The Western square and the Russian tower

I'd just like to draw your attention to this old post on societal networks, which is relevant once again. Here I add some comments in light of the geopolitical situation.

In his 2018 book The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson described the different strengths and weaknesses of hierarchical, feudal societies and more free-form, network-structure market communities. What I keep thinking of is his description of how the strictly hierarchical Soviet Union appeared strong and stable to the outside world, but in the end it disintegrated extremely rapidly*. In part this may be because disagreement within a hierarchy is extremely problematic. Since information and commands can only flow linearly up and down, and there is not much sideways transfer of information, a single determined link that doesn’t obey the diktats (or finds out something that hierarchy just isn’t equipped to deal with) has to be dealt with incredibly harshly. In order for this particular type of network to function, disagreement has to be supressed, all too often with brute force. HBO’s Chernobyl does an excellent job of getting across a strong vibe of how the hierarchical structure created problems when dealing with the eponymous nuclear crisis.

* I never got around to blogging it, but in Huxely's Brave New World Revisited, the author was quite certain that the whole world would be Communist by about now.

For example, if your own advancement (or even just your ability to maintain your position) depends on the actions of your underlings, you have to make sure those underlings do what you tell them. This is true regardless of the organisational structure. But in a very strict hierarchy, being so linear in organisation your underlings have little or no access to anyone but yourself, so there’s a tendency to shout at them until they do whatever you yourself have been told to do by those above you in the hierarchy. The lack of sideways transfer (i.e. checks and balances between peers) means that one way or another you either get on with it or get out. Nobody’s giving you any reason to doubt your superiors. Nobody's able to question whether the orders are a good idea or not, because every relationship is one of power and control, not discussion and debate - there's no equality whatever. So it’s up to you and you alone to keep your underlings in their place. In essence, the system ensures that everybody’s continuously punching downwards.

At best, when disagreement occurs, the most efficient hierarchy can only change its goal very slowly - it takes a long time to propagate information throughout the whole structure, or even just to the top and back down again, especially if that information is unwanted. More likely, those in such a situation will simply remove the disagreement and replace any stubborn personnel with those who are more pliable, thus tending towards making more and more mistakes. The more strict the hierarchy, and the more complex the problems it has to overcome, the worse this will be. This may be why medieval feudalism was more successful, being not so strict as the Soviet version nor having problems as complex that needed to be solved (certainly nothing as complex as a nuclear reactor, at any rate). A comparison of medieval feudalism versus the hierarchies of modern dictatorships would be a fascinating study...

A flatter, more generic network structure, by contrast, is far more robust to disturbances*. Sideways transfers of information means that there are, in effect, continuous checks and balances - peers who are equal and have no authority over each other can much more freely discuss and argue without immediate consequence. This means that opinions can be much more easily re-evaluated in the face of contrary evidence. So in this organisation, just as you might now experience contrary information to what your superiors direct (for pure, flat networks are rare, most still have a degree of hierarchy), so too do your superiors themselves. Thus changing the goals becomes very much easier. Punching upwards is a lot less risky : not only because collectively the lower orders can more readily challenge the authority of the elites, but also because everyone is used to re-evaluation as a matter of course.

*I'm going to follow Ferguson and use "network" in this very loose sense. Obviously this is all strongly dependent on the network structure, as a hierarchy is itself a type of network.

Furthermore, a single stubborn rogue who disagrees with the status quo can be circumvented - there are alternative pathways by which any broad consensus can enact its goals, without needing to remove the problem. Disagreement can be comfortably tolerated, incorporated, and in the very best cases it is actively encouraged.

Indeed, a strong, robust consensus only arises because those who can disagree are able to voice dissent. Contrarians are valued because they’re not always wrong (except for the extreme cases, who are few enough that they can be neglected), nor inevitably fatal to any goals. Thus the network is able to formulate better goals in the first place, because it’s able to formulate more accurate conclusions as the basis for its goals. It draws on a much more diverse range of sources for its raw facts and can analyse them from a diverse set of perspectives and techniques. A consensus formed in such a way is incredibly powerful, and far less likely to make stupid errors than a hierarchical system.

Ferguson says that it takes a network to beat a network, and this seems extremely topical. The neo-Soviet Empire that is now Russia appears to be very hierarchical indeed, but not even a particularly efficient one. Its goals are stupid, its methods are stupid, its implementation is stupid, and it seems utterly unable to learn anything. It seems less like a pure feudal hierarchy and more of a series of disconnected, broken little sub-hierarchies with little or no overall coherency.

The opposing western powers, by contrast, form a highly complex network. They too have flaws. But while dissent within Russia simply cannot be allowed, within the west it’s something of an asset. True, it makes implementation of goals less than optimally efficient, and sometimes that even leaves it at a complete impasse. But the network learns. It considers alternatives. It doesn’t chuck anyone out just because they have one terrible suggestion - it keeps them around it case they have good ideas in the future. Even really extreme viewpoints can be considered because generally the numerically larger more moderate forces mitigate the worse excesses, and sometimes those extremists do turn out to be correct.

Of course, no network is ever a pure hierarchy nor a perfect ideal analytic system (we don’t even know what the latter really is). Most groups require a degree of hierarchy; a tendency towards groupthink through having too dense internal connections cannot ever be eliminated. But overall, the network vs. hierarchy analogy feels very apt. Not that this means Russia is necessarily prone to an imminent regime change, sadly, but it would go a long way towards explaining why the Russian government appears to be such a catastrophically absurd omnishambles. Essentially, it's filter bubbles on a grand scale... and Russia has fatally misunderstood liberalism. What appears as division and incompetence is only sometimes so. A lot of the time disagreements, however unpleasant they may be to experience, are actually a manifestation of the systems' greatest strength : considering alternatives, changing its mind, doubting, and above all, learning.