# The Dynamic Society Author: [[Graeme Snooks]] ## Review This is one of those books that is incredibly interesting, yet virtually no one has heard of it. It was recommended in "Patterns and Repertoire in History" as a comparative macrohistorical study, so naturally I added it to my project on "the mechanics of historical change". In short, the author's model describes historical changes in society as the result of dynamic processes that emerge from human decision-makers acting on, and reacting to their environment. In some ways it is similar to how agent-based models in economics work. To give a more elaborate answer I think his comparison to a game is quite intuitive. The playing field is our natural environment. The environment can undergo changes independently, which happen slowly, but can also undergo changes as a consequence of the actions of players. Human decision makers are the players. They are competing against each not just for survival but also to maximize their well-being. He argues that this is embedded in human nature. The rules of the game are set by the physical laws of the world, but also by social rules agreed upon by the players. The social rules are enforced by institutions but also change over time. Changes in economic forces (prices of labour and capital, abilities and access to resources) determine what the most cost effective strategy is. When the marginal returns of a strategy go below the costs of implementing a strategy the civilization has to come up with a new strategy or face collapse/restructuring. People will try out new ideas & strategies in reaction to the exhaustion of the pre-existing strategy. Those who have adopted the best strategies will be imitated. This strategic imitation leads to the strategy spreading through a society, almost defining a civilization. Economic strategies can be put into four categories: Population expansion, Conquest, Commerce, Technological advancement. Population expansion happens when there is an abundance of resources that the society can grow into. His simplest example of this is the spread of people across the Australian continent to take advantage of the vast land unoccupied by humans. The Commerce strategy is the result of people taking advantage of or creating profitable trading opportunities between regions. It is associated with increased specialisation between regions, lower transaction and transportation costs. It also requires less dominant substrategies in technology (to achieve better transport and transaction) and warfare (in order to protect the right to trade or monopoly in trade). Historically this would be the Mycenean Greeks, Venetians, and Dutch. Conquest is mostly a zero-sum strategy in that it either doesn't increase global material advantage or only marginally so (through spread of superior technology and institutions). The society that has successfully adopted this strategy can increase its living standard beyond its carrying capacity by taking from others and suppressing their living standard. The author argues that technological advancement has become the primary strategy adopted since the industrial revolution, and is also the most important because it can provide sustainable increases in well being by giving us greater access to natural resources. A large portion of the book is dedicated to walking through the past few thousand years of history, describing well known civilizations through the lens of his model (From Assyria, Greece, Rome, through to Venice and England and beyond). The author puts a lot of effort into examining other models of history and pointing out shortfalls. This was helpful, for me in particular because I am trying to learn about all of these different perspectives. The models he spends the most time on, probably because they are most obviously flawed in light of his model, are the recurrent flavours of malthusian theories. Predictions of the future based on deductively constructed models can only be as good as the assumptions going in. The assumptions should also be tested based on historical data. This is where the ideas of Malthus, "limits to growth" and "club of rome" breakdown. Firstly, they ignore the ability of humans to pursue leaps in technological innovation that increase the carrying capacity of the world, such as the neolithic and industrial revolution. Secondly, if humans were prevented or unable to pursue technology they would have to consider war to improve their prosperity. Pursuit of prosperity is fundamental to human nature. The book takes an exceptionally long time to read not just because it is long but also because it covers a lot of topics, the ideas take time to internalize, and he uses a breadth of vocabulary. There are many interesting ideas I haven't even covered here. This is not light reading, but in the end it really is worth it. In particular if you love thinking about history in a systematic, and endogenous way. It also helps to be familiar with many different historical narratives and threads of historical analysis. This is the first in a series of books, which incrementally build on his model. Its a daunting task but I look forward to working through the rest, and exploring the implications of his ideas. #### Chapter Notes ##### Preface & Chariots of change The book describes a model of changes in society as a result of permanent dynamic processes that are the result of decision-making agents acting & reacting to their environment. Humans are self-serving who will call upon ideas when needed to further their needs. Change is not the result of experts making decisions, but can only exploit it. The punctuated equilibrium seen in biological life is similar to how changes in society and technology come about. The model describes a world with decision makers who try to survive and then also maximize their well-being. They are in a highly competitive environment, which can change over time. They have four strategies at their disposal: family multiplication, conquest, commerce, and technological change. At first the changes in strategy are adopted by innovative individuals (based on cost effectiveness) and then is adopted through strategic irritation by others. Diminishing returns are the result of the exhaustion of dynamic strategies. New ideas in the dynamic society are created by specialized individuals. The ideas will only be adopted by the mass of decision makers if they provide an (economic) advantage. There are many more ideas that will not be employed in the generation they are created. The 'great men in history' are those who got the timing right. Economic change in the recent millennia have occurred via waves of change. These are shaped by the interaction between population growth and technological change and the available natural resources. When a technology is exhausted the population growth puts pressure on resources and the society stagnates. Change would only happen very slowly until the resources and pool of ideas are available the next technological revolution is possible. This is similar to Perez's model of technological revolutions. Techno-scientific ideas do not create change but rather act as facilitators for change that is underway due to pressures on materialistic man (man driven by first survival, and then prosperity). Part I describes the long term historical dynamics, Part II describes prevailing theories for driving forces and emergence of society. Part III describes his theory of materialistic man driving the societal dynamics. #### Part 1 #### Part 2 #### Part 3 ## Related - [[Frameworks and Theories on the Mechanics of Historical Change]] - [[Macrohistory]] - [[The Human Imperative]] - [[Great Man Theory of History]]