Not Right, But Necessary

In my previous post, I pointed out how within-group favoritism can lead to between-group hostility.

Since strong group behaviour has such serious pitfalls, why would anyone prefer a rigid, elitist society?

Yet, it turns out that this is a pretty popular system in the world today.

For the individual, an elitist social structure can be highly attractive because somebody benefits by a lot.

For the whole society, having strong group behaviour is also beneficial because that is amenable to effective central control.

Let's examine this in greater detail.

Imagine that you're in a technical profession that has a limited social component, say a high-rise window cleaner paid a couple K a month.

Dangling precariously on the outside of a tall office building, you look at the well-dressed, highly paid managers inside and think to yourself: "Wow, I wonder how many windows I would need to wash in order to make their kind of salary. They must have a lot of work to do and must be enduring a lot of stress or risk!"

Actually, the managers don't have a riskier or more stressful job than the window cleaner outside.

A leading member of a rigid hierarchy can borrow the existing power structure to her personal advantage. That spiffy-looking manager inside may never need to "wash windows" or do any technical task herself if she has dozens of subordinates at her beck and call.

Oddly, as she gets promoted higher and higher, she will get more staff, more leave benefits and is required to spend less and less time doing actual work - although on paper her responsibilities get heavier.

Stranger still, if she reaches the top echelons of the organization, she might be able to absolve her "responsibilities", just like the bank CEOs who created the economic mess in the world today.

And if she screws up spectacularly enough, the organization might even pay her more money to fix the mess that she created!

Her subordinates seem to be resentful of this, but since they are locked into the social structure, they also dream of the day when they can scale the ladder and claim that power for themselves (never mind the fact that the elite has tilted the tables against them).

So they grit their teeth and become amazingly compliant to the manager's every whim, reinforcing the rigidity and unitary strength of the system.

All the "management universities" of the world sell this dream; their campuses are filled with young people who were never that young. Perhaps it's not surprising that people who amplify their power via social organizations, such as bankers, lawyers and administrators, would be in favour of an elitist society.

They don't seem to realize that a society that confers disproportionately large benefits will confer them to the disproportionately few. The game is fixed.

Now let's consider the other extreme - a loose organization of people who are not interested in group behaviour and can never be convinced to create strong group alliances.

A manager who doesn't really care about hobnobbing with the higher-ups, who can't be bothered about networking, and is supported by a bunch of subordinates who are indifferent to her commands.

The entire hierarchy would simply fall apart!

In a society where social influence has low value, only individual merit counts. Without the compliance from her subordinates, the "manager" would really have to wash her own windows and invent her own longer-lasting lightbulb in order to make a living.

Not surprising that such a society might be favoured by scientists, inventors and artists, people who create new value with their own hands.

However, they don't seem to realize how big the world has become, and how difficult it is to compete with other people using their own strength alone. Life would be so much easier if there was an organizational division of labour.

No matter what individuals may prefer, the whole society (or more precisely, the leadership class) would rather have strong group behaviour, because that greatly simplifies the process of central control.

Instead of trying to chase down a million people with a million little agendas, all you need to do is to contact a few top leaders and tell them what you want their group members to do. Members will then comply out of strong in-group loyalty. This is quick and effective, allowing a whole State to have a unitary response to a powerful threat - for example, mobilizing the people for war.

However, most social groups are quite small; families only have a few members each, and even large corporations rarely have more than a few thousand people.

How would you encourage people from thousands of unrelated groups to come together, to form a huge social group and act in concerted strength?

Stay tuned for the next article about faith - a powerful tool of social organization.