The new structure of the human system

This text completes and specifies the previous published on www.unigov.org and its linked sites. Particularly all those regarding the structure of the complex systems such as the human one and the effects stemming from them. I will try to synthesize at best the concepts, the strategies and the praxis to follow. The problems of the complex systems can only be faced in a complex way. One can simplify at his/her best but no more than that.

Unfortunately the prevailing forces of the human system have tried to slow down the progressive process of complexity by injecting complications. This has been wanted to limit the attractive effect of perturbations (butterfly effect) and the self-organization capability, two of the complex systems properties, to make the system more resilient.

Although this injection of complications has made the system stronger it has made its structure more vulnerable. That means that humanity in its complex today is able to adapt better than before to environment conditions and that its structure can be modified more easily and adequated to necessities not just by the whole humanity but also by each one of the subjects part of it.

The human been and its necessities

To live and develop we must satisfy needs. We have six levels of needs. In natural priority order we need air, water, food, sleep, sex, clothes and health[1], then shelter, safety and protection[2], then belonging and love[3], then self-esteem and acknowledgment[4], then freedom, autonomy and independence[5] and last to achieve our identity, ourselves[6].

An unsatisfied need induces to concentrate motivational energies towards the paths addressed to satisfy that need preventing to access the higher needs of the scale. The missed satisfaction of physiological essential needs causes sufferance and illness and prevents the satisfaction of other necessities. Without safety there is no love. Without love you can’t feel self-esteem. Without self-esteem you can’t achieve freedom. Without freedom you can’t achieve your own self.

The priority depends on our specific nature: the human being is first of all a living being, then an animal, then an evolved animal and last the most evolved animal. So, as all other living beings, vital necessities come first, then the typical animal necessities, then the typical necessities of evolved animals and at last the particular necessities stemming from being the most evolved of the animals.

Following the natural order of priorities and with minimum resources, each one of us can satisfy one’s own necessities compared to personal ability. But. Often, necessities manifest themselves in a priority order different from the natural one. We could call it artificial order. The cause is the way each one of us perceives as effect of the interaction of the individual phenotype with the others and the environment. In its turn, the way one perceives and deduces depends on the kind of personal genotype inherited.

The artificial priority order in which necessities manifest themselves is one of the main causes of our uneasiness and our limits. By inverting the natural priority order, we refuse our nature and give up our maximum evolution.

The effects can be more or less serious depending on the kind of inversion. If one tries to achieve oneself before satisfying the need for freedom, he/she will cause her/his own dependence and oppression. If one goes for self-esteem and acknowledgement before love causes his-her own isolation. If one looks for love before safety he/she causes phobias. If one searches for safety before water, food, sleep and health, he/she will suffer physically. The more the distance between artificial priorities and natural priorities the more the uneasiness.

The mind reacts to the effects caused by the inversion of the necessity priorities with self-persuasion. One can persuade him/herself to survive after physical death, not to have fear, to be able to live without love, to have won and be free. But illusion doesn’t bring the achievement of oneself. This doesn’t mean self-persuasion is negative itself. Indeed, to believe being able to do what one considers right and useful strengthens one’s own determination both in acting and in resisting obstacles. But there’s a difference between self-persuasion of being able to satisfy one’s own necessities following the natural priority order and that deriving from the artificial order.

In the first case, the individual will is in harmony with one’s own nature and with the environment: such allows the maximum possible individual evolution. In the second case, will is in contrast wit one’s own proper nature and often also with the environment: such causes a suspension or interruption of one’s own individual development if not even an involution.

The human system and its structure

Humanity is a complex system with a hierarchical structure. It therefore has all the features of the complex systems and of the hierarchies.

Being a complex system, its formed by many parts interacting in a non-linear way and is in a dynamic unstable balance. The redundance of the parts assures strong resilience and great self-organizing ability.

Having a hierarchical structure, the valence of the parts depends on the level they sit on: each part represents the whole system compared to the parts on the lower levels, while it only represents itself compared to the parts sitting on the higher levels. This structure formed its self as effect of the rule of selection, made possible by the high level of redundance.

The situation of humanity and its causes

Beginning from the agricultural revolution until a few decades ago, the overall situation of the human system could have been analyzed and evaluated according just to the conditions of its parts, i.e. the whole of the human beings. Now, the development level of the productive forces and the level of consumption set the necessity of analyzing the human system together with its environment. Meaning to analyze nowadays human condition regarding the limitedness of natural resources and the effects of their employment on the ecologic system.

Human conditions are known. A quarter of us use three quarters the natural resources of the planet. The economic system is based on the exploitation of labor, i.e. on the difference between the exchange value of produced goods and services and the overall value the work necessary to produce them is recognized. The level of production, i.e. the quantity of products, doesn’t depend on the relation with social needs but on profit. Currency doesn’t represent real existing goods or services but goods and services that will be produced in future and, therefore, the work necessary to produce them. Finance doesn’t represent the resources necessary to produce but non-existing values through which fictitious profits are obtained, not rising from work but from speculative operations through which currencies are swapped with other ones or with stock stemming from fundamental factors of real economy.

