Seba & Arbib의 Rethinking Humanity 리뷰

Competing Visions of Fundamental Global Change: Comparative Book Review of Rethinking Humanity by Seba & Arbib

Cristian Ziliberberg/ Aalborg University

 

Ziliberberg, Cristian (2022) "Competing Visions of Fundamental Global Change: Comparative Book Review of Rethinking Humanity by Seba & Arbib," Markets, Globalization & Development Review: Vol. 7: No. 1, Article 3.

 

Introduction

The book “Rethinking Humanity” by Seba and Arbib (2020) applies the mechanics of change at the sector level to the level of humanity. From the perspective of these authors, the mechanics of change are the same at all levels, so we can easily extrapolate them. For instance, the advance of the smartphone, printing, or assembly lines disrupted industries and entire societies. Indeed, these technologies often disrupted civilizations. The scales differ, but the fundamental mechanics of transformation do not.

In this review of the Seba and Arbib book, it is useful to bring in some other perspectives –practitioner as well as scholarly– that have also made sweeping attempts to capture the long trajectories of change in industries, technologies, societies, civilizations, and indeed humanity as a whole. Two books provide good comparative anchors. Ray Dalio (2021) in the book ‘Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order’, and Yuval Noah Harari (2015) in the book ‘Sapiens’, offer long-range, often millenniaspanning, explanations of processes of change. Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Harari is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tony Seba and James Arbib, the authors of the book reviewed here, are founders of the independent think tank RethinkX.

Seba and Arbib and Ray Dalio share some underlying principles: both their books look from a sector and a historical perspective, they emphasize change; they believe one can see the same processes at different levels; and they present ideas meant not for academia but for practical purposes.

While the disruption takes place, according to Seba and Arbib, many people are myopic while it is happening, and they are in a state of disbelief. People, confronted with a disruptive innovation, would say that it will not work, or it will affect others, but not them. Ray Dalio (2020), similarly, states that people are not prepared for events that “hadn’t happened in my lifetime but had happened many times before.”

Both sets of authors have a humble and open-minded attitude. They believe that what they do not know is much greater than what they know, so they are open to the unexpected.

‘The Sapiens’ by Harari (2015) puts humans into an even larger historical perspective than the books by Seba and Arbib, and by Dalio. The myths that the sapiens can envision, I would argue, allowed them to produce all the organizing systems that Seba and Arbib are talking about. Looking into the future, Harari sees much farther. He looks over the age of creation into the age of transhumans -- entities that would live by different principles and represent a different form of existence (see, in the context of business disciplines, the edited special issue by Takhar, Houston and Dholakia 2022).

These perspectives are in line with the views on late globalization(Turcan 2016) both from the time perspective, and in terms of levels of analysis. First, because we are now in a late globalization period, it is therefore uncertain what path our civilization will take going further. Second, because it connects various levels of analysis. For instance, Turcan (2016) looks at the late globalization from a group, firm, industry, sector, nation and globe/planet point of view. And this view correlates with the view of Seba and Arbib, and of Ray Dalio, who also connects various levels of analysis. The works by these two sets of authors could also be enhanced by looking at all the change processes they analyze from the phasic, chronological, categorical, or processual aspects, as described by Turcan (2016).

Disruption at the Sectoral Level

Seba and Arbib show how the disruption takes place at the sector level with repercussion to the level of the entire society with visible direct and indirect consequences. These ideas seem similar to those in the concept of “Disruptive Innovation” as presented by Clayton Christensen (2011), however they have some significant differences. Christensen’s disruptive innovation takes into consideration only the disruption within the sector, while Seba and Arbib go further talking about the unintended consequences at the level of the society.

Take the case of the smartphone: The smartphone was possible because of the convergence of some technologies, like battery, microprocessors, etc. Apple launched the smartphone in 2007 –yes, it was that recent, even though it feels like it has been around forever. The thenCEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer said: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” The CEOs of Nokia, and Motorola, the leading mobile phone making companies, were skeptical as well. Only a few years later, however, almost everyone had a smartphone. It disrupted the entire society and economy. New companies using smartphone features popped up such as Uber (2009) and Lyft (2012). Other companies, selling GPS devices, photo cameras or gaming devices, shrunk – why should one need to buy all those devices if one could buy just a smartphone which has it all?!

These are only the visible consequences. Smartphones could still have some indirect and far-fetching consequences. For instance, why should a person buy and own a car if it is possible to call an Uber or order have food delivery from Amazon using a smartphone? Fewer cars could lead to an impact on the oil industry.

