Article about Tribal, Institutional, Market and Network Societies

RAND Corporation ^ | David Ronfeldt

[sociotard]

I just finished a (long) article by David Ronfeldt called "IN SEARCH OF HOW SOCIETIES WORK; Tribes — The First and Forever Form"

Here, I'll post the Abstract:
The latest in a string of efforts to develop a theoretical framework about social evolution, based on how people develop their societies by using four forms of organization — tribes, hierarchical institutions, markets, and networks — this installment focuses on the tribal form.
The tribal form was the first to emerge and mature, beginning thousands of years ago. Its main dynamic is kinship, which gives people a distinct sense of identity and belonging-the basic elements of culture, as manifested still today in matters ranging from nationalism to fan clubs.
This report provides a lead-off chapter that sketches the entire framework, plus a “rethinking” chapter that shows why David Ronfeldt thinks that social evolution revolves around four forms of organization. A chapter then traces the evolution of tribes and clans, and the final chapter describes modern manifestations of the tribal form. An appendix reprints three op-ed pieces that sprang from Ronfeldt’s efforts to understand the tribal form and its continuing relevance.
Ronfeldt maintains that societies advance by learning to use and combine all four forms, in a preferred progression. What ultimately matters is how the forms are added and how well they function together. They are not substitutes for each other; they are complements. Historically, a society’s advance — its progress — depends on its ability to use all four forms and combine them into a coherent, well-balanced, well-functioning whole. Essentially monoform tribal/clan societies and biform chiefdoms and clan-states, some dressed in the trappings of nation-states and capitalist economies, remain a ruling reality in vast areas of the world. It therefore behooves analysts and strategists who mostly think about states and markets to gain a better grip on roles the tribal form plays in both national development and national security.

Like I said it's a very long article. without the appendicies it works out to about 70 pages, so I'm not going to try posting the whole thing. I will, however post the table on page 19 that sums up a comparison of what he calls the four fundamental structures

	TRIBES	INSTITUTIONS	MARKETS	NETWORKS
ERA OF RISE	Neolithic	agrarian	industrial	post-industrial
KEY PURPOSE	identity	power, authority	trade, investment	social equity?
KEY EFFECT	solidarity	sovereignty	competition	collaboration?
KEY PRODUCT	shared “gifts”?	public goods	private goods	collective goods?
MOTIVATION	family endurance	higher authority	self-interest	grp. empowerm’t?
STRENGTH	kinship, culture	state, army, corp.	commerce	civil society?
DARK SIDE	nepotism	corruption/abuse	exploitation	deception?
WEAKNESS	administration	econ. transactions	social equity	info. overload?
STRUCTURE	kinship	hierarchy	exchange	heterarchy?
—SPACE ORIENT.	segmental	vertical	atomized	flat, web-like
—TIME ORIENT.	cyclic (myth)	past (tradition)	present (demand)	future (needs?)
—ACTION ORIENT.	solidarity	command/control	exchange/trade	consult./coord.?
INTERNAL TIES	tightly coupled	< - - - - >	< - - - - >	loosely coupled
EXTERNAL BOUNDS	solid, closed	< - - - - >	< - - - - >	fluid, open
DESIGN ANALOGY	labyrinths, circles	pyramids	billiard balls	geodesic domes
BODY ANALOGY	skin/look	skeletal system	circulatory system	sensory system
INFO. TECH. NEEDS	early language	writing, printing	telephony, radio	fax, Internet
PHILOSOPHERS	Khaldun?	Hobbes	Smith	Teilhard?

[sociotard]

I'm generally leary of attempts at catagorizing humanity and the organizations it develops (it's so far from an exact science), but it still made for an interesting report. As the title suggests, it focused on how tribal structures appear in more advanced structures. It made me think of the brain. You know, there's the reptile brain, and the mammal brain, but mammals still have a reptile brain underneath it all.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[sociotard]

I don't know what "YEC INTREP" means. Is it an acronym for something?

[LiteKeeper]

Please refer to my profile page. Thank you

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

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[sociotard]

Oh. What does this have to do with "biblical vs. secular" and opposition? This article investigated the development of societies and groups, not species. the only times I've heard of biblical arguments being applied to that was in the case of "god wanted me to be king, or I wouldn't have been born to my father", and I think we'd all be in opposition to that.

[LiteKeeper]

There is a pattern in society, designed from the beginning. The One who designed society (family, community, congregation) was God. When man gets his hands on the design and begins to muck around, I get very interested.

[x]

You can see a PDF online here, if you haven't already. It's an interesting idea. Probably just saying "Tribes" and "Markets" is clearer than saying "T-type" or "+M," though. S1, S2, etc. could be more clearly expressed in words, than in pseudo-formula.

The big question is whether the "advocacy group" model is really going to predominate. "Advocacy groups" don't actually produce much, so that model may be of limited significance. Arguably what we'll see is a third or fourth state of market industrialism or post-industrialism comparable to the shift from coal and steel to oil, electronics, and plastics, not a bigger shift like that from tribes to states or state institutions to market capitalism.

The other question is whether tribalism may make a comeback. Tribal diasporas have been "networks" within and across states and empires for millennia. As different groups move around more in the world, those ethnic networks may come to be more significant and undercut ethnically integrated markets and networks.