly stopped, and this, of course, applies to globalization and its final goal: The Global Society. The best approach is to walk hand in hand with it.

Those who resist, clinging to what once was, will fall behind and have difficulty catching up—possibly only at the cost of becoming diminished.

The technological-economic development—upon which society itself is built—has evolved within the boundaries of the nation-state, particularly during the 20th century.

During this time, society transitioned from millions of kinship and family-based communities into one large national family—into a “people’s home” or state patriarchy.

But this national community is now too small. Continued technological and economic development now demands something larger and more rewarding: a global society. As a result, the boundaries are being torn down. The nation-state project is being undermined and attacked.

The decisive opening came with the fall of communism.

The West stood against the East: a market-democratic system versus a centrally planned economy. The market economy proved more vital—it won and was adopted in the East, enabling China to leap into an economic leadership role within a few decades. In a flash, the entire world became a global economy.

A corresponding global society has not emerged as quickly.

Restructuring and developing a society is not a simple or effortless task—it requires reshaping an entire culture. The old world must give way to the new, and that will take time. But there is no alternative—it is destiny.

THE TRUE PEACE (Report)

True peace is the constant and eternal peace. It is not the kind of peace that is normally spoken of, namely the peace that follows a peace treaty. Such peace is only a pause and recovery between wars. True peace is the one without the military.

For about 300,000 years there was peace among humans, and that was during the time when humans were hunter-gatherers. They took directly from nature and were constantly moving forward to find more food. They did this in groups so that several could better take care of each other and help the children during their long upbringing. Nature was for everyone, and there was nothing to fight about. Making formations and starting fights made no sense because there was nothing to take from each other. The rule was to gather what you needed yourself. If you met others, you would just turn away and continue searching for food.

In the next phase, nature, at least the most fertile parts, was transformed into farmland. People cultivated the plants and raised the animals that provided good food. And this is understandable. Now one could establish a proper dwelling to protect against weather and wind. Additionally, food could be stored as a buffer since nature was not equally generous throughout the year—it had its seasons.

The gathering groups settled down and became farming villages (which much later evolved into individual farms). One village followed another, and interactions between them could be both good and bad. They could benefit from each other but also quarrel over borders and other matters.

The landscape had now changed, and one village followed another. Each village now had everything a person needed to live. This situation created a new kind of human—one who takes by force what the farmers had stored. This eventually (as we have also explained elsewhere) led to the formation of states, which became enormous. Millions upon millions of villages became around 200 states worldwide.

Thus, wars were born, as one state sought to expand at the expense of another and access its yields. A military was established, entirely focused on destruction and killing, whether attacking or defending. Wars continued until someone gained a dominant position. Especially in Europe, wars were frequent. On all other continents, a dominant power had long established itself, and it was peaceful as long as that power did not attack its neighbors.

In each village, supplies had been stored that people wanted. Had these supplies temporarily been removed or magically disappeared, some states would never have been formed. Now every village became a “lame duck” and thus an easy target.

Both hunter-gatherers and states were close in terms of sustenance. They took from nature, from the earth. When we come to the next stage in human social development, we encounter a completely different means of sustenance.

Humans have now acquired technological knowledge, which they use to perform the arduous manual work of provision. They create machines that take everything and more from the earth’s surface, turn it into consumer goods, and present them at their feet. Heavy manual labor is replaced by energy, primarily from fossil fuels. Since machines can also be installed in vehicles, the entire world can be reached and encompassed. The entire world population now becomes like a single consumer group, which machines like because they want to produce in the millions. The more that is demanded, the more automation can be introduced and the cheaper it becomes. It becomes a state of everything for everyone for nothing.

Each country produces what it is best suited for, often based on some raw material. These goods are sent out worldwide. In exchange, countries receive what others have produced and are best at. Everyone benefits and becomes dependent on each other. The world trades, and a global giant economy has been created. Everything is a worldwide cooperation. War and military have no place in this. This is the true peace.

FROM WAR TO COOPERATION (Report)

The transition from the nation-state system to the Global Society means that humanity stops warring and instead begins to cooperate. Each form of society has its own character and behavior.

The state, as we have said before, is built on top of agriculture. It rules over its yield and takes a portion for its own livelihood. It must also defend itself against the outside world, which wants to seize its territory—and that is what war is.

War and Europe are almost synonymous. War is the normal state, and peace more like a pause or recovery in between. Europe has experienced the Hundred Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, the World Wars, and the Cold War, to name the most famous.