Let us turn to the case of a technological convergence that predated smartphones by nearly a century. The convergence of steel manufacturing, oil production and assembly line, first used by the meatpacking factories in Chicago, made possible mass car manufacturing.

Assembly-line mass car manufacturing started by Henry Ford changed the entire society again. New businesses sprung to produce spare parts and to sell the cars. There were not many paved roads. Due to the rising use of automobiles, dirt roads that worked okay for horse-drawn carriages got paved. The oil industry flourished. Gas stations popped up. People could drive to the shopping mall away from the downtown, so the retails industry changed. In only 20 years, the automotive industry started employing one of every seven Americans.

The public opinion was initially skeptical about cars: “Humankind has traveled for centuries in conveyances pulled by beasts, why would any reasonable person assume the future holds anything different?” The public was even against the cars because they were 'lethal', and for a good reason few people knew how to drive them. Consequently, the rules of the road were developed.

With time, the cars became better, and the prices lower. The spread of cars brought multiple unintended consequences. For instance, the steel industry grew, which led to more innovation in steel manufacturing, drove down the prices and allowed inventions in other fields like construction, surgery, design of towns. It even led to the military dominations; and the sexual revolution, because youngsters could suddenly escape their parents' homes.

The history of the printing press represents a transformative phase that is centuries old. The thirst for knowledge in universities, the desire to escape the Dark Ages, the increased number of manuscripts transcribed starting with the 12th century. All these were made possible by the impact of the printing press.

The printed book was another invention that disrupted society. Before the printed book, to produce a Bible, one had to kill 200 sheep and pay 300 Florins. After Guttenberg introduced the printing press in 1454, a bible would cost 30 Florins (10 times less) and the time to print one was 200 times faster than handwriting it. But it was only the beginning. With time, the speed and the cost of printing decreased even more. Thus, the books started spreading throughout Europe. Universities were hungry to learn about new ideas, and literacy grew, which affected the society.

Some unintended consequences of the printed book were the development of abstract thought, the viral spread of ideas of reformers like Martin Luther (which also diminished the role of the Catholic church), of individualism, empiricism and scientific method, technology, philosophy and arts. The nations could develop under a common idea, and democracy was on the rise.

The Process of Disruption

How does disruption take place, and how does disruptive change occur? According to Seba and Arbib, the systems are stable until a rupture point followed by rapid change. Two different forces influence the system, the Brakes and the Accelerators. A stable system results when the Brakes are more powerful. With the convergence of some factors, the forces of change increase and push the system to a point of rupture. Then the Accelerators take over and the rapid change starts.

The Brakes are self-correcting feedback. The Accelerators are the self-reinforcing feedback. The Brakes could be formed of supply, demand, regulations, sunk costs, public opinion, resistance from the existing business, workers, unions, governments, scaremongering, buying and killing of disruptors. The Accelerators could be lower costs, better capabilities, favorable public opinion, the pro-change policy and regulations, the structure of supply and demand, and the network effects.

Systemic Change and Emergence of New Systems

Ray Dalio and Seba and Arbib see change differently. For Seba and Arbib, change is incremental during periods of stability, until a rapture point which leads to a rapid change in the form of a breakthrough or collapse. For Ray Dalio, the economic machine works in cycles; short cycles are embedded into long cycles. Thus, small breakthroughs alternate with small collapses which are embedded into huge breakthroughs alternated by huge collapses. But both sets of authors perceive that the civilization goes forward, though Seba and Arbib consider it happens non-linearly, while Dalio argues that it happens in cycles.

Can we predict what will be the form of a new system? The new system is hard to predict, according to Seba and Arbib, because we are used to linear forecasting, while the change is nonlinear. It happens because we forecast based on three major assumptions: 1) The past events linearly predict the future, 2) There is a direct mechanistic causality when one thing has an effect, everything else remaining equal, 3) We look at a system in a silo, forgetting that it is part of a larger system. These assumptions are helpful only when the Brakes are strong and the progress is incremental, but not when the Accelerators take over, the system enters a rapid change phase. Thus, we need to overcome these narrow mindsets.

At the methodological level, Seba and Arbib believe in non-linear thinking, because we cannot predict breakthroughs looking at the past. Cause and effect are more relevant in cases of incremental change, but not after the point of rupture. It is in line with ‘The Creative Evolution’ book by Henri Bergson (1998), who also believes that evolution is creative and thus evolutionary outcomes are unpredictable.

