A few centuries ago no study about what makes societies successful or into laggards would have been possible. There was a time when the populations of the inhabited continents enjoyed comparable standards of living. Significant differences did not prevail and if a region excelled a bit then that expressed a cultural preference more than significantly ampler material means.
Accordingly the Greeks encouraged behavior that made individuals excel and rise above the crowd. Their pride in the community resulted in good architecture and seeking originality led to well formulated ideas. Time has proven these to be a useful inheritance. The Roman Empire thrived due to the ability to organize. Its law still reminds us of this feature. Chinese culture produced an outstanding record because its insiders by striving for harmony" were easy to lead. Effective government and the focusing of resources for spectacular ends resulted.
Such records have a common denominator. It is that the economic base of these cultures has been comparable and suffered due to a feeble technology from low productivity. The surplus created was limited. Political power could invest scarce means into an area considered as significant. Only with the Renaissance did the rising cultural-scientific achievements begin to reflect growing societal wealth and the overcoming of poverty beyond a narrow circle of the privileged.
With that progress" has been invented. Earlier generations irrespective of their location found their ancestors ways familiar. Change as a determinant of existence has been insignificant and also unwanted. Man regarded the good society to be a stable one. He rejected the idea that abandoning harmony brings benefits because conflicts are creative.
As a lucky mutation rather than by design in some areas of Europe the future determined by change became a desirable scenario. In time this tendency nudged cultures to introduce the concept and preference for revolutionary solutions. These made change per se into a purpose. (China had a concept of revolution but its goal had been to restore a superior past to rectify the present.)
Inventing change not as a regrettable departure from the golden standard of the past but as a chance to overcome inherited inadequacies changed the cultures that shared the concept. Novel types of individuals emerged. They took pride in being sufficiently original to investigate the space behind doors once regarded as locked shut. The regions that cultivated these new ways created not only rising material standards but also a multitude of social classes. While on the whole life improved for all the gap widened between the top and the bottom. At the same time the dividing lines between caste-like classes became opaque and social mobility gained in significance. From hermetically isolated privileged classes the path led to a merit-based order. The infusion of new elements assured that these able recruits could contribute to the acceleration of change.
The differentiation within a diversifying and increasingly complicated society might have involved injustices caused frustration and triggered conflicts. Nevertheless the system that institutionalized cultural revolution served to grow productivity expand knowledge and to innovate. Those societies that in various ways integrated these features into their national system have done more than only running away from the past. Compared to the change-immune stand-patters they gained power as more capital and knowledge provided access to a technology that endowed them with military superiority over countries with traditional systems. Romans Germans and Huns used the same technology. Modern adversaries do not.
Easy victories resulted that expressed themselves in modern-day colonialism. Once the causes of the resulting world order were discovered a powerful force for the modernization of traditional societies emerged. This motivation explains why in emerging countries the goal for modernization is to augment military power. This priority tends to make the military into the first modern sector of the system. In turn this explains the frequency of third world military dictatorships.
Modernization creates a widening gap between its practitioners and the slow movers that resist it. While military power is an easily identified trait upgrading development is also reflected in the welfare of societies their command of applied knowledge and the political order. Successful societies are modern societies.
If modernizations benefits are so numerous then the question arises why not every political establishment uses its power to pursue it.
The reasoned response distinguishes between material and non-material hindrances. The first criterion is easily handled. Hardly does nature produce societies that are predestined to be poor and backward. The opposite might be the case when selling resources supports lives in luxury. Norways invested oil wealth might secure a high-level existence once the wells go dry. However Spain became poor once it ran out of the Inkas gold. This is not unlike the scenarios foreseeable for some oil dependent states. Poverty can result even where nature offers generous opportunities. The opposite can also be the case. Switzerland one of the most modern and rich countries used to be a poorhouse of Europe. Wise innovation imaginative self-generated opportunities and good government brought results. Luck that laggard traditional societies like to invoke had little to do with it.
Successful modernization that overcomes material want depends on attitudes. One is whether a culture predisposes its participants to learn from outsiders possibly even from the enemy". Russias Peter the Great felt no shame to copy what worked elsewhere. His successors and his people however did. Peters error derived from his inability to identify the ultimate cause of the achievements he coveted. This led him to be side tracked by the trivial. In our time beginning modernization with the military and not with the creation of the forces that have induced improvements elsewhere is a frequent and analogous error.
