Analogue Of Human Society It is well known that the only perfect analogue of anything is the thing itself. Analogies are therefore bound always to be imperfect. However, the position and role of a molecule within the atmosphere seems to bear a similarity to the position and role of an individual or family within the global socio-economy.

The Analogy

Both the molecule and the family are structures whose forms are determined solely by the laws of nature. Both are made of parts which are strongly bound together. A molecule is made up of particles like leptons and quarks. A family is made up of members like husband, wife and children. Both can be torn apart by strong external forces. The molecule by chemical reaction or nuclear bombardment. The family by economic pressure or moral decay. Both are minute autonomous parts of a greater whole.

Members of both make excursions into their outside communities and then return. An outer electron will leave its atom or molecule causing it to become 'ionized'. Members of a family will take a trip outside their home in order to trade, travel, communicate or socialise. Both require space and time in which to exist and function. The molecule needs its mean free path. It shares available space equitably with its neighbours according to the prevailing temperature and pressure. The family needs its fairly apportioned working space to transform its labour into its needs.

Both interact with their neighbours under the influence of forces whose effects are determined by natural physical laws. Each molecule owes its shape and structure to the subtle interplay between the fundamental forces. Each family owes its form and structure to the subtle interplay between biological function and social interdependence. Molecules interact with each other under the influence of the weaker physical forces. Families interact with each other under the influences of the sociological forces.

As it is in every inter-molecular interaction, so it is in every inter-family interaction. The nature of the effect resulting from a given cause under the influence of a given force is determined inexorably by a natural law.

The human family too is a tiny socio-economic system in its own right. It too embodies laws - the laws of social interaction. Each produces a determinable effect when subjected to a given cause. For instance, the effect of mutual benefit when two parties exchange goods or services in an act of trade, or when friends exchange news through conversation.

The Need for Turbulence

A single socio-economic transaction is of itself quite simple. However, the holistic vision of zillions of social transactions taking place at once between millions of different people across the globe in a never-ending interlacing cascade of initiative and response, is unfathomably complex and indeterminable. So the apparent chaos of global humanity is merely the result of a myriad encounters between countless people in endless iteration in an ocean of ever-changing patterns of turbulence and calm.

Turbulence in the atmosphere is vital. Without it, the rapid mixing and dispersal of gasses and moisture essential to life would not take place. In human society, the turbulence produced by the sociological forces makes people mix with others whom they would otherwise never meet. It is the essential vehicle of marriage, education, recreation and trade.

It promotes the international cross-pollination of arts, technologies and philosophies. It breaks down the walls of mistrust between families and nations. It evaporates the mists of time, distance and cultural difference.

A society ruled by the bare daily routine of working, eating and sleeping superimposed upon a bare annual cycle of seed-time and harvest is a society in a dark age in which thought has stagnated and progress has ceased. The characteristic of such a society is much more quantum-mechanical than it is complex dynamical.

It is only when people of different kinds and cultures mix that renaissance can unfold. In fact, the erratic alternations of dark age and renaissance within global society are probably all part of its overall complex dynamical behaviour which, like that of the weather, could be represented by a strange attractor.

The Need for Protection

The laws which govern the motion of the atmosphere create an energy barrier to protect the integrity of its tiny molecular components. So too must the rules which regulate society ensure that the macroscopic turbulence of its corporate endeavours can neither hurt nor destroy any of its smallest components. The inheritance of each of the Earth's one billion families must be placed beyond the possibility of violation.

In the micro-physical world, the force between two constituent particles in a molecule is normally related to their spatial separation. For some forces, strength is inversely proportional to the square of the separation between them. Such forces are thus said to obey an inverse square law. The strengths of other forces seem to increase as a pair of particles are pulled further apart as if the particles were joined by an elastic band. A web of constructively-opposing forces thus permeates the universe.

The points, lines and surfaces of equilibrium between opposing forces obeying different physical laws thus give form to particles, atoms and molecules. They set limits on their sizes, masses, charges and energies. They shape their modes of behaviour and restrict the vigour with which they may interact. Each unilaterally obeys its given laws. He is his own policeman. He seeks not gain for himself without limit. He seeks not to deprive or destroy his neighbour and take the spoil.