Ray Dalio emphasizes cause and effect. He studies the most relevant cases of a certain phenomenon, so he would understand how a typical case operates – he calls it an archetype. In my opinion, Max Weber (1904) would have called it an ideal type. This archetype allows him to observe the cause-effect relations that exist. Again, I think that Seba and Arbib could have argued that Ray Dalio's analysis is valid for an era, but Ray Dalio's vision of "another one of those" would make him blind to a new era, the era of creativity, an era that is yet to come.

Change at the Civilizational Level

We can see at the civilization level similar processes taking place as at the industry level. For long periods of time, humanity was in the age of survival. The goal of the humans was to live to see the next day, to find food, to escape the predators. They helped themselves with some rudimentary tools that they could care for themselves. They were at the mercy of nature. If they did not adjust to the seasons and cycles of nature, they died. The major technological breakthrough was the control of fire, which allowed humans to fight against predators, to cook food and to move to colder areas. In that time, the major goal for humans was to survive. Even then, however, one could notice the need for growth both in terms of number of individuals, and spiritually.

The age of extraction replaced the age of survival around 10,000 years ago. It started with agriculture and with the development of cities. Humans domesticated the animals and exploited the lands. This, initially, was more difficult and less productive than roaming around in search of food. With time, however, the skills improved, and the efficiency increased.

In the era of extraction, the mentality changed. If before the belief was that the world is abundant, afterwards, the belief emerged that the world is scarce. Thus, the fight for resources started: for better lands, better locations, better labor, better cattle. It also led to development of technology to extract more of the existing resources, or to find new resources. The growth led to social instability, so new governing structures emerged to keep the social stability – the centralized powers.

Harari defines eras differently: the cognitive revolution (70,000 years ago), the agricultural revolution (10,000 years ago) and the scientific revolution (500 years ago). Thus, we see that there is an overlap between the classifications of both sets of authors. The emphasis, however, is different. From the point of view of Harari, after the cognitive revolution, the humans could create myths, but from the point of view of Seba and Arbib they were in a survival mode. The other two revolutions that Harari mentioned, the agricultural and scientific, Seba and Arbib lumped together, because the fundamental system of production is the same: exploitation.

Harari’s book helps Seba and Arbib’s theory. It explains how organization systems could emerge. Because humanity underwent this cognitive revolution, so it could create the myths, the rules, and the organizing systems. This age of extraction, according to Seba and Arbib goes on until now, when we are in a place where we could move to a new age or fall into a new Dark Age: "Humanity’s successful Organizing Systems were no longer based on sharing, generalist skills, and equality, but on ownership, specialization, and inequality. Leadership was no longer distributed but controlled directly from the center. Storage and hoarding were no longer punished but rewarded."

The city size is a proxy of civilization growth. Throughout time, the city size increased in jumps. Not all those jumps were successful. For instance, Rome reached the level of about one million inhabitants. But then the European society was not able to break this level, and it collapsed into the Dark Ages.

What are the mechanics of growth and breakthrough at the civilization level? The existence of a civilization depends on the Organizing System and the Production Systems. The system of production refers to humanity's interaction with the natural world through technology. The system of production defines the potential of humanity. The major modes of production throughout history were foraging, extraction, and creation.

The Organizing System manifests itself differently at various levels. At the level of technology, it is knowledge and design; at the level of economy it is regulations, laws, and standards; at the level of society it is of concepts, beliefs, political, social and economic systems and institutions.

When these systems work in tandem, civilization advances fast. These systems may, however, could get out of sync with each other. It could happen because one system developed faster, and the other system could not keep up, or because the system of production or organizing reached their capabilities (e.g., no possibility for additional geographical expansion, resource depletion). Changes in the environment such as disaster or societies with better functioning systems could be another reason.

When this happens, there are two pathways. The first one is doubling on the existing system that does not work anymore (e.g., more extraction, more centralization, or more blood sacrifices). It could seem like a solution in the short run. In the long run, however, it does not work and leads to the collapse of the civilization. Major civilizations failed to break their capability frontiers and collapsed into the Dark Ages, like Catalhoyuk, Uruk, Thebes, Babylon and Rome, until the next civilization could emerge.

The second path is the path of adaptation, when the civilization can capitalize on the emerging production system and adjust the organizing system, so they could converge and open a space for new capabilities.

