One notable exception I'm aware of is Professor of Economics and Social Policy George J. Borjas who was probably crucified for his "wrong" conclusions. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" came to mind when he described how differing results can pop up to describe the same event. Needless to add, I trust Borjas not the other side.
Known past history has a lot to say about the mixing of unrelated ethnic groupings with far different religious beliefs, childrearing folkways and customs, particularly sexual ones. "They are people just like us, they have families just like us" is simply blind to certain ugly facts of human life.
As I read this, I had the thought that formal contractual insurance would not be needed in kin/clan groups where someone could look after the children if parents fell ill or dead. But it also would not have arisen as a means of mitigating risk from major commercial or social undertakings. Joining a "syndicate" or non-kin equivalent to establish an insurance pool requires a high level of trust in the wider social structure and rule of law. Plus the larger the pool, the (probable) lower cost per risk mitigator.
Do you know of any examples that run counter to my thesis? I just now thought of ethnic Jews as money lenders in Medieval times and Islamic Hawala money transfer schemes, where the trusted group is not really genetic but ethnic or religious, etc. Your thoughts?
Market-dominant minorities use in-group connections to create trust networks that do not rely on kinship. I do not think it a coincidence that set of islands Venice was a pioneer of insurance and debt instruments, including public debt (the prestiti).
"The success of what we now call Western civilisation has been built on the development of individualist cultures that enabled, and generated, a raft of successful social cooperation mechanisms."
And what drove the development of individualist cultures? It's not western, it's not Christian. It's about certain people embracing technologies, mostly because they were resource-poor. How do you make money if land is bad? You shift towards trade, craft and so forth. It's particularly northern Europeans like the British and the Danes. And as you shift away from land, you have more individualism.
Good land is something that needs protecting by a tribe. Other tribes will try and take it as it has value. You need to work as a people. You need to be more warrior-inclined. The culture needs to be more homogenous. Everyone has to worship the same God or the same variation of a God. I suspect that attitudes of these societies towards homosexuals is part of this too, that behaviour outside the norm isn't tolerated.
Once you get away from land, there is more co-operation and more individualism. People selling things to each other. And you see a decline in tribalism, a decline in religion, more tolerance of difference. The Nazis were big in the agrarian parts of Germany like Bavaria and Saxony, not the cold, industrial places like Hamburg. And I would suggest that part of the reason for the success of West Germany is that they lost so much of that and industrial thinking could dominate, rather than land based thinking of the Nazis.
We can apply the same pattern around the world. To South America, to southern Europe, to Asia. Democracy, human rights come after industrialisation.
The flaw with immigration is not understanding this. Afghanistan and Somalia are not like the UK. It's not about religion, or colour of skin. It's about the lack of industrialisation, and the old culture that comes with that. Which isn't a whole lot different to when England, Spain and France were beating each other up in the 14th century. And people will adapt over time, but it doesn't happen overnight.
It's also the big flaw with thinking we can fix the Middle East. We don't have murderous bastards like Saddam Hussein in charge, so the Iraqis must be oppressed. And yes, he was terrible to some of them. But to others, he was protecting them from other tribes. It's why, even if there's regime change in Iran, it will probably be someone who isn't much different to the ayatollahs, who were not a whole lot different to the Shah.
Both commerce and urbanisation have what we might reasonably call “liberalising” tendencies. Industrialisation means mass urbanisation and mass separation of households from production, which also weakens traditionalism.
A helpful discussion of why urbanisation is liberalising is here:
Nevertheless, there is a lot more to social dynamics than those effects. There are very clear differences in cultural patterns in civilisations well before industrialisation hits. Differences we can see operating in societies that have not yet industrialised.
"The other socially-selected for non-kin-based cooperative mechanism was secret (ritual) societies that would sometimes use extreme measures to prove loyalty to the society over the kin-group. Extreme measures ranged up to serving one’s own son as the meat in a cannibal feast: no, I am not making this up."
So is that why the Carthaginians burnt their own children as a sacrifice to Moloch? To prove their commitment to Carthage as a state was stronger than kin-group loyalty?
What would they do where they came from?
Proceed accordingly.
One notable exception I'm aware of is Professor of Economics and Social Policy George J. Borjas who was probably crucified for his "wrong" conclusions. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" came to mind when he described how differing results can pop up to describe the same event. Needless to add, I trust Borjas not the other side.