The result is that all the molecules which make up the global atmosphere interact with each other in a way which, although exceedingly complex and seemingly chaotic, is nevertheless stable and self-regulating. This is because whenever the system is perturbed, the laws which relate how a molecule interacts with its neighbour always tends to pull the weather's behaviour back towards the norm represented by its strange attractor.

Such a set of laws is said to be convergent. However, if the laws were changed slightly, the delicate balance of the system could be upset in such a way as to initiate a mode of behaviour which would result in the whole atmosphere exploding to infinity or collapsing onto a point. The laws would then be said to be divergent. A system which is governed by divergent laws has only a transient existence. It may in some cases be a long existence, but it is bound eventually and inevitably to self-destruct.

Inherently Unstable

Human society is also formed and governed by natural laws. Individual human beings interact with each other in deterministic ways. However, the natural laws which regulate these interactions are divergent. Under the influence of these laws alone, therefore, human society is inherently unstable and inevitably self-destructive.

The natural single force-from-within which drives all human interaction is basically selfish. Its sole aim is to provide for and protect self. It is the fundamental law of self-preservation. However, this law not only forces me to preserve myself in the physical sense, but also in a genetic sense. It compels me also to provide for and protect my family. My family is thus a part of what is called my extended self. My motive is still selfish. Furthermore, inasmuch as my neighbour is a part of the socio-economic environment which provides me with the means to provide for and protect my family, I am moved also to provide for and to protect my neighbour. But my motive in so doing is purely selfish. I am not thereby "loving my neighbour as myself". I am simply exploiting him for my own gain.

A master provides for and protects his slaves. But this is only because he knows that if they starve he will have to do all the work himself. A conscript may fight for his country in time of war. But this is because he knows that if he refuses to fight, he may be shot or imprisoned by his own state or at least suffer the rejection of his peers after the war is over. At best it is because he fears that if his country is conquered he will be enslaved by the conquerors. Again the motive is entirely selfish.

The Force of Greed

But the primeval force which drives the human life-form's built-in self-preservation programming does not restrict itself merely to making adequate provision for its host and his dependants. It does not have a negative feedback mechanism to enforce a strict upper limit on its gain as does the amplifier in my short-wave radio receiver. In its raw state it engenders an insatiable ambition to possess and control. It generates an avaricious desire to gain and hold on to more than it could ever need. It begets a voracious appetite to consume without limit. It incites a craving to covet and take what others possess. It bares a predatory eye of envy towards their wealth and happiness. It lusts for that which is forbidden. It wishes death upon all who would stand in its way. Its name is greed.

Greed is the subconscious seat of human nature. It is the root of sin. It is the life-blood of modern free-market capitalism. It is vital to human existence. Without it, mankind would not have the incentive to do what is necessary to live. But unbridled, it will eventually destroy the world. All human beings are driven by this primal force of greed. Although not all to the same extent. The result is a tension-ridden society made up of a myriad of greedy individuals locked in constant competitive struggles, which are at any given time in varying stages of conflict and stand-off.

A small degree of restraint is inherent. An individual may refrain from a particular selfish action for fear of the retaliation or reprisal which would be returned by those to whom the action would be directed. However, this does not deter the strong or unscrupulous from oppressing those who are weak and honest. So the collapse of society is still inevitable.

The Need for Rules

The behaviour of unregulated human society is not convergent. It is not held in the orbit of a stable attractor. It is destined quickly to explode or collapse. But human society is known to have existed for at least 6,000 years. Something has prevented - or at least severely slowed down - its progress towards oblivion. One of the things which has slowed down the process considerably is the fact that until recent times, the population of the world was small in comparison with its land and resources. It hadn't yet reached critical mass. The oppressed could still move on. Another is that communications on a global scale were slow. No skirmish could instantly escalate to global proportions. Nations could consider events without being driven by them. Time and space could dissipate tension.

The main factor which has contained the forces of self-destruction within human society, however, is its use of rules.

Rules limit and reshape an individual's motives before they are allowed to be realised as physical or intellectual actions towards his neighbours. Only such processed actions are thus allowed then to become causes of effects within society.

Any arbitrary set of rules can be imposed by a society on its members. Any arbitrary set of rules will alter the overall effect of the natural laws of cause and effect which are built into the human mind. Different sets of rules will have different overall effects. What overall effects must these rules produce in order to create and maintain a just and fair society?