The scope of Seba and Arbib is the entire humanity with its culture and institutions, even if they focus mostly on the economy. The focus of Ray Dalio is on the economic machine. The basic mechanisms described are different in Seba and Arbib. Seba and Arbib empathize survival and extraction as the driving force of the production system in different eras. On the other hand, Ray Dalio believes that transactions are the bases of the economy, and the entire economy is nothing else than the continuous repetition of these transactions.

Seba and Arbib name the organizing system and the production system as the two forces of change, and these concepts are rather difficult to define as they are multilayer, thus fuzzy. On the other hand, Ray Dalio identified three forces that drive the economy: the productivity growth, the short debt cycle, and the long debt cycle; concepts that are practical and relatively clear. At a first glance, it may seem that Ray Dalio's version is more pragmatic. However, a proponent of Seba and Arbib could argue that Ray Dalio talks only about the forces within the production system in the Age of Extraction, thus, he is much narrower in scope.

How the Industrial Order Emerged

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the European civilization entered the Dark Age. It was not able to reach once again and break through the advancement of the Romans. Exiting from those Dark Ages was slow. It required fighting against religious dogma, development of new technologies and innovation. Only around 1800 finally was it possible to overcome the capability frontiers of the Roman Empire.

When the breakthrough happened, however, it had a cascading effect on all areas of life and in all industries: information systems, the development of infrastructure, the emergence of mechanized and electrical power. A huge industrial system of production emerged. This changed the belief system, decreased the importance of religion, led to the advancement of democracy and empiricism. The analytical thought, which slices down the phenomena, played a major role.

The production system became globalized, and it required the involvement of numerous people, thus the democratic system, the rule of law, the free market and the nation states evolved, involving a huge number of people and allowing them to self-organize.

The industrial system did not show up in a day. It evolved, and was influenced by technology, geography, the organizing system. The essence of the Industrial Order, however, remained the same as of the orders in the previous centuries: extraction.

Toward the System of Creation

The system of extraction is reaching its maximum potential, as there is nowhere to extend and the resources get depleted. As a result, a new system could emerge, the System of Creation. And the evidence is already there.

In the information and communication sector, we have the smartphone, the internet, the capability to work at a distance, and to outsource the low-cost labor. In the food sector, the food can grow in the lab, and it is more nutritious and tastier than the one grown on the farm. It will affect the use of the land. In the energy sector, we have alternative sources of energy like the solar one which will make the energy even cheaper. In transportation we will have electric transportation on demand. The material production will change from breaking down the materials to

building the materials that one needs.

The Age of Freedom

The system of creation will bring the age of freedom (for a similar theme, see the ‘construer’ concept of Fırat and Dholakia 2017). Decentralized systems will replace the centralized systems. Resource creation will replace resource extraction. The supply will be almost infinite. The cost of production for the fundamental products that target our basic needs, like energy, food, education, healthcare, will fall to zero.

The new production system will need another Organizing System, because the Industrial Order Organizing System will not keep up, though it will fight back. Thus, our civilization can go through a breakthrough, or to a collapse.

Some factors that could lead to the breakthrough towards the Age of Freedom are the fast growth in technologies, disruption in all sectors of economy, and the flow of information in the networks. And some factors that could lead to a collapse into a new Dark Age include the increased inequality, reduced resilience, catastrophic climate change, the incompatibility between the organizing system and the production systems, the increased centralization of resources and decision making, and linear thinking. And it is not yet clear who will win, because of the resistance to change. We were used to the current organizing system because we knew its core for generations. A change to a new one may be difficult. The shortterm pain may not allow us to change enough for us to survive the long term. We cannot design a new organizing system. But we can create the conditions for a new organizing system to emerge, one that fits the current production system.

Conclusions

The book by Seba and Arbib presents a view of societal change based on incremental change and fast change. In terms of their vision of the change and the historical perspective, it corresponds to the vision of Ray Dalio; however, Seba and Arbib have a non-linear vision of fast change, while Ray Dalio perceives it as being cycles within cycles.

The book by Harari explains the cognitive revolution, which also explains how the humans can transform, creating and adjusting the organizational systems. Together, these books –and similar others, including sci-fi oriented ones (e.g., Robinson 2020) –lay out the matrix of possibilities, and the quagmire of precipitous pitfalls.

 

References

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Harari, Yuval N. (2015), Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York: Harper.

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