Recently, the will to fight has diminished (Russia being an exception). People are not as war-prone as before and are less willing to make the necessary sacrifices. One reason for this is globalization with its cooperation and accompanying sense of community.

It is the global economy that has developed very rapidly. This has been made possible by a large influx of new technology in communication and production, which has turned the entire world into a market with significant economies of scale. Society, which exists for humanity’s long-term survival, shapes itself according to this global supply situation and thus gains a clear cooperative character.

However, the cooperation is not the kind the word suggests, that certain parties (such as states) have decided to cooperate. This cooperation has a commercial character and manages itself through the market economy. The market economy regulates itself and constantly adapts to new conditions. What is important is that the whole world understands that this cooperation is rewarding and that anything else is destructive. The difference from the old world is great and diametrical, for back then it was all about acquiring as much farmland as possible.

When it comes to cooperation in the sense of coming together to get something done, the environmental issue is what humanity must unite around. It is large, growing, and threatening to all mankind. The situation today is unsustainable, and no improvement is in sight. Humans have freed themselves from their ecological context and are expanding freely. There are no other species or forces resisting and limiting them, as there are in a functioning ecology. They reproduce and want more, which means it can only end one way. They spread out and exhaust the earth’s resources and capacity until there is nothing left to live on. Humans have become their own enemy.

The other way is for humans to come together and cooperate to save themselves and the earth. The intelligence that enabled them to break free from ecology must now be used to nurture the environment and make it thrive. And then expansion must stop, both in the number of individuals and in land use. Too much waste and exhaust gases are produced. There are also too many people on the planet; eight billion is far too many if everyone is to have a Western standard of living. The number must come down.

What is extracted today from the earth’s resources is enough; here is the limit, and much more is hardly sustainable. The equation barely adds up and will get worse in the future, as the earth’s poor, who are the majority, dream of living like Westerners. That force is strong.

How this will be solved is something to ponder. Great consensus and cooperation are required; otherwise, things will deteriorate. When it came to cooperating to create a global economy, it happened naturally and was positive because it was rewarding. Cooperation over the environment is demanding and therefore much harder to implement. Two main paths can possibly be discussed: the coercive and the voluntary.

The coercive path is that an authority decides how much may be produced and thus consumed for environmental goals to be achieved. If not followed, there are fines or imprisonment. In that case, the current social order is used, which with its power controls its subjects. The state is given an extended mandate. This can work especially against large industrial facilities. It becomes more difficult with the general public since there is no insight into their actions.

The voluntary path seems to be the most effective. People who consciously and in every situation do what is environmentally right lead to results. The more who do right, the better it gets. If the entire world population does right, it will make a powerful difference. Then environmental work is under control. Conscious consumers will also influence producers and force them toward smarter and cleaner processes. Conscious people will also understand the connection with overpopulation.

For humans and humanity, life and survival are the constant challenge and the vital question. How this is solved depends on the situation. One can choose to wage war or cooperate.

INVENTIONS (Report)

It is inventions (innovations) that shape the world—at least in the long term. Inventions come about to make it easier for humans to live and survive, and fundamentally, that is what it is all about: to be able to live. Humans adopt inventions and adapt their way of life accordingly.

We have spoken of the hunter-gatherers, then the state society, and now the Global Society (TGS). It is inventions, tools, and technology that have created these different societal forms. This has not been the work of politicians. The task of politicians is to make the best of the situation. Politicians act in the short term and must deal with the reality created by inventions.

In hunter-gatherer times, the group was led by an elder who carried the group’s store of experience. He gathered the group for consensus and decision-making. In the age of the state—our era—society was initially led by a monarch, a political military leader, until democracy emerged and an elected elite took over governance. In the Global Society, there are no obvious leaders in the traditional power sense; those in high positions are administrators of large cities and their regions—some kind of metropolitan mayors.

Social transformation occurs—somewhat delayed—at the pace new inventions are introduced. In the time of Homo erectus, nothing happened, and everything stood still for 300,000 years. They had fire and a few tools. Some kind of cutting tool was essential. Eventually, they had enough tools and knowledge to begin agriculture. This led (entirely unexpectedly) to the emergence of the state society. In our modern time, new products emerge at a furious pace. This leads to a social transformation that, compared to the past, is a complete meltdown. Each year, 4 million patents are filed. Each patent is unique, and around 17 million remain active and valid.