The first effect these rules must exhibit is family protection. They must preserve the social and economic integrity of each individual and family on Earth, and secure unconditionally every family's title and possession of their rightful portion of the planet's resources to use as they will.

The second effect these rules must produce is social mixing. They must shape the global behaviour of society in such a way that it produces the right balance between socialisation and solitude - calm and chaos - for every individual within it.

To facilitate social mixing, society must contain a degree of turbulence. But however turbulent society may become on occasions, the rules must make its overall behaviour pull continuously and automatically towards a stable norm. In other words, these rules must bring the divergent laws of human interaction into a state of convergence.

But Which Rules?

Where do we find a set of rules which will produce these desired effects? The eternal quest of science has always been to find the Universal Law of physics. That is, a single unified law which describes completely the whole of reality. The ultimate successor to the Unified Field Theory. A single equation which replaces all others. But such a law, if it exists at all, has always eluded scientists, and it probably always will.

The same would be true of mankind's eternal quest to find the Universal Rule of Life which, if followed, would create and sustain a just and fair society. Would be that is, if mankind had been left to find it for himself. But he wasn't. It was given to him. And as with all things fundamental, once seen it looks so obvious, yet it is not quite as obvious as it seems.

If all human beings had exactly the same strengths and abilities in equal measure, and also if at any given time, all human beings were subjected to exactly the same environmental, social and economic circumstances, then every individual greed-motivated action on the part of one person would be met by an equal and opposite reaction from his neighbour. A state of equilibrium would then emerge in which society could probably function equitably without rules. But this would be a stagnant society in which members would have no sense of interdependence and therefore little reason or motive to interact or communicate, let alone co-operate. Human relationships would not form, so society would not really exist.

However, in the real world, the strength and ability profiles of different individuals vary considerably. And the circumstances in which different individuals find themselves differ even more. In any encounter, a person whose natural strengths lie in his ability to negotiate will always have the advantage over a person whose strengths lie in artisanry. The latter will always end up short-changed. Furthermore, the inherent turbulence of nature and society will guarantee that no two people's circumstances are ever exactly the same. In fact the difference can be so great that one person's very survival could depend on what only another can supply.

In the real world, therefore, social and economic disparity is inevitable. But that does not make it right. Mankind is therefore morally obliged to seek out and apply a Universal Rule of Life which will eradicate disparity while at the same time ensuring personal fulfilment for every individual. This demands that we must accept that different people have different natural talents and abilities in different measures, and that they develop interests in different things. This is good. It encourages and necessitates mutual interdependence, communication, co-operation and consequently establishes, builds and holds together billions of personal relationships. It thus creates and sustains the fabric of society. But it also gives some their undeserved advantage and thereby is the very creator of disparity.

But the reason it creates disparity is because each individual applies his own talents and abilities predominantly for his own benefit. He may be using some indirect channel such as applying his skills on behalf of a customer or employer, but this is simply a means of getting money for himself. His motive is predominantly selfish. His motive is therefore in direct opposition to that of every other human being on the Earth.

One cannot blame him. After all, that is the way his brain is wired. The very nature and structure of his human form only allows him to see the world from his own point of view. It is therefore not surprising that he can only think of it in terms of his own position within it and how it affects him personally. A human being is simply not equipped to see the world from the point of view of, and in terms of the experience of, another human being. Given the restricted senses of the human body, and the self-seeking nature of the human mind, the presumption that one human being can see things from another's point of view is an unfortunate and destructive illusion.

But suppose the human mind and perception were upgraded to a level of performance which enabled each individual to see things from the point of view of his neighbour as clearly as he could see things from his own point of view. Suppose further that somehow he became endowed with a built-in motive to seek his neighbour's best interest which was equal in strength to that which naturally drives his own self-interest.

[This is in fact a necessary condition for democracy to work, and is the reason why in today's society it does not.]

No matter what his particular talents were, they would then be applied equally and fairly to the benefit of both himself and his neighbour. And conversely, his neighbour's talents would also be applied equally and fairly to both of them. Both would therefore benefit equally from both sets of talents. Both of them would be intellectually and professionally fulfilled in that they would both be utilising their different talents to good purpose. All disparity and conflict would be instantly and automatically eliminated.

The One Golden Rule