Rules and Resources in Social Groups: An Armchair Social Model

The following is another way of thinking about how your world works.

Social systems are shelters that accumulate and control resources.  A social system develops, persists, and grows in virtue of the common agreement/collective acceptance of its members about rules for thinking and acting.  Members of the system follow these rules in exchange for a share of the resources and may be ejected from the system when they fail to follow the rules.

One wants to ask: Who is in charge of these systems?  I answer:  Nobody in particular.  Social systems represent broad patterns in human behavior, not the contrivances of individuals.  In other words, there are misguided moral assumptions behind this question.  These assumptions ride the liberal myth of “an evil elite” in some secret, smoke filled back room that plays chess with the innocent masses.  As a matter of fact, "the evil elite" are entirely unnecessary for social systems to function, even obese systems like our own (USA).  This is because social systems operate in virtue of social dynamics that are beyond the control of individuals (leaders) or institutions (government).  My point is that, when there are limited resources and those resources are deemed necessary for survival, this pattern will inevitably follow.

Let us assume for the moment that morality is not an issue here (a big assumption, I know).  My discussion concerns only the dynamics of the pattern itself, not “who is to blame” or “about whom shall I write a letter to my Senator?” and other such silliness.  So, to continue…

 In larger societies, the rules are structured in gradations of rigor, so that a member can obtain more resources from the system by obeying the rules to a more rigorous degree.  This is because, the greater the appeal of your resources, the greater energy you will derive from your constituency in the way of rule following.  If you offer me a hamburger, I’ll walk a mile.  Offer me a new car, I’ll walk a marathon.

In short: The size and power of a social system is generally proportional to the value of its resources since, as I say, the appeal of its offerings is what attracts its constituents.  This results in my first general principle of social reality: 

A) The power of a social system to draw and retain members is proportional to the mass and appeal of its resource pool. 

The next claim I want to make is that, as a social system becomes more powerful (in the sense described above), its rule system becomes more intricate and demanding.  In other words, if I set my mind on getting the biggest and best in the way of social benefits, I will be required to obey a more rigorous and—as regards my individual right-to-choose—a more freedom-destroying set of rules.  

Here’s where my “morality”  comes into play.  This dynamic creates a problem for those of us who find themselves already playing the game in a system with a rigorous set of requirements but who also desire the freedom to be self-determining.  When the rules conflict with our choices, we must either relinquish our freedom or give up our share of the resources.  Tough call, eh? 

However, as a system grows (e.g., into a nation state), individual members become more anonymous.  This allows entry to imposters who try to obtain resources without obeying the rules necessary for those resources (freeloaders).  Freeloaders cause weaknesses and fractures in a system by disrupting its processes and, in effect, squandering its resources.  In response to this threat, a social system will naturally strengthen itself by developing mechanisms for detecting freeloaders.  Moreover, the bigger social systems--those with the most appealing resources--will naturally draw the more cunning imposters and will, in turn, continuously develop more sophisticated defense mechanisms.

This is the reason that, in societies with the most resource offerings and the largest constituencies, there is always a trend toward increased surveillance, policing, legislation, moral propaganda, and other enforcement mechanisms.  The rules are designed to protect the system from freeloaders.

To appear valid, these mechanisms must draw support from the unified agreement of a system's constituency.  This results in national ideologies in virtue of which members of the system become voluntary policing agents.  Members are required to exhibit certain imposter-detection skills before they can partake of the resources ("Hello, 911?  I think my neighbor might be a drug dealer").  In other words, societies instill moral ideologies that are designed to enforce the rules and further suppress the capacity of its members to fake their adherence to the rules (my neighbor knows me better than the cops do).

more to come on this topic...