The number of inventions that have become innovations and are in practical use is countless. People often make lists of humanity’s most important inventions—those that have clearly elevated humankind. Such lists are, of course, very subjective and rarely the same. Our list is presented in three columns:

Left column Middle column Right column

The Lock The Wheel The Hand Axe

The Match Printing Press The Plough

The Clock Railways The Loom

The Lightbulb The Car Iron and Steel

X-ray Telephone Steam Engine

Antibiotics Film Electricity

Refrigerator Airplane Internal Combustion Engine

Heat Pump TV & Radio Deep Drilling

Computer Ball Bearings

In the left column, we list inventions that have made everyday life easier and more comfortable. The match, lightbulb, refrigerator, etc., have simplified daily living. Antibiotics have saved lives. Life has become easier, people have gained more time, and have become freer.

Each of these everyday inventions has solved a specific problem, and when all are added together, a significant relief has occurred. The difference between before and after is considerable. Still, it is hard to claim that these inventions have transformed society. Of course, they free people, allowing them to be more outwardly active, but proving that society (the state society) has thereby changed is difficult—perhaps it has only become more entrenched. Any such argument would be too speculative and fall apart.

In contrast, the inventions listed in the middle and right columns clearly transform society. These include communications and machinery. They break open the state society and give rise to the Global Society. Airplanes, telephony—all kinds of communication—expand the possible boundaries of society. This is welcomed by machines of all kinds, which perform best when working with large volumes.

If one were to choose the single most impactful invention, suggestions would be many—everyone has their own view. For us, however, the answer is simple and without doubt: it is steel. Steel is sharp, strong, and durable. It can even cut through rock. From steel, one can make nearly anything: buildings, infrastructure, tools. Cutting steel is even sharper and harder than ordinary steel. It can refine regular steel down to hundredths of a millimeter, which makes it possible to create rotating machinery like motors and engines—machines that produce everything humanity needs. Without iron and steel, we are back in the Stone Age.

Steel is especially important in war. We can thank Europe’s wars for the development of steel.

VIOLENCE AND SOCIETY (Report)

Violence—meaning a physical contest between people—has a decisive role in human life. It is the final “argument” in a dispute and determines who becomes the winner. The physically strongest prevails and thus gets to rule and set the agenda. The loser can, at best, hope for mercy—even if they may have been the wiser and offered the best solutions.

People can argue about nearly anything, though rarely about nonsense. There must be some form of value involved. That value can be either material or immaterial. It is material if it can be converted into money—or is money itself—and immaterial if it concerns something important: knowledge, information, or status. Valuables must be possible to objectify, either into a person or a thing. Otherwise, it remains elusive—like an evil spirit.

Conflicts rarely escalate into actual violence. Usually, one party is stronger, and it’s therefore clear how things will end. The potentially stronger will win, so the weaker party avoids confrontation. An open fight would only leave the weak even weaker—or wiped out. Though, the weak always have the option to disappear from the scene and thus survive. Out of reach, there’s a possibility for a better and more dignified life.

In our time—the era of the state—violence is prohibited. The state holds the monopoly on violence and uses force if someone resorts to it. This doesn’t mean, however, that disputes and conflicts disappear. On the contrary, they abound. Conflicts must therefore be referred to the state, which prescribes a solution. If that solution—and other laws—are not accepted, the state will use force through a specialized arm: the police. The police maintain order from start to finish.

Violence—the final argument—is a decisive factor in whether a society can form and continue to exist. Without the dominance of violence, no society can exist. The backbone of society is violence. The state-based society is heavily tied to violence, and the interesting question is how things will look in the Global Society (TGS), and whether there will be as much violence there. That violence will exist is obvious—but how much?

Violence arises in connection with valuables. The fact that someone created or possesses something of value doesn’t mean they get to keep it. The strong do. The physically stronger takes it—if they want to. But they don’t always want to. After all, in the end, they control it anyway. So the creator may keep their property—but only for now, and only by grace.

During the course of human life (from the very beginning), more and more valuables have been created. Therefore, one can assume that the apparatus of violence has grown correspondingly. It’s logical. If we go back to the earliest humans—hunter-gatherers who roamed from place to place gathering what they could—there were no accumulated valuables. Nature belonged to everyone, and anyone could pick what they needed. Group formation was spontaneous and based on the benefits of cooperation. Sure, disagreements could arise, but if someone was unhappy, they could leave and survive on their own. This was an open society—free of violence.

