So one of the point of this blog is to discuss the growth and development of societies. As I was thinking about the factors which cause societies to grow, I was drawn to thinking of the factors that enable societies to function in the first place, and so I wanted to kick this off by drawing a comparison between the formation of human societies and the events that took place in the transition from unicellular to multicellular life, millions of years ago.
The initial problems are identical: how do you create a unified entity which is advantageous to all concerned parties? There have been many ideas among political philosophers for why people enter into society, but the underlying assumption is that people entering society will be better off than they would have been in a state of nature. But what if the concerned parties have different definitions of "advantageous"? This is one of the problems posed to the cells which make up a multicellular organism.
Many multicellular organisms have two overarching types of cells, somatic cells and germ line cells. The germline cells are the ones that create gametes, such as sperm and eggs, and consequently they are the cells whose genes are directly passed down to the next generation. The somatic cells function in the creation and maintenance of the multicellular body, but do not directly create sperm and eggs.
Why is this a problem? Well, more often than not it isn't. That's because all of the cells in the body have the same genetic make-up, so the cells in your arm don't 'care' that they are not moving to the next generation directly, because the germ line cells of the body are passing identical sets of DNA to the next generation. But what if a mutation occurs, so that some somatic and germ line cells have different genetic makeups? Now there is the possibility (depending on the mutation) for there to be a sort of 'competition to get into the germ line', that is, a competition during development for certain cells to become germ line cells over others.
This is a similar situation to that of a burgeoning society: if different groups within the whole have different immediate interests, how is overall progress, or growth, accomplished? In this light, a political party which blocks reforms that will bring growth in order to protect its own political standpoint is analogous to cancer within the body; in both cases, selfish individuals are pursuing their own interests at the expense of the whole. Remember- a mutation arising in a cell which causes it to proliferate wildly will cause it to take over the body- cells have no foresight and do not 'realize' that taking over the body is not to their ultimate evolutionary interests. This is why cancer exists, even though it is to the detriment of the body.
Yet another comparison comes through the division of labor. In a society, the division of labor increases productivity, and according to moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith, is also a source of innovation. Yet, to quote Book 5 of Smith's Wealth of Nations:
"The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become."It is evident that with specialization, the productivity of the whole goes up, but, if Smith is correct, division of labor in the state renders each component incapable of functioning outside of the whole. Admittedly, under Smith's dynamic and self-generating division of labor, the loss of generalized function of each component would not be so severe. However, the division of labor arising in the multicellular body is more akin to the Platonic division of labor, it is a static system with no changing jobs. This specialization is one of the main reasons why multicellular organisms are capable of more functions than the aggregate sum of their parts.
In fact, one of the main competing theories for the origins of multicellularity, compiled in large part by evolutionary biologist Richard Michod, states that multicellularity, aka the formation of a cohesive 'cell society', occurs precisely when the pressures of selection shift from those of the cell to that of the organism, meaning that when different cell types within the body become sufficiently specialized, it will be evolutionarily advantageous for each cell to remain specialized in this way as part of a larger entity, even though in doing so it loses its capacity to survive outside of the whole.
Is growth advantageous for society? Is the division of labor effective, and is it in fact advantageous for individuals within society to specialize? How does one go about curtailing cheaters and those who would advance their own private interests at the expense of the whole? These are some of the questions I hope we can begin to tackle, and I can't help but wonder if by viewing human society through the lens of nature, this shift in perspective might shed light on a novel and illuminating type of... consilience.
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