Origins of Political Orders
“…a famous scientist who was giving a public lecture on cosmology when he was interrupted by an old lady at the back of the room who told him he was speaking rubbish, and that the universe was actually a flat disc balanced on the back of a turtle. The scientist thought he could shut her up by asking what the turtle was standing on. She replied, “You’re very clever, young man, but it’s turtles all the way down.”
This quote is from “The origin of political order”, a fascinating book about how the political orders came to be. I love this quote because it culls it as it…beneath assumptions we have about anything are subsetted ideas of its working that eventually frame our worldview of a particular topic. That worldview may not be totally true, but they help guide our understanding about how things came to be, and maybe how we can address issues we think are inherent in them.
The topic in question is political order. And this book takes the reader on journey by describing how political orders evolved from prehuman times to the French revolution.
Its starts off refreshingly in the field of biology, our propensity as human beings to desire companionship. There is a consistent thread that runs across the book (though it was not articulated) which read that as a particular way of living become normalised, people began to experiment newer ways of organising themselves to extract more out of their environment. The prehistoric man faced a violent world where survival depends heavily on wits at outrunning an attacker. The fear of a violent death was a primordial incentive, compelling the forging of bonds amongst families.
Families grew and evolved into tribal clans. Clans developed codes on allocation and ownership of resources. As they increased in numbers, clashes amongst rival clans ensued and it became important to guarantee the security of their offspring and leave legacies. Born out of the necessity, some clans forged bonds giving up a part of their freedom to a supreme leader and the formation of a state. The primary reasons for the formation of a state were economies of scale, security, and war. The latter was the primary driver for the creation of institutions, bureaucracy and the establishment of political orders.
Political orders is a structure in place to legitimate the gathering of private resources available with tribal clans and putting them under the control of the state. A political order is furnished with 4 primary actors:
- Leader;
- Noble class;
- Rising middle class;
- Peasants.
Each actor has access to tools that can influence the direction of the State. Tools ranging from executive order (orders by the king backed by a bureaucratic and administrative institution), finance, the Rule of law (refers to the enforcement of contract laws and ownership of property), and representative institutions were utilized in various societies to achieve an order on how things should be done. A myriad of conditions resulted in different societies developing a range of combination on how the highlighted actors applied their respective tools. The result of these were societies with a range of political orders that enabled the evolution to the states we have today.
The writer reviewed the development in a number of prominent civilisations starting off with China. It explored how these States moved from tribal level clans to Statehood and in combinations that were intrumental in getting tribal clans to give up their liberties and subject their autonomy to a Central State. China’s political order lacked the rule of law but had evolved an advanced bureaucratic system of administration and order for the selection of leaders (the “mandate of heaven”) that were considered legitimate. There was an adequate representation that aligned with cultural practices set the course for the evolution of China to what we know today.
Indian’s advanced religious practices guided leadership. They had effective rule of law but was structurally unable to develop representative institutions. Both economic systems were effective in positioning the noble class and the leadership towards an arbitral benefit of the State and legitimacy of leadership but lacked the condition for disruptive changes when necessary. Disruptive changes required a growing middle class emerging from the peasants class, to form collation and representations capable to challenge the old order.
The writer also reviewed institutions that evolved in Europe and in the Middle East. In Europe, the church was instrumental in developing the representation of citizens to varying degrees and the basis for the rule of law. Why some representation worked solely to legitimise the current leadership and quell an uprising, in places like Denmark and the United Kingdom institutions that writer believed provided the optimal balance of state leadership, noble influence, and the middle and lower classes, compelling accountability from the leadership and restraints on the elite. Areas in the Middle East like the Middle East were able to develop strong state institutions and legitimacy of leadership, but the institutions failed in providing representation and accountability of leaders.
The content was voluminous….and I am scared of voluminous books. On a lighter note, sometimes I feel these books are such because the writer has loads of assumptions to hide. However, I did find its framing on actors and tools within a political system enlightening, although I can think of its limitations in our contemporary States. The level of connectivity in our current world can render consensus amongst actors in a political State useless especially when citizens begin to subscribe to contrary ideals that work against their customs and ways of life.
