What if we need to do something radically different than the status quo that requires the coordination of many people? There are several ways to coordinate people or cells or other parts into a coherent whole, each part with its own needs. The most common ones are persuasion, coercion, hierarchy, market (or evolutionary forces for biological systems in general), religion/ideology, rules and social norms.
There are costs to coordination sometimes. Whether the task at hand is building something, organizing an event, or sprouting a new economy. Liberals (including myself) are wary of giving up individual autonomy in favor of group security. They are wary of gurus that get corrupted by power and abuse their disciples. Liberals are also wary of advertisers trying to persuade people to buy a product. Conservatives are wary of governments trying to control people with too many laws. Nowadays everyone is wary of enslaving people or more generally coercing them to do something. And most people today don’t have patience for long dialectic discussions, where the two sides don’t initially agree. In modern day society we have minimized transaction costs and coordination in general. It still happens with cultural norms, government laws, and market mechanisms such as being paid, or even buying and selling. But in most of these cases people accept the costs because the benefits are not too distant in the future and they are more or less certain. It is no wonder then that people have found ways to try to evade coordination when the benefits are in the far future and/or uncertain. Here are some that I’ve come across.
The Mystic Evasion
God, or Spirit coordinates so we don’t have to. We can also avoid giving up our individuality if we align with God’s purpose, get out of the way, lose our egos/wills, etc.
Or, just meditate and introspect. And somehow the barn will get built, the economic network will magically sprout, the complex folk dance will be danced because from a place deep within, everyone can agree.
The problem with this view is that even if the ontology is roughly correct (it may be instead that we have a biological need to be part of a tribe, or something bigger than our egos), people still need to coordinate, because we are not puppets in the hands of a benevolent God. Historically, communities with this view have coordinated through a charismatic leader (who supposedly represents God), and/or some other hierarchy. The charismatic leader usually gets corrupted by power and abuses people in some way. Or he dies and people wake up as if from a dream wondering why they are there. Or the hierarchy stifles people's sense of spontaneity and creativity. It might have worked in the past, before the newfound sense of freedom ushered in by the industrial revolution and Enlightment (a rare moment where I praise the industrial revolution). Now totalitarian (meaning in all parts of life, not only work) hierarchy is not very popular.
Anther problem with the mystic evasions is spiritual bypass, where people do not want to admit that they have indvidual needs, because that would make them egoic. Isn't it possible to have individual needs, yet at the same time want the best for other beings? And not only in a quid pro quo way, or reciprocal altruism as the sociologists call it, but in genuine caring ways? Once we get beyond the dichotomy of selfishness and egolessness, it is possible to have conversations about how we can all get our needs met, or even sacrifice some of our own needs for others.
The problem with this view is that even if the ontology is roughly correct (it may be instead that we have a biological need to be part of a tribe, or something bigger than our egos), people still need to coordinate, because we are not puppets in the hands of a benevolent God. Historically, communities with this view have coordinated through a charismatic leader (who supposedly represents God), and/or some other hierarchy. The charismatic leader usually gets corrupted by power and abuses people in some way. Or he dies and people wake up as if from a dream wondering why they are there. Or the hierarchy stifles people's sense of spontaneity and creativity. It might have worked in the past, before the newfound sense of freedom ushered in by the industrial revolution and Enlightment (a rare moment where I praise the industrial revolution). Now totalitarian (meaning in all parts of life, not only work) hierarchy is not very popular.
Anther problem with the mystic evasions is spiritual bypass, where people do not want to admit that they have indvidual needs, because that would make them egoic. Isn't it possible to have individual needs, yet at the same time want the best for other beings? And not only in a quid pro quo way, or reciprocal altruism as the sociologists call it, but in genuine caring ways? Once we get beyond the dichotomy of selfishness and egolessness, it is possible to have conversations about how we can all get our needs met, or even sacrifice some of our own needs for others.
The Cornucopian Evasion
Machines can help us become independent of others, (except when there are only benefits and no costs, in which case we WANT to coordinate). The problem with this approach is that we are wired to need each other and without that constraint we become anomic (Durkheim’s term, roughly meaning alienated). Sociology research has shown that suicide rates are correlated with lack of social connection and constraint. Social psychology research has shown that the interdependence gained by producing for each other creates stronger social bonds and stronger character than the dependence on a market for consumption. And system theory research into emergence shows that consciousness itself depends on constraints such as being embedded in an intersubjective social system. Much of our values and sense of each other come from material interdependence, producing goods and services for each other, not from having these things produced by machines alone. This can be generalized to our connection to and coordination with nature. If we don’t need nature (e.g. because of machines), we feel disconnected from her and she does not coordinate with us, with such outcomes as floods, hurricanes, dust bowls, and loss of resources.
The Gandhian evasion
Lead by example. It only works when the project in question requires no coordination, only imitation, or at the next level of organization (see below). If I am able to grow some vegetables and 100 people imitate my strategies, it won’t help to build a barn, or dance a complex dance. If I protest, and a million others protest, it can get the British out of India, but it won’t help rebuild the village economy destroyed by the British Empire. Imitation can work at the next level however, once a village has been built, other villages can possibly imitate it. The village was not built by imitation/example—the coordination happened through some other means. Once it has been achieved, the coordination strategies can be copied.
The anarchist evasion
Things get ”self-organized”. This could be true in a sense, but it doesn’t mean “organized by magic”. It means organized without outside help. If one looks deeper at examples of self-organization, one always finds one of the mechanisms mentioned above. For cells organizing into a multi-cellular organism, beyond a certain level of complexity, there is a hierarchy mediated by the brain at the top (or other simpler structures) and levels of hormones and other signaling molecules. For people, if there is no hierarchy or outside direction, there are negotiations, consensus meetings, trade, etc. I think this can work well enough for tasks where everyone agrees on what is to be accomplished already, but I don’t know if it can work for a case where there are many ideas floating around and one must be chosen.
It would be good if we faced this head on instead of evading, and were willing to adopt one of the strategies above to coordinate for projects with far future and uncertain benefits, because they benefits might just be worth it. I'm thinking in particular about building a local economy/technology, and idea shared by the likes of Gandhi, Peter Maurin (founder of the Catholic Worker) and Schumacher. It's notsomething that can be led by example, it's not something that can be done by a bunch of homesteaders. It requires at least 100 people skilled in pre-industrial crafts and farming techniques. Coercion can be ruled out because there is too much individual freedom that is sacrificed. Persuasion is wasted on most people, given the Zeitgeist. Instead, it can be focused on one wealthy funder. Hierarchy and market forces (appealing to individual initiative and/or group fitness) can be used once the project is funded. I don’t consider it ethical to use people’s spiritual emotions to coordinate them. Rather, such emotions, of partaking in something greater than one’s self, can provide a glue once coordination has been achieved. So we form a non-profit, we pay people to develop their own skills and network with others, and then we see if this is selected for, but not in the capitalist global market. Instead we see if people can be happier this way than in the mainstream. How else could we coordinate people to do this? If you have any ideas, let me know.
The only coordination needs to happen on a family homestead. We need to find new ways of producing basic necessities more sustainably, with less labor and then trade with our neighbors for surplus. The problem with this is that it’s not a viable model but for a few people who can afford (or who can inherit) lots of land, while continuing to depend on the global economy for most other things but food and the labor that goes into building shelter. Also, though innovation is great, people had known how to produce food and shelter sustainably before the industrial revolution. So innovation in food production is less of a priority than networking people with already known technologies and skills.
