BLACK SHEEP IN THE WAY
Why We Are Not Getting to Where We Want to Go
Ervin Laszlo
We hear more and more about awakening and healing by young people, and not only by the
young. There is a movement getting under way for recognizing our responsibilities and
bringing up the empathy and even the love we need to live on this planet. More and more
people seem ready to embrace the values and behaviors we need to set out toward a better
world. At the same time the world is full if inequality and injustice, poverty and deprivation,
violence and war, with scarce attention to the continuing degradation of the environment.
What has gone wrong – why are we not getting to where we want to go?
Young people and concerned people seem to be on target toward a better world, but their
aspirations are blocked by interests that go contrary to their aspirations. There seem to be
black sheep in the global family blocking the road. Here we discuss three of these black
sheep; they are not the only ones, but are the most critical of all. What are they—and what
can we do about them? 1
1
These remarks are not suggesting that black is negative. They are only referring to the metaphor of the black
sheep as a source of problems in the herd.
The black sheep in the public sector: the sovereign nation-state
We are not talking about nation-states in general: that is an institution that can perhaps be
reformed, but cannot be radically changed. We are talking about one particular kind of nationstate, the kind that not only claims to be sovereign, but acts as if it were.
What’s wrong with sovereignty? The idea of sovereign nation-states was hailed as one of the
greatest accomplishments in history, the same as the idea of national independence. Today
the one idea of sovereignty has become just as obsolete as the idea of independence. To be
sovereign means to be free from interference from the outside: the sovereign state is free and
independent, nobody is to interfere with its affairs and decisions. Unfortunately, that is
unrealistic. There is no real independence in an interdependent world. And therefore there is
no real sovereignty. Any attempt to ensure independence for a nation-state means cutting the
ties that link it with other nation-states, and with actors and entities below as well as above
nation-states. Cutting such ties may seem like an attractive option—like liberating oneself
from external interference and influence. But in practice it is a painful quasi-surgical operation,
as the British now experience in the aftermath of their Brexit from the European Union.
A sovereign entity can, but does not need to, take responsibility for the interest of any other
state or entity. It is free to focus on its own interests, as suggested by Trump’s slogan
“America First,” a throwback to the Nazi slogan “Deutschland Ueber Alles (Gḙrmany Above
Everything). The latter led to World War II. Where the current slogan will lead when acted on
by right-wing nationalistic governments not only in the U.S. but in Europe, Asia, and
elsewhere is yet to be seen.
Why did nationalism and independence under the sovereignty banner shift from a noble to a
negative factor? The ideal of sovereignty and independence changed into self-centeredness
and isolation. What happened? Technologies happened: the technologies of information,
communication, and transportation. They evolved the boundaries of contemporary societies.
Thanks to these technologies ever more and ever closer contact developed among distant
peoples and states. They have shrunk the world and paved the way toward a global village.
This is an understandable process. “Structure follows function” as we well know. Flows of
information, communication and of goods and people bring together previously separate
groups and states and lead to structural relations among them. The Europen Union started
with the European Steel and Coal Community, with a functional structure dedicated to
facilitating the flow of these resources. Then the flows created tighter and more formal
structures, first a Federation, and then a Union. They made the sovereignty of the member
states an illusion, and insistence on it the path to isolation.
Similar alliances, federations, and unions are happening in Asia, Latin America, even in Africa.
They are blocket by black sheep, sovereignty-claiming nation-states that do not realize that
cooperation is a survival requirement for peoples and nations in the global community.
Nationalistic governments seem not to realize this. They believe that the selfish pursuit of
their own interests without regard for the interests of others around them is a realistic option.
It is not. As a result sovereignty-pretending nation-states are black sheep blocking the way to
where we want to go.
The black sheep in the private sector: the shareholder-dedicated company
The sovereign nation-state has a counterpart in the private sector: it is the traditional variety
of commercially owned and managed business company. Again not the private-sector
company as such, for that, too, is an institution that is here to stay. But the private-sector
company uniquely focused on and dedicated to making money for its owners, it acts on the
principle enunciated by Paul Samuelson in the 1970s: business has no other task and
reponsibility than making money for the shareholders.
The private-sector company is a historical phenomenon, and its growth from the local to the
national, to the regional or hemispheric and then to the global scale is likewise a historical and
very likely irreversible fact. But the values, aims and philosophy of the company are not
engraved in stone. Private-sector companies need not be black sheep, any more than nationstates. But to return to the fold they need to revise their purposes and aspirations, and the
strategies they adopt to achieve them.
The assumption behind the shareholder strategy is that it benefits the company and does not
harm other companies and society— at least, not to an extent that would interfere with
making money for the shareholders and disturbing their sleep. Lord Keynes is quoted as
having written that there is an invisible hand that distributes benefits, and Kennedy is quoted
as having said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Yet income and living-standard inequality are
not reduced today either within national economies or in the world at large. The gap between
the haves and the have-nots is wide and is still growing. The poor are sinking ever further
into a vicious cycle where poverty generates deprivation and deprivation reduces the ability to
compete in the marketplace. The invisible hand has turned into an ever more visible foot that
kicks the poor and powerless. And the rising tide, wherever it still occurs, does not lift all
boats—those that are broken and leaking are sinking to the bottom.
The shareholder-dedicated business company competes on the market without much regard
for its competitors. What happens to the competitors is of no concern to the management.
The objective is to make money, and that means engaging in competition and winning. In an
emerging global village this strategy is similar to the “my country first” strategy of sovereigntyclaiming nation