Trying to build by starting with the roof might cause smug smiles. Nevertheless it can be intellectually stimulating and profitable to discover how another civilization works and what features cause it to outperform our own.
With that we touch upon a key element of this discourse. Some peoples find it easy to decide that they need to copy something that is new to them. Complexes -the fear of admitting inferiority- and the resentment of alien examples will be barriers. Meiji-era Japan had no hindering complex to identify the strengths of others -including the future foe- and to import it to fit Japanese ways. Throughout the 19th century China suffering from a Middle Kingdom" prejudice stubbornly resisted change and paid a high price for preserving her dignity".
Not unlike migrants those that are late to tackle the developmental gap need to become new persons to respond to the challenge of change. This sounds simple. They" have the wheel. We" copy it. That clears the path for us to invent the bicycle. If that would be all then dynamic advanced societies would abound.
However often the motive to upgrade by modernizing is to preserve an identity. The migrant who refuses integration shows such a reaction. Often when migrants build a parallel society as do Turks in Germany the group becomes more radical than their peers at home. Facing modern countries some nations emphasize traditional ways to protect their identity. Thus they fail to gain strength because they reject the functioning ways of their enemies". Nativist reactions such as Boko Haram are illustrative examples. Albeit not constructive it is not unnatural to try to kill" whatever is suspected of trying to steal a groups identity. Radical fundamentalism can be a typical response to the exposure of new ways for structuring lives and to the need to reinterpret those traditional values that cause backwardness immobility.
Not being by our nature entirely rational we are wont to pursue contradictory ends. Wishing to be modern because it makes us strong enough to defy others can be contradicted by the wish to defy challenges by clinging to we have always" been. We are dealing here with conflicting goals. In terms of the bicycle and the wheel if we opt to renounce the wheel as its origins spoil our purity we chose to walk where we wish to get. Stagnation results when ethnic and racial pride the fear of the unknown and the new the old religion and past glory combine to form a shield. That implies falling behind the rising norms the movers set.
The perception of falling behind produces ideological reactions. Their function is to blame failure on an enemy of inferior moral standards. His exploitation has deprived the virtuous from their deserved earlier position under the sun. Self-flagellating Marxist-inspired support of such theses by the carping classes" of the West add credibility to morally superior technologically unripe" defensive explanations. These serve to invoke reactionary conservativism to prevent modernization and they also enhance the radicalization of domestic policies.
Backward-looking standpatism in the immobile sections of the third world receives endorsement from the ecologically radicalized left-liberal elites of developed countries. That is because here interests coincide to deny the legitimacy of the achievements brought about by enlightened politics free markets and science.
The going world-view of the leftist nomenklatura attempts to de-legitimize the system they are largely running. Capitalism equated with fascism -actually its antithesis- is accused to have prospered by impoverishing traditional cultures. On that basis that system is devoid of legitimacy and the good life it produced is analogous to the wealth of a fence. The wish to atone by sending money as reparations serves the interests of third world rulers. The chastisement of successful societies is confirmed local failures are excused and the power of a destructive political class is bolstered. Concurrently the power-elite is provided with the funds needed to live in developed country-style. The legitimacy so conferred validates regimes that counter the modern world by entrenching systemic immobility as a moral virtue.
In many respects collective success and failure are consequences of human actions. Outcomes are predestined by identifying the communitys situation correctly by setting realistic goals and through the use of suitable means. That means stable good government that knows that it cannot legislate prosperity to its people. It also means a public that is taught not to follow approaches that have failed elsewhere and that understands where and why success thrives. What assures of failure are slogans that even if loudly shouted cannot remove reality. It also needs to be understood that the good lifes components cannot be sent as a gift to those in need. Ultimately affluence must be created locally. And this means that taking it from someone judged to be unworthy to be re-allocated to the virtuous is like driving on the divided highway against the traffic.
With the foregoing in mind it seems guaranteed that the developmental gap that separates the richest from the poorest will not close but widen. Representing a combination of ignorance naivet and corruptibility the masses can still be induced to chase a dream that bypasses reality. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon is a worrying case that demonstrates how much gullibility can prevail even in a highly unlikely location. Guaranteed end results will destroy wealth and not create it. Inequality as long as it is performance- and not privilege- based is stimulating. Nevertheless the frustration of domestic and international outsiders left behind because they refuse to hop on the cart will grow. Any wizening and change in that self-destructive tendency will not come from the politically organized Left. The consequence might empower or destroy it.
