162
8 How Society Works
of volunteers who have created Linux, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Stack Overflow
or Zooniverse.
8.11 Why and How Globalization Undermines Cooperation
and Social Order
The central message of this chapter is that self-organization based on local interactions is at the heart of all human societies. Since the genesis of ancient societies right
up until today, a great deal of social order emerges from the bottom-up. To achieve
cooperation, one just needs suitable interaction mechanisms (“rules of the game”),
including mechanisms to reach compliance with the rules. This approach tends to be
flexible, adaptive, resilient, effective and efficient.
Most of the previously discussed mechanisms enable self-organized cooperation
in a bottom-up way by encouraging people to engage in social interactions with
others who exhibit similar behavior—“birds of a feather flock together”. The crucial
question is whether these mechanisms will also work in a globalized world? These
days, many people and governments feel that globalization has undermined social
and economic stability. As I will demonstrate in the following, this is actually true,
and the underlying reasons are quite surprising.
Globalization means that an increasing variety of people and corporations interact
with each other, often in a more or less anonymous or “random” way. This leads to
a surprising problem, which is illustrated by a video produced in my team.
21 The
video illustrates a circle of “agents” (such as individuals or companies), each of
whom is creating collective goods with agents in their vicinity. These local interactions initially foster a high level of cooperation for reasons that we have discussed
above. When further interactions with randomly chosen agents are added, the level of
cooperation first increases. Therefore, it seems natural to add more interaction links.
However, there is an optimal level of connectivity, beyond which cooperation starts
to decay.
22 When everyone interacts with everyone else, finally, cooperation even
stops completely. In other words, when too many people interact with each other, a
“tragedy of the commons” results, and everyone suffers from the lack of cooperation.
Therefore, the way we are globalizing the world today may lead to the erosion of
social order and economic stability. This conclusion is also supported by the Chief
Economist at the Bank of England, Andrew Haldane (*1967), who suggests that the
financial meltdown in 2008 resulted from a hyperconnected banking network.
23
21 This video is accessible at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVExTATGvP0.
22 Helbing [16].
23 Haldane and May [17].
8 How Society Works
of volunteers who have created Linux, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Stack Overflow
or Zooniverse.
8.11 Why and How Globalization Undermines Cooperation
and Social Order
The central message of this chapter is that self-organization based on local interactions is at the heart of all human societies. Since the genesis of ancient societies right
up until today, a great deal of social order emerges from the bottom-up. To achieve
cooperation, one just needs suitable interaction mechanisms (“rules of the game”),
including mechanisms to reach compliance with the rules. This approach tends to be
flexible, adaptive, resilient, effective and efficient.
Most of the previously discussed mechanisms enable self-organized cooperation
in a bottom-up way by encouraging people to engage in social interactions with
others who exhibit similar behavior—“birds of a feather flock together”. The crucial
question is whether these mechanisms will also work in a globalized world? These
days, many people and governments feel that globalization has undermined social
and economic stability. As I will demonstrate in the following, this is actually true,
and the underlying reasons are quite surprising.
Globalization means that an increasing variety of people and corporations interact
with each other, often in a more or less anonymous or “random” way. This leads to
a surprising problem, which is illustrated by a video produced in my team.
21 The
video illustrates a circle of “agents” (such as individuals or companies), each of
whom is creating collective goods with agents in their vicinity. These local interactions initially foster a high level of cooperation for reasons that we have discussed
above. When further interactions with randomly chosen agents are added, the level of
cooperation first increases. Therefore, it seems natural to add more interaction links.
However, there is an optimal level of connectivity, beyond which cooperation starts
to decay.
22 When everyone interacts with everyone else, finally, cooperation even
stops completely. In other words, when too many people interact with each other, a
“tragedy of the commons” results, and everyone suffers from the lack of cooperation.
Therefore, the way we are globalizing the world today may lead to the erosion of
social order and economic stability. This conclusion is also supported by the Chief
Economist at the Bank of England, Andrew Haldane (*1967), who suggests that the
financial meltdown in 2008 resulted from a hyperconnected banking network.
23
21 This video is accessible at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVExTATGvP0.
22 Helbing [16].
23 Haldane and May [17].