When humans became farmers, the conditions changed completely—even if the step from gathering in the wild to collecting in one place isn’t so large. As farmers, people began to accumulate and store goods. Naturally, outsiders wanted access to these resources—something the farmers resisted. This led to conflict, which escalated to violence and ended with the strongest prevailing. The strongest was the one with the most warriors—and that wasn’t the farmers. They were too few and too spread out.

The men of violence could now establish their territory—but only as large as they could hold. Communications determined the limits. This territory became the state and was financed through taxation. Two classes emerged: those who rule and those who produce. Order was enforced by the police. However, the state was surrounded by other states that wanted its land. The conflict now escalated to one between states—that is, war. Thus, the military emerged, and this was accepted by the farmers because they were now protected by their own. Wars between states, like all conflicts, end with the strongest winning.

Eventually, one half of the world stands against the other, and again, the strongest wins (unless all perish). At that point, history—as we know it—is over. The military is no longer needed, nor what it fought for: the state and its territory.

Human history, of course, doesn’t end there. Humanity lives on, but no longer in a world of states and militaries—instead, in a world without both. The state was built to dominate a farming area, live off it, and defend it. But when wars are over, its very reason for existence vanishes, and humanity is forced to create a new social order.

When the fog of war lifts, it becomes clear that humans no longer survive through farming, but through mechanical technology. A global economy has emerged, characterized by immense generosity. Instead of fighting, the focus is now on cooperation. A complete reversal. The global economy promises everything for everyone—for free—and that is what the world’s population desires. That’s what people strive for daily, in every small decision. Alongside this, the Global Society (TGS) is taking shape, while the state-based order is gradually being undermined.

In TGS, there are of course countless valuables that are tempting to seize—by one means or another. To protect them, even this society needs “the ultimate argument,” that is: violence—and that means the police. Helping the police is computer technology, with all kinds of applications. Police violence, however, is far gentler than military violence. It’s like a sheepdog keeping track of its flock. Military force is something else entirely—it deals in death and destroys everything in its path.

GLOBALIZATION IN THE 1990s (Report)

In the 1980s, the term globalization was coined (Robertson). Previously, people had talked about internationalization, meaning an increasingly extensive exchange between countries. Globalization was something even greater. It referred to something that permeated all countries—or even a force that surrounded everyone.

It became apparent that the entire system of nation-states that the world consisted of was starting to fall apart. The state-based society was under pressure, and its continued existence could be questioned. This was widely agreed upon. The issue was how to reshape everything into a new world order that aligned with the new conditions. On this point, there were as many opinions as there were commentators. Some argued the state had to be reformed and/or that international organizations had to be strengthened. Others suggested the state was the wrong organizational model altogether.

The debate continued for several years in the early 1990s. It originated in academia, primarily in the Anglo-Saxon world. It involved social scientists and political thinkers. A typical participant would be a professor of sociology. Those visible in the debate may have numbered around fifty, and about a hundred books were published. Some of this was picked up by the global press. A selection of the ideas expressed included:

• Albrow: State, governments, and culture become decentralized

• Camilleri: The state’s sovereignty is undermined; the state is no longer a power apparatus

• Drake: Political power and everyday life drift apart

• Fossen: A new economy yields a new political system

• Fukuyama: Liberal democracy wins globally

• Glössop: A global federation is inevitable

• Held: Democracy can be transferred to the global order

• Hirst: A new role for the state

• Ohmae: Region-states should be established

• Sassen: Big cities become similar and collaborate

The words we especially take note of—and which fit into our own description of TGS—are: New citizenship. The state collapses. Economy brings a new system. Democracy can be transferred. Region-state. Major cities.

The globalization question was debated for about two or three years. At the end of this period, another voice emerged (the name has been lost) which stated that we must take into account the role of violence in human nature. At that point, the entire forum collapsed. Everything that had been said lost credibility. Violence is always present, whether latent or overt.

Violence is a central element in human life and social structures. We have consistently emphasized violence as a driving force—particularly in our type of society, the state-based society. There we find both police and military, and history is a recurring story of wars (especially in Europe).

Violence is the backbone of society—without it, society collapses and perishes. The emerging society, TGS, has no violence in the form of war but does have police. As long as there are necessities and valuables to acquire, conflicts will occur. During the HC era, there was nothing of value, and therefore no violence. You simply had to gather for yourself. In our time, there is much that is desirable, which people argue over, and which ultimately can only be resolved by force.