It’s know that natural resources, the raw materials able to transform in product and above all in energy (except from the solar one) used to produce, are limited. All fossil and nuclear combustibles are becoming exhausted and its prices are rising constantly. In a short time we’ll be without carbon, oil, natural gas and uranium. If the current consumption of the better off quarter of us were extended to all the inhabitants of the planet, all natural resources would become exhausted in a few decades.

At the same time, we also know the conditions of the environment and the impact of human nature on the whole planet. Our ecological footprint overcomes already one fifth the sustainability of the planet and the predictable increase in consumption of the inhabitants of the developing countries (two billion inhabitants live in Russia, Brazil, China and India) is accelerating rapidly the level of unsustainability.

The evaluation of the analysis of the human system condition and of the condition of the environment is highly negative. Therefore, we can’t just talk systemic crisis of humanity but of global intersystemic crisis involving human beings and the nature they are part of. This reality is perceived but not yet recognized. This crisis originated, as all the previous ones, by the structure of the human system and the lack of conscious gaining regarding our relation with nature makes it even worse. Such double negative condition causes the way of perception giving rise to the artificial order in which problems manifest themselves. The original causes are therefore structural, meaning they depend on the solution adopted to solve previous problems.

This crisis appears as the worst since the existence of human being. Its defects can be catastrophic for the whole humanity and could involve the whole planet. To avoid it we must adopt solutions to face and solve the negative effects of the previous solutions (the current problems) and at the same time to modify the structure all the previous solutions rised from.

The new structure of the human system

The new structure must be transformed from hierarchy in conarchy. That means to eliminate the levels determining the double valence of parts and establish a unique path for organic functions, where every human being has one role and one valence set aside the level he/she sits on but according to its necessities, propensions and real abilities.

Since it’s life than determines conscience and not the opposite, and since life depends on material conditions, the new structure must first of all everyone to live and be able to gain conscience of reality. And, since material conditions depend on economic relations, the solution to adopt must affect the current production relations.

The most appropriate form to affect the current production relations is the direct participation of workers to the management of the enterprises. That means make the workers take part to the risks and results of economic activities. All wealth will have to be reallocated to make the new form rise, by disconnecting legal tender currency from real economy and substituting the legal tender currencies devoid of any value with a currency guaranteed by capitals of productive enterprises, i.e. by already performed work, which represents the future work necessary to produce goods and services with which the new currency will be swapped: a currency guaranteed by existing real value, issued on behalf of those who undertake to perform future work and divided in equal parts among all the adult inhabitants of the planet.

With this new form of economy, the production level is free from profit connecting to real social necessities and programs itself following the natural priority order of needs. Since the kind of economic relations, as social relation, represents the prevailing condition of social relation, all the other human manifestations (juridical, political, spiritual, religious, scientific, artistic and philosophic) will have to adapt progressively to the new form of production relations determining a new social consciousness. A new ecological conscience will rise from the new economic form and the new social form, for example by eliminating wastes and respecting natural environment, and, therefore, for the first time, an intersystemic conscience, not just a global consciousness but also universal.

How to make the new structure rise

The process for the transformation of production relation forms can be certified by natural science and history. But how to provoke the new process? The discrepancy between the development level of the production forces and productive relations isn’t enough. The condition seven or eight inhabitants of the planet out of ten are in isn’t enough. No typical social formation of the previous system has ever caused a revolution. Not even the most disadvantaged classes. At most, they rebelled.

The classes of every system have always formed in the previous system and rotate round the principles of the system they are part of, even so it doesn’t involve self-inflicted damaging. Neither the farmers nor the officials of the castes of Asiatic societies, neither the slaves nor free citizens of anti-abolitionist societies, neither the nobles nor the servants of feudal societies, neither the proletarian nor the capitalist of the middle class have ever promoted a revolution. Each new system is born by the action of a new class formed from the previous system. The modification of the structure of the human system and the destiny of humanity therefore depend on a new social formation that is born in the current system and takes advantage from the discrepancies between level of development of the productive forces and economic relations better than the classes formed in the previous systems. Substantially, what’s new rises from the exhaustion and decline of the old but under the push of who evolves in the old system.

So, the solution to real problems and the transformation of the structure of the system can be only under the initiative of the new social formation adopting production relations based on the direct participation of workers to the management of enterprises and the work currency. It’s a historic process that can’t be triggered by groups even if much bigger than one or some countries indeed by an important part of the inhabitants of all the countries, which will have to prove that the solutions adopted aren’t just valid for one country but for every human being. The new formation will therefore be global, meaning it rises and develops on every part of the planet, and will have to propose universal solutions, i.e. valid for every human being.

September 24, 2008.

Rodolfo Marusi Guareschi

 

 



[1] Physiological needs, the first developed reason, connected to the necessary physical conditions to live and avoid or overcome uneasiness.

[2] Safety needs, they only manifest after having satisfied physiological needs and result in the search for contact and protection.

[3] Belonging needs, desiring to be part of an extended social unit (family, friend group), which rises only after having satisfied safety needs.

[4] Esteem needs, the exigency of receiving by the interaction partners a feedback on one’s own contribution, activates only after satisfying interaction needs.

[5] Independence needs, need for autonomy, carrying out and completion of the contribution, activates only after satisfying esteem needs.

[6] Self-achievement needs, to overcome one’s own limits and place oneself in a super-individual perspective, to be part of the world.