Mapping Socio-Economic Spaces

This morning I had my eyes opened by a discussion that I had with a niece and her husband. We generally disagree on most things mainly due to the generation gap, but I think the underlying cause isn't generational but my view of the way societies work.

Ask yourself what type of society do you live in?

Many commentators describe the world found in the extremes of “Socialism” and Capitalism. I don't believe that these two are opposites under today's context. The original extremes between Communism and Capitalism exemplified the idea that on one hand everything was shared between everything in contrast to capital being own individually. As an example people considered the old Soviet Union or China or Cuba to exemplify Communism and the present-day USA to exemplify Capitalism. I don't believe that the model has ever been so simple.

The next level of complexity adds the dimension of "religion". Governments based around religions (Theocracies) balance the picture. It is similar to the mind, body, and spirit triad. In this case, the triad is Capitalism, Communism, and Theocracism. Examples of theocracies would be the Vatican and a number of middle eastern countries.

In my opinion, none of the extremes represent a healthy society. One of my beliefs is that healthy societies can be found sharing elements from each of these forms of government. For instance, countries with happier citizens contain elements of a free marketplace, a level of spirituality but also a concern for social values.

Countries that lie at the extremes tend to become toxic. When the Soviet Union was first created it did have good intentions. However, Stalinism had little sympathy for its citizens despite the idea that it was representing the worker class. Capitalism has the same issues … damaging the ecology because of no regard for the environment. Theocracism is no better. One only needs to look at Spanish Inquisition or the Saudi Arabian legal system to see its failures.

Any society will have a group of people would are happy and healthy. The size of this group is maximized when it is balanced. If a country becomes extreme in any dimension the number of people within that group is constrained.

So far I have only talked about the three main points but there are additional forms of society. For instance, Socialism is found between capitalism and communism. It is a society which some of the positive aspects of communism - sharing the costs of education, healthcare and infrastructure (roads and bridges) - within a free market society. A good indicator is the state of the roads. When a society shares the cost of road improvement, the quality of the roads is reasonably high. When the control of the roads is privatized, there is an inconsistency in the quality of the roads. Some stretches might be pristine while others are neglected. Roads maintained in socialist society are consistently good or bad. In a moderately wealthy society, roads tend to be maintained consistently better. I first saw this when as a child, our family crossed the border into the US. It was almost like going to a third world country.

Monarchism borders between Capitalism and Theocracism. A monarch holds their position by divine right. In some cases (England) the ruler is the head of the church. In some cases (which I will explain later) we have seen in North Korea that a country has moved from communism to monarchism and sharing elements of theocracism. North Korea is headed by God-Kings (the Kim family). It is a dynasty where the family is revered almost as if they are heavenly sovereigns.

I have little personal knowledge of contemporary Utopian societies. I believe that Bhutan is perhaps an example of a Monarchy moving toward a Utopian society as they have a commitment toward a Gross National Happiness. I don’t believe they will achieve this space as they seem to have a high tendency toward a theocracy.

So far I have looked at different dimensional mappings. On top of that, there is a drive toward public good or public evil. One of the things that I hate to do is listen to Canadian political news. Doing things in order to develop jobs for the people ordinarily is considered good. Performing bad deals in order to develop jobs is still bad. Doing evil in order to do good is still evil. This frequently happens under capitalism. There is a phrase that I have heard - "it is easier to get forgiveness than permission" - is an anathema to me. Organ harvesting from people who desire to have their organs donated upon their death or as a living gift (as in the case of a kidney or part of a liver) which is something that is not necessarily life-threatening. Paying poor people for their organs is not a good thing, because it exploits the economic circumstances of the individual. It is bad because there is this exploitation, but not necessarily evil as there is the element of choice. Organ harvesting which is pure exploitation where a person has to choose between two bad outcomes is beyond bad. Organ harvesting where there is no choice is evil. Present-day China harvests the organs of tens of thousands of an oppressed religious group every year. One estimate based on a particular study has extrapolated the death toll so far has been 1.5 million people. No matter if it is possible to save the lives of multiple people for each person harvested, it is an evil practice. For a government to be complicit in this activity is evil. For other countries to enter friendly relations and trade agreements are tainted by this as well.

So far I have been illustrating societies as a flat plane. Realistically they are polygonally pyramidal in shape. This explains how a society like North Korea while communistic can become a monarchy. The same can be shown in Russia and China which would be considered socialist. The leaders of extreme societies are very similar in characteristics. How does the Pope differ from the Mark Zuckerberg (Ultra capitalist of Facebookland) or Xi Jinping? Their mapping is closer together than the mapping of other people in their own societies at the lowest levels.