Known past history has a lot to say about the mixing of unrelated ethnic groupings with far different religious beliefs, childrearing folkways and customs, particularly sexual ones. "They are people just like us, they have families just like us" is simply blind to certain ugly facts of human life.
Interesting topic to explore. Look forward to #2.
As I read this, I had the thought that formal contractual insurance would not be needed in kin/clan groups where someone could look after the children if parents fell ill or dead. But it also would not have arisen as a means of mitigating risk from major commercial or social undertakings. Joining a "syndicate" or non-kin equivalent to establish an insurance pool requires a high level of trust in the wider social structure and rule of law. Plus the larger the pool, the (probable) lower cost per risk mitigator.
Do you know of any examples that run counter to my thesis? I just now thought of ethnic Jews as money lenders in Medieval times and Islamic Hawala money transfer schemes, where the trusted group is not really genetic but ethnic or religious, etc. Your thoughts?
Market-dominant minorities use in-group connections to create trust networks that do not rely on kinship. I do not think it a coincidence that set of islands Venice was a pioneer of insurance and debt instruments, including public debt (the prestiti).
A lot of Chinese diaspora networks are based on language groups, rather than kinship.
The kongsi republics in Borneo provide examples of such. (The 1911 Chinese Republic was not the first Chinese republic.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsi_republics
I’ve thought this in a vague ‘I got a feeling way’ for some time. Thanks for bringing these ideas into solid form.
"The success of what we now call Western civilisation has been built on the development of individualist cultures that enabled, and generated, a raft of successful social cooperation mechanisms."
And what drove the development of individualist cultures? It's not western, it's not Christian. It's about certain people embracing technologies, mostly because they were resource-poor. How do you make money if land is bad? You shift towards trade, craft and so forth. It's particularly northern Europeans like the British and the Danes. And as you shift away from land, you have more individualism.
Good land is something that needs protecting by a tribe. Other tribes will try and take it as it has value. You need to work as a people. You need to be more warrior-inclined. The culture needs to be more homogenous. Everyone has to worship the same God or the same variation of a God. I suspect that attitudes of these societies towards homosexuals is part of this too, that behaviour outside the norm isn't tolerated.
Once you get away from land, there is more co-operation and more individualism. People selling things to each other. And you see a decline in tribalism, a decline in religion, more tolerance of difference. The Nazis were big in the agrarian parts of Germany like Bavaria and Saxony, not the cold, industrial places like Hamburg. And I would suggest that part of the reason for the success of West Germany is that they lost so much of that and industrial thinking could dominate, rather than land based thinking of the Nazis.
We can apply the same pattern around the world. To South America, to southern Europe, to Asia. Democracy, human rights come after industrialisation.
The flaw with immigration is not understanding this. Afghanistan and Somalia are not like the UK. It's not about religion, or colour of skin. It's about the lack of industrialisation, and the old culture that comes with that. Which isn't a whole lot different to when England, Spain and France were beating each other up in the 14th century. And people will adapt over time, but it doesn't happen overnight.
It's also the big flaw with thinking we can fix the Middle East. We don't have murderous bastards like Saddam Hussein in charge, so the Iraqis must be oppressed. And yes, he was terrible to some of them. But to others, he was protecting them from other tribes. It's why, even if there's regime change in Iran, it will probably be someone who isn't much different to the ayatollahs, who were not a whole lot different to the Shah.
Both commerce and urbanisation have what we might reasonably call “liberalising” tendencies. Industrialisation means mass urbanisation and mass separation of households from production, which also weakens traditionalism.
A helpful discussion of why urbanisation is liberalising is here:
https://youtu.be/0HuFuXzGJ_M?si=y7f0My5Hads8DSve
Nevertheless, there is a lot more to social dynamics than those effects. There are very clear differences in cultural patterns in civilisations well before industrialisation hits. Differences we can see operating in societies that have not yet industrialised.
Urbanisation happens with industrialisation. You are moving away from farming and towards higher value crafts and skills.
"The other socially-selected for non-kin-based cooperative mechanism was secret (ritual) societies that would sometimes use extreme measures to prove loyalty to the society over the kin-group. Extreme measures ranged up to serving one’s own son as the meat in a cannibal feast: no, I am not making this up."
So is that why the Carthaginians burnt their own children as a sacrifice to Moloch? To prove their commitment to Carthage as a state was stronger than kin-group loyalty?
That would be my working hypothesis.