Almost everyone who engaged in the globalization debate of the 1990s was an academic, mostly in social sciences and sociology. Many were professors at universities. As a professor of sociology, your role is to teach about various human social behaviors and contexts—like religion, class, work life, and crime—to those who want to serve society or simply want to know more. However, analyzing and explaining the state itself is hardly part of the job. What is expected is to raise the alarm if something arises that may affect the state’s sovereignty.

When globalization emerged—clearly threatening the state and potentially undermining it—professors found themselves in a loyalty conflict. What could they say? Could they go so far as to declare the state dead? Of course not; that went beyond their academic mandate. One had to wait until retirement, which someone actually did. Until then, one had to stay within the bounds of viewing the state as eternally sovereign. At the same time, students were pushing for answers. They wanted to know where globalization would lead—they were the ones who would live in that world, after all, with their whole lives ahead of them.

It was a difficult situation. But the media and press were bolder. At the turn of the year 1995, the British business magazine The Economist predicted the death of the nation-state. Neither capital, technology, nor environmental pollution respects national borders—and thus, politics cannot stop at them either.

That was the last thing to be said. Then it ended. The globalization question faded and was relegated within academia to the department of international studies or similar. There it has lain dormant for thirty years, even though the world has globalized even more, even deeper, and at an ever-faster pace.

Silence itself is a fascinating social phenomenon, and one we cannot avoid returning to.

SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY (Report)

What do we know today about human society and how it emerged? Some philosophers have dedicated themselves to this question. The discipline is called social philosophy, but it should really be called philosophy of the state, since its perspective is limited to the state—the nation-state.

As early as antiquity, thinkers like Plato considered this question. But starting there would take us too far back; it’s enough to begin in the Modern Era.

There we find the Englishman Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who believed that people could not get along, which led to a war of all against all, making life “nasty, brutish, and short.” It was better to cooperate so that something constructive and dignified could be created. This could only be achieved by appointing a sovereign (Leviathan), to whom the people would submit. The sovereign—who could also be called an absolute ruler, a dictator, or even a tyrant—was allowed to use violence if necessary. He was not without obligations, however; he was tasked with protecting the people from external threats, which meant maintaining an army. That he lived lavishly had to be tolerated.

Through this, the absolute ruler and the people established a treaty or contract in the form of a tacit, implicit agreement that the sovereign would govern them in exchange for order and stability. The Englishman John Locke (1632–1704) also belongs in this category. There should indeed be a state power—but not just any kind. Concentrating all power in one hand could lead to abuse. Therefore, power should be divided into a judicial and an executive branch (cf. the U.S. Constitution). If the rulers did not behave, it could lead to rebellion and reckoning. A proper reprimand, then—and in a sense, even rule by the people.

To another category of social philosophers belong the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and the German Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). They were less grounded in reality and are better considered romantics. For both, the state was something sublime, something exalted, which brought relief and added value to its citizens. For Rousseau, the state represented the General Will—what the people truly wanted—a normative force with certain values, which led to a simpler and smoother way of life. How the state power should be structured was another matter. It must not become too large or heavy. Ideally, direct democracy through referendums would be applied.

For Hegel, the state was something unto itself—its own body and soul. It held sublime values, and by being part of it, one attained a more dignified and elevated life. As a citizen of a state-based society, one gained identity and moral status. One was lifted above the toil and troubles of daily life. It was like entering a church and sensing all its glory. Or, in Hegel’s own words:

“The state is the divine idea as it exists on Earth… The state is the idea of spirit in its outward manifestation of human will and its freedom.”

The prevailing belief today is that our society—that is, the state society or nation-state—was formed in such a way that the people gave up their own authority and consented to the creation of a higher power to maintain order. There exists a tacit social contract between the state and the citizens. More or less as Hobbes and Locke envisioned.

To us, this seems pulled from thin air—it’s a matter of romanticizing and legitimizing power. We are realists and grounded. We believe that society emerges from the actual conditions of sustenance. Human society is not something a homogeneous group of people—a nation—silently agrees upon. Life is not a bed of roses; it is a struggle.

The state arose from agriculture as a means of subsistence. What the farmers gathered in their barns was seized by violent powerholders, who imposed the structure of the state and formed a society from it—one that included a ruling class.