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“In a mass industrial society, when people and their needs were fairly uniform and basic, consensus was an attainable goal. In a demassified society, we not only lack national purpose, we also lack regional, statewide, or citywide purpose. The diversity in any congressional district or parliamentary constituency…is so great that its ‘representative’ cannot legitimately claim to speak for a consensus” – Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave
If we trace human ancestry back to hunter-gatherer groups, our struggle has always been the same. Outwardly, we fight for ‘control’ of resources. Inwardly, we fight to be deemed worthy to “share” in the resources we don’t control. In other words, as social beings, we want to belong and we want to be valued for our contribution to the extent that our existence is justified by more than ourselves alone.
As economies expand, community member roles become more specialized and thereby our interactions become more complex. Migrating tribes of hunter-gatherers learned to domesticate crops and herds and became sedentary farmers. Transportation innovations enabled trade to evolve between neighboring groups. As communities expanded, they grew into Nations. As Nations exhausted local resources, they looked outside their borders and colonized other regions in order to expand access to needed resources.
Industrialization further broadened National reach into economic ‘zones’ (IMF.org) rather than mere Nation-State controlled holdings. Today, communication and transportation technologies are eliminating the need for Nation-State borders and identities. The world is becoming a global community sharing the resources limited to whatever exists within or reaches our biosphere.
The 21st century finds us so highly specialized that every special interest group is fighting for these same basic rights: the ‘control’ of resources in which they specialize, and their fair ‘share’ of resources they don’t control. So although it ‘seems’ there is no centralized driving purpose, as Toffler states, social beings still want to feel part of a community and worthy to share in its resources.
The present global economic crunch has cornered a bigger crisis. As technology innovations replace traditional assembly-line jobs, there is the risk of former workers feeling ‘left out.’ The same fears of isolation occur with any profession feeling the crunch, such as teachers and so on. At present, we have hordes of special interest groups grasping to hold on to their long held career domains as they slip from their hands.
I wonder if the world is facing unprecedented pressures that will lead to a change in the jobs-for-wages model of the industrial era. A new platform that allows individuals to participate and contribute has been built; the Internet. Rather than trying to figure out how to get paid according to the old assembly-line model that leads to monopolizing special interest groups, we need to rethink how the reward system will work. What is the best way to encourage social beings to share their knowledge and reward them fairly so they enjoy a sense of belonging and feeling valued for their contribution?
Any ideas??
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