Confronting Change

Human progress is complicated by the following three conditions of context:

1. The tools we have developed, in not only technology but also in institutions and other systems.
2. Shifts in competitive advantage, among technologies, locations (at times a direct function of technology shifts), and cultures, where cultures can adopt policies that either harmonize or destabilize human commerce and other interaction.
3. Philosophical positions on progress:

• • Views of what constitutes acceptable work, the valuation of different types of work, and the use of collective will and energy for productive or other purposes.
  • The desirability, and practicality, of direct influence over change as compared to favoring “natural” forces such as the “guiding hand” of the overall economy (another system in transition by virtue of global linkages and other conditions).

Of these three contextual conditions, the first two will be driven largely by “economic determinism” to the extent we allow markets to respond free of conscious interventions. The third has to do with choices for the degree of intervention we will apply. Philosophical views on progress are largely influenced by the following:

• Institutional knowledge passed down through generations,
• “Progress” as a goal, and
• The competitive model.

Early in the civilizing process, institutional knowledge began to displace instinctive behavior. This knowledge was passed on by the family unit or village. Institutional knowledge is derived from actual experience, molded, consciously or unconsciously, by basic philosophical concepts. Philosophical concepts operative today to guide the creation of updated learning traditions are primitive at best, and generally unarticulated and unrecognized. We have been focused primarily on “making progress,” which embodies competitive behavior.

Predictive models tend to be based on competitive models, for example that people will act rationally to maximize conditions that serve their own best interests. Social commentators have attempted to broaden this concept to include the idea that certain social goods can be recognized by the individual to be in fact serving their personal interests, even if indirectly. These kinds of qualifying positions, however, also must accept an ongoing accommodation between society’s good and that of the individual.

The competitive paradigm leaves us with several challenges:

• Nature as model. Nature will eventually resolve all imbalances, but Nature works in extremes, and over a long time. We don’t have the patience or the prospects for social survivability to leave things to chance.

• Common good. What degree of consensus should we expect about the extent to which people are willing to forego their own perceived self interest – how much individual good should be sacrificed for even a social good in which they recognize some personal benefit?

• Progress. Progress follows the path of least resistance, to the easiest rewards. Today, that often means that new ways of producing and packaging goods and services, and expanding a market base, receive the most attention and earn the highest rewards commensurate with the effort involved. Productivity gains are in fact strong drivers of wealth creation. However, these advances force society to adapt so that new technological and organizational systems can be used most effectively, not necessarily in order to achieve a desired, targeted social goal.

• Creativity is not a substitute for wisdom. Progress without direction is a prelude to unanticipated problems. By failing to define explicit goals, we exercise the implicit goal of “competing interests will resolve into overall progress.” As society grows more complex, the danger of spiraling into a chaos of unfettered opportunism increases. A free society that retains a reasonable level of efficiency requires ongoing efforts to balance individual and societal rights.

The lack of focus in social progress has many dimensions:

• Ad hoc programs that seem to be inspired by political ambitions, with sound bites substituting for substance.
• No overriding strategic direction and consequently minimal direction at the programmatic level, and very limited strategic interrelationships among programs.
• Programs working at cross purposes.
• Unintended consequences going unchecked, and limited ability to respond to crises.

Even if we were living in a relatively stable socioeconomic setting, the rapid pace of change has hampered the kind of social learning that comes from working out solutions to living together harmoniously over time. We have very limited “social progress” skills, and must rely on contrived means of joint problem-solving – if we are willing to do this at all. These contrivances are however our only hope of meeting the challenges of rapid change in a rational manner.

The future will be managed. That is, a future in which the values we now hold dear still have currency will be arrived at by deliberate collective actions of our own devising, not the product of fortuitous outcomes in technology, political leadership, or national economic prowess. The world cannot continue to unfold at random, in our favor. We have real problems to confront, not just “work around, and hope for the best.” The values we cherish present us with both inspiration and philosophical challenges.