Dominant Systems of Production

The dominant ISRs (Inter Subjective Realities) that societies have used to organize their efforts have changed during human history.

The simple story goes like this:

1) Hunter-Gatherers did not need any special cooperation technology separate from the other apes.  They roamed in bands of 50 people or whatever, most if not all of the tribe was blood related, and they knew everyone personally.  The cooperated with their band and warred with strangers.

2) Farmers needed a more sophisticated cooperation strategy.  Tilling a field is only a worthwhile investment if you can be sure the neighboring tribe won't come and steal your land.  The empathetic attitude humans had towards their fellow tribe was expanded using religion.  Now, it wasn't just evil to kill your actual brother but also all members of your greater tribe.  You can clearly see the mechanisms of how this works in the Old Testament.  The "tribes" of Israel see themselves as a bigger family.  They still view humans outside of their group as enemies.

2b) The rise of evangelical religions such as Christianity and Islam deserves a note.  It makes sense that they would out compete religions that only consider in members.  Ultimately, societies compete with one another.  Expanding the reach of the ISR that underpins your society makes you safer.  The more farms that exist yours and the border of your society creates a buffer of security as well as maximizing the number of trading partners available to you.  It also creates larger societies that bring with them economies of scale that allow for specialists.

3)  Those specialists eventually created mechanisms for creating vast wealth. Historians call this transformation the industrial revolution.  The ISR that rises with the industrial revolution is the nation state.   Nation states have a few distinct advantages over religions.  For one, they explicitly define via law both the requirements and benefits of being part of the group.  Taxes are more scientific than tithes.  Rights are more tangible than a heavenly reward. Nations also can agree to cooperate with other nations, something that religions rarely do.  Economies in the simplest terms need transportation, logistics/communication, and energy.  At this time in history, nations provided these via  the building of roads, a telephone network, and the mining plus distribution of fossil fuels via national electric grids.

4) Currently, money is overtaking nations as the dominant ISR on the planet. By money, I'm not referring to any one currency, but instead a kind of global fungible capital.  Banks still use currencies printed by nation states, but they swap them back and forth effortlessly.  In my lifetime, I have gained the ability to go to almost any foreign country, pull out my bank card, and withdrawal cash in whatever currency the situation demands.  Some nation states try to stem the flow of global capital but they have little success.  Time will tell if nation-less currencies (Bitcoin, etc) become usable and popular. Money has the same advantages that nation states have over religion, to an even greater extent. Why limit my trading opportunities to humans that live in my country?  Any human that can cooperate with humanity as a whole has a competitive advantage over one that only does business locally.  This blog will in the future consider some of the effects of money's takeover as the dominant ISR such as globalization, international shipping logistics, and intellectual property rights. In the information age global shipping is the transportation of choice (perhaps replaced by autonomous), the global internet is the dominant communication tool, and perhaps renewables will replace national electric grids.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether new ISRs allow for new means of production or whether new means of production create the need for ISRs.  It is most likely a chicken and egg scenario or more accurately a hermeneutic relationship in which they are constantly reinforcing, morphing, and spurring one another on. No ISR is static.  Like a language, they all slowly drift and warp as the humans using and being used by them change their dimensions. That is exactly what this blog is about.  I am trying to understand how global capitalism is currently changing, and what perhaps it might morph into.