A few centuries ago no study about what makes societies successful or into laggards would have been possible. There was a time when the populations of the inhabited continents enjoyed comparable standards of living. Significant differences did not prevail and if a region excelled a bit then that expressed a cultural preference more than significantly ampler material means.
Accordingly the Greeks encouraged behavior that made individuals excel and rise above the crowd. Their pride in the community resulted in good architecture and seeking originality led to well formulated ideas. Time has proven these to be a useful inheritance. The Roman Empire thrived due to the ability to organize. Its law still reminds us of this feature. Chinese culture produced an outstanding record because its insiders by striving for harmony" were easy to lead. Effective government and the focusing of resources for spectacular ends resulted.
Such records have a common denominator. It is that the economic base of these cultures has been comparable and suffered due to a feeble technology from low productivity. The surplus created was limited. Political power could invest scarce means into an area considered as significant. Only with the Renaissance did the rising cultural-scientific achievements begin to reflect growing societal wealth and the overcoming of poverty beyond a narrow circle of the privileged.
With that progress" has been invented. Earlier generations irrespective of their location found their ancestors ways familiar. Change as a determinant of existence has been insignificant and also unwanted. Man regarded the good society to be a stable one. He rejected the idea that abandoning harmony brings benefits because conflicts are creative.
As a lucky mutation rather than by design in some areas of Europe the future determined by change became a desirable scenario. In time this tendency nudged cultures to introduce the concept and preference for revolutionary solutions. These made change per se into a purpose. (China had a concept of revolution but its goal had been to restore a superior past to rectify the present.)
Inventing change not as a regrettable departure from the golden standard of the past but as a chance to overcome inherited inadequacies changed the cultures that shared the concept. Novel types of individuals emerged. They took pride in being sufficiently original to investigate the space behind doors once regarded as locked shut. The regions that cultivated these new ways created not only rising material standards but also a multitude of social classes. While on the whole life improved for all the gap widened between the top and the bottom. At the same time the dividing lines between caste-like classes became opaque and social mobility gained in significance. From hermetically isolated privileged classes the path led to a merit-based order. The infusion of new elements assured that these able recruits could contribute to the acceleration of change.
The differentiation within a diversifying and increasingly complicated society might have involved injustices caused frustration and triggered conflicts. Nevertheless the system that institutionalized cultural revolution served to grow productivity expand knowledge and to innovate. Those societies that in various ways integrated these features into their national system have done more than only running away from the past. Compared to the change-immune stand-patters they gained power as more capital and knowledge provided access to a technology that endowed them with military superiority over countries with traditional systems. Romans Germans and Huns used the same technology. Modern adversaries do not.
Easy victories resulted that expressed themselves in modern-day colonialism. Once the causes of the resulting world order were discovered a powerful force for the modernization of traditional societies emerged. This motivation explains why in emerging countries the goal for modernization is to augment military power. This priority tends to make the military into the first modern sector of the system. In turn this explains the frequency of third world military dictatorships.
Modernization creates a widening gap between its practitioners and the slow movers that resist it. While military power is an easily identified trait upgrading development is also reflected in the welfare of societies their command of applied knowledge and the political order. Successful societies are modern societies.
If modernizations benefits are so numerous then the question arises why not every political establishment uses its power to pursue it.
The reasoned response distinguishes between material and non-material hindrances. The first criterion is easily handled. Hardly does nature produce societies that are predestined to be poor and backward. The opposite might be the case when selling resources supports lives in luxury. Norways invested oil wealth might secure a high-level existence once the wells go dry. However Spain became poor once it ran out of the Inkas gold. This is not unlike the scenarios foreseeable for some oil dependent states. Poverty can result even where nature offers generous opportunities. The opposite can also be the case. Switzerland one of the most modern and rich countries used to be a poorhouse of Europe. Wise innovation imaginative self-generated opportunities and good government brought results. Luck that laggard traditional societies like to invoke had little to do with it.
Successful modernization that overcomes material want depends on attitudes. One is whether a culture predisposes its participants to learn from outsiders possibly even from the enemy". Russias Peter the Great felt no shame to copy what worked elsewhere. His successors and his people however did. Peters error derived from his inability to identify the ultimate cause of the achievements he coveted. This led him to be side tracked by the trivial. In our time beginning modernization with the military and not with the creation of the forces that have induced improvements elsewhere is a frequent and analogous error.
Trying to build by starting with the roof might cause smug smiles. Nevertheless it can be intellectually stimulating and profitable to discover how another civilization works and what features cause it to outperform our own.
With that we touch upon a key element of this discourse. Some peoples find it easy to decide that they need to copy something that is new to them. Complexes -the fear of admitting inferiority- and the resentment of alien examples will be barriers. Meiji-era Japan had no hindering complex to identify the strengths of others -including the future foe- and to import it to fit Japanese ways. Throughout the 19th century China suffering from a Middle Kingdom" prejudice stubbornly resisted change and paid a high price for preserving her dignity".
Not unlike migrants those that are late to tackle the developmental gap need to become new persons to respond to the challenge of change. This sounds simple. They" have the wheel. We" copy it. That clears the path for us to invent the bicycle. If that would be all then dynamic advanced societies would abound.
However often the motive to upgrade by modernizing is to preserve an identity. The migrant who refuses integration shows such a reaction. Often when migrants build a parallel society as do Turks in Germany the group becomes more radical than their peers at home. Facing modern countries some nations emphasize traditional ways to protect their identity. Thus they fail to gain strength because they reject the functioning ways of their enemies". Nativist reactions such as Boko Haram are illustrative examples. Albeit not constructive it is not unnatural to try to kill" whatever is suspected of trying to steal a groups identity. Radical fundamentalism can be a typical response to the exposure of new ways for structuring lives and to the need to reinterpret those traditional values that cause backwardness immobility.
Not being by our nature entirely rational we are wont to pursue contradictory ends. Wishing to be modern because it makes us strong enough to defy others can be contradicted by the wish to defy challenges by clinging to we have always" been. We are dealing here with conflicting goals. In terms of the bicycle and the wheel if we opt to renounce the wheel as its origins spoil our purity we chose to walk where we wish to get. Stagnation results when ethnic and racial pride the fear of the unknown and the new the old religion and past glory combine to form a shield. That implies falling behind the rising norms the movers set.
The perception of falling behind produces ideological reactions. Their function is to blame failure on an enemy of inferior moral standards. His exploitation has deprived the virtuous from their deserved earlier position under the sun. Self-flagellating Marxist-inspired support of such theses by the carping classes" of the West add credibility to morally superior technologically unripe" defensive explanations. These serve to invoke reactionary conservativism to prevent modernization and they also enhance the radicalization of domestic policies.
Backward-looking standpatism in the immobile sections of the third world receives endorsement from the ecologically radicalized left-liberal elites of developed countries. That is because here interests coincide to deny the legitimacy of the achievements brought about by enlightened politics free markets and science.
The going world-view of the leftist nomenklatura attempts to de-legitimize the system they are largely running. Capitalism equated with fascism -actually its antithesis- is accused to have prospered by impoverishing traditional cultures. On that basis that system is devoid of legitimacy and the good life it produced is analogous to the wealth of a fence. The wish to atone by sending money as reparations serves the interests of third world rulers. The chastisement of successful societies is confirmed local failures are excused and the power of a destructive political class is bolstered. Concurrently the power-elite is provided with the funds needed to live in developed country-style. The legitimacy so conferred validates regimes that counter the modern world by entrenching systemic immobility as a moral virtue.
In many respects collective success and failure are consequences of human actions. Outcomes are predestined by identifying the communitys situation correctly by setting realistic goals and through the use of suitable means. That means stable good government that knows that it cannot legislate prosperity to its people. It also means a public that is taught not to follow approaches that have failed elsewhere and that understands where and why success thrives. What assures of failure are slogans that even if loudly shouted cannot remove reality. It also needs to be understood that the good lifes components cannot be sent as a gift to those in need. Ultimately affluence must be created locally. And this means that taking it from someone judged to be unworthy to be re-allocated to the virtuous is like driving on the divided highway against the traffic.
With the foregoing in mind it seems guaranteed that the developmental gap that separates the richest from the poorest will not close but widen. Representing a combination of ignorance naivet and corruptibility the masses can still be induced to chase a dream that bypasses reality. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon is a worrying case that demonstrates how much gullibility can prevail even in a highly unlikely location. Guaranteed end results will destroy wealth and not create it. Inequality as long as it is performance- and not privilege- based is stimulating. Nevertheless the frustration of domestic and international outsiders left behind because they refuse to hop on the cart will grow. Any wizening and change in that self-destructive tendency will not come from the politically organized Left. The consequence might empower or destroy it.