The Power of Scale: A Global History Approach

A Global History Approach

John Bodley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317455233
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Throughout history, the natural human inclination to accumulate social power has led to growth and scale increases that benefit the few at the expense of the many. John Bodley looks at global history through the lens of power and scale theory, and draws on history, economics, anthropology, and sociology to demonstrate how individuals have been the agents of social change, not social classes. Filled with tables and data to support his argument, this book considers how increases in scale necessarily lead to an increasingly small elite gaining disproportionate power, making democratic control more difficult to achieve and maintain.

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Introduction: Imperia and the Power of Scale

This book introduces a scale and power perspective on human development from the dawn of culture to the present and identifies the crucial transformations, the decision makers, and the cultural processes that have produced our present world. Imperia and the power of scale shed light on such contemporary global problems as war, environmental deterioration, poverty, and human rights abuses. From this new perspective these problems are seen as unintended consequences of the operation of personal power networks that have become too big and too dangerous to be safely controlled. Identifying imperia and scale as problems in themselves means that the most intractable human problems are not a result of human greed, Malthusian overpopulation, or technological backwardness. They are problems of the power of scale, and they have been with us for a very long time. Developing a better understanding of how social power is distributed and how it is used is an important and long-overdue step toward solving global problems. The unique convergence of democracy, mass production, and information technology at the dawn of the new millennium is a unique opportunity for humanity to improve the overall conditions of life if social power can be safely controlled and distributed. For the first time in human history we can create a truly democratic world, but we need to create optimum scale societies, with optimal distributions of social power.

Imperia, Social Power, and Scale

Imperia are important keys to understanding past, present, and future cultural development. Imperia is the plural of Imperium, the Latin word for command over others, rule by an individual, or rule by an elite few. It is a conceptual tool to examine the role of individuals in directing cultural development. As a multidimensional concept, imperium is shorthand for any personal power network and elite organizational structure; it can be applied to households and to many kinds of corporate groups, including businesses and governments, where human decision makers have a prominent role. Imperium also means empire, and refers to absolute power or domination by a ruler, or an elite few, in any power domain—political, economic, ideological, or military—following Mann’s (1986) analysis of social power. Imperia include antidemocratic command structures. Imperia exist wherever control is permanently exercised by an individual or an elite minority who are fewer than half of the members of any social group. Clans and lineages can be organized as imperia. A business corporation is an imperium, although its directors may be virtually anonymous in society at large. The household controlled by its adult members is a universal imperium in all human societies, but there are many other imperia or empires in the world today, and they exist at all levels of society from local to global.

Power in this context refers to social power, the ability of individuals to influence other people and events in order to maintain or improve their own and their children’s material opportunities, or life chances. The ability to make strategic decisions that transform or “develop” entire societies and cultures to suit one’s purpose is the apex of social power. The effectiveness of one’s imperium can be measured by the degree to which one’s household enjoys a higher than average level of material well-being and the ability to transmit these advantages to the next generation. In societies where social power is differentially distributed, the superior life chances of the more powerful are likely to be reflected in their larger, more comfortable households, superior health, life expectancy, nutrition, greater esteem, privilege, and overall security. This kind of power may be demonstrated by victory in competitive struggles with other households, but social power fundamentally means the ability to have one’s needs met, regardless of opposition or adverse circumstances. Where there are cultural opportunities for elites to construct large imperia, and effective limits on power are absent, power elites may become a privileged minority who are able to impose their will on the majority. Very powerful elites may succeed in rising to the top in multiple-power domains, and they may dominate an entire society or multiple societies. It is also possible that multiple hierarchies and mobilized majorities may constitute countervailing forces that prevent growth from becoming an opportunity for unlimited power seeking.

Scale refers to the absolute size of populations, economic enterprises, markets, armies, cities, or anything that affects the well-being of people. Scale calls attention to growth thresholds, order-of-magnitude increases in the size of societies, and the new cultural features that are required to sustain larger systems. Scale is about growth and power. As societies grow larger, it is likely that the organization of social power will need to change. A principal assumption of this book is that growth is an elite-directed process that concentrates power in the form of ever-expanding imperia. The power of scale is the reality that scale increases can be expected to mathematically produce disproportionate concentrations of power for those at the very top of any hierarchy in any power domain, while the costs of growth are likely to be socialized or borne by society at large. This explains why some people invariably promote growth and attempt to persuade everyone that growth is universally beneficial, even as growth changes the distribution of opportunities in ways that may disadvantage many others.

Everyone opportunistically seeks to build imperia because people naturally need physical and emotional security for themselves and their families and personal control over the conditions of their daily life. Just as the universal incest taboo restrains and regulates human sexual drives, the majority construct cultural and social institutions to restrain the natural drive for personal power and domination within socially beneficial limits because when individuals are allowed to create ever larger imperia, the well-being and basic human rights of others may be threatened. An imperium can benefit society at large, but unlimited power is always potentially dangerous. Power elites are different from the majority because they are in a position to concentrate greater than average power in personal imperia by manipulating personal networks of kin, allies, and associates scattered throughout society, many of whom may themselves have more than average power. Elites also control and manipulate a variety of corporate groups and institutions. Elites can use their more powerful imperia to transform culture for their own benefit. Elites gain their added power from increases in the size or scale of societies, polities, and economic enterprises. Elites may be well-intended people, but they have human weaknesses and can make mistakes, and the potential for abuse of imperial power, intentional or not, increases as imperia grow. The inequities, injustices, and maladaptations of the past and present are byproducts of empire building, competition between elites, countervailing social movements, and the power imbalances that imperia create.

The imperia and scale approach explicitly rejects prevailing neoclassical economic models that present global capitalism as a benevolent, self-organized system and an irresistible force. Rather, unfettered global capitalism may amplify the problems of scale and power, and may not be the best way to enhance human freedom and well-being. Although elite power in the form of imperia is a central theme of this book, it is not another Marxist version of class struggle theory. The focus on imperia highlights the role of individuals rather than social classes and emphasizes the diverse pathways to power, multiple-power domains, hierarchies, and networks. This is not to ignore the importance of organized groups as power blocks, but these will be treated as sources of individual power. Imperia and scale draw attention to the often wide divergence between formal social structures and cultural ideals and human realities in practice, especially as these are expressed in public discourse. Throughout this book I will avoid personifying such cultural constructions as the state and corporations and will resist appealing to such impersonal forces as markets as inevitable and irresistible determinants of our future. I will look instead at how people use these artificial entities and processes in ways that create unequal opportunities. In scale theory no single driving force behind cultural development exists other than opportunistic individuals and the contingencies of culture, nature, and history. In this analysis growth in scale itself is the central problem, and the objective is to explain why perpetual growth occurs, to understand its human consequences, and to consider the alternatives. Throughout history people repeatedly resisted the negative consequences of misguided imperia and developed many imaginative proposals for more humane, democratic, and sustainable worlds. Counter-imperia social movements have been crucial sources of cultural development. Democracy itself was a product of fierce popular resistance to tyrannical imperia. A world composed of optimal-scale societies would make the problem of power imbalances much easier to solve.

Three Cultural Worlds: Tribal, Imperial, and Commercial

The 5,000 or so distinct ethnolinguistic groups that anthropologists have described ethnographically are only a fraction of the tremendous cultural diversity created over the past 200,000 years of cultural development. However, the organization of social power is such an important determinant of the conditions of human life and well-being that all cultures can be sorted by their dominant forms of imperia into just three distinct cultural worlds: tribal, imperial, and commercial. Each world is dominated respectively by households, political rulers, or economic elites. It may seem overly simplistic and even trivial to reduce all of cultural evolution and diversity to such a sweeping generalization, but this is not a banal exercise. Imperia seem so familiar that it is difficult to grasp their real significance. Imperia are so close, sometimes so large, and so pervasive that they become invisible, but it would be a mistake to disregard them. Imperia not only determine human well-being, but they determine how cultures develop and grow, how and why growth occurs, how growth is regulated, and when it stops. Imperia focus our attention on who controls and directs culture, and for what purposes.

Cultural worlds are the most extensive social environments where people routinely interact to secure their existence, and where in spite of linguistic or ethnic differences, people share understandings about the nature of the world, and about common human rights and obligations. The operation of distinctive dominant imperia in each world can create extreme differences in levels of economic productivity, standard of living, and overall well-being of households that are related to differences in the scale of settlements, societies, and regional and global populations. The most striking aspect of the three worlds is the scale and scope of human activities that each permits, and the distinctive ways imperia are constructed in each, and how social power is organized and distributed. The present chapter looks closely at the basic design and function of imperia in these three worlds and their human consequences, and examines the major transformations that created them. Chapter 2 will examine representative cultures from each world, and Chapter 3 will show how natural scale laws amplify the power of imperia and promote further growth.

The human consequences of life in each world are profound and largely the result of the different ways imperia operate in combination with scale differences. In the tribal world each household had direct access to the material resources needed for survival, and everyone lived in politically autonomous bands and villages. The household was the most permanent and the only dominant imperium. This was possible because societies were kept small and resources remained abundant. The tribe was an inclusive interest group, but did not operate as an imperium because no single person or dominant minority could direct it by gaining permanent control over the entire tribal society. Tribal leadership was temporary, and anyone with the personal qualifications could be a leader. All tribal members belonged to smaller, community-level groups controlling their own resources, but every household was incorporated within these groups, and everyone and every household could participate in decision making to the limits of their natural abilities. Under these conditions, competition between households was minimized, there was little capital accumulation, and the material level remained very low, but basic human needs were easily satisfied. Everyone was comfortable, within the cultural definition of comfort.

In the imperial world, where societies were much larger, strategic resources were controlled by dominant political imperia and societies were divided into hierarchical interest groups, or social classes, that systematically excluded and disadvantaged lower-ranked households. The term “imperial” is applied to this world to evoke the common meaning of empire with reference to a territorially based, politically centralized society controlled by a political elite. Even though money, trade, and markets were often essential in the ancient imperial world, those who made their living in these areas were often distrusted and despised, and were relegated to the social background. The rulers and priests occupied the power center of the imperial world, and the military, tribute, and religion were the principle means used by the elite to mobilize social power from the subordinate masses. People gained access to resources only at the will of rulers and landlords, and by manipulating patron-client relationships. Local communities were politically dependent on urban-based centers of power, and most households were socially and economically dependent. The political elite formed an exclusive, privileged subset of society, enjoying superior power and superior life chances, while many nonelites experienced drastically reduced life chances. There was a striking increase in wealth accumulation, but it was largely directed and controlled by the political elites for their personal benefit. This is the human problem of political tyranny and exploitation.

In the commercial world material well-being depends on access to capital, markets, and employment, all of which are controlled by imperia organized by economic elites and the political rulers who support them. Economic power and economic elites are supreme in the commercial world, such that both local communities and governments are subservient to commercial interests, enterprises, and institutions. Risks are widely shared throughout commercial societies, but rewards are highly concentrated. The crucial reality of life in the commercial world is that because there are more total people than ever before, there are also vastly more people with less social power than others, and most people may have less control over the conditions of daily life than in any previous cultural world. This is the problem of economic tyranny and exploitation, added to the problem of political tyranny. The most important question is whether there are reasonable alternatives to these forms of tyranny, but first we need to understand the basic cultural features of each world, and briefly consider the transformations required to create each world.

Great Cultural Transformations

No culture is static. They all change, but change occurs for different reasons and has different human consequences. The three cultural worlds—tribal, imperial, and commercial—were produced and shaped by a sequence of eight great cultural transformations that changed how people lived, raised global population levels, and eventually increased the scale and form of societies and cultures over many thousands of years (Figure 1.1). All people participated in and shared in the benefits of the first three great transformations that produced the tribal world:

1. Hominids became physically modern humans (by 100,000 B.P.*, or earlier);

2. Humans created effective foraging cultures (by 50,000 B.P., or earlier); and

3. Foragers became effective village farmers (by 10,000 B.P.).

These transformations were democratically directed by all households, or do...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Foreword by Kevin Reilly
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: Imperia and the Power of Scale
• 2. Imperia in Three Worlds
• 3. Why Scale Matters
• 4. The Political Elite Take Power
• 5. The Rise of European Commercial Elites
• 6. The Power Elite in Action: America’s Commercial Revolution, 1787–1945
• 7. Counter-Imperia: Imagining Alternative Worlds
• 8. Utopian Capitalists: Constructing and Reconstructing the World Order, 1945–2000
• 9. Beyond 2000: An Optimal-Scale Commercial World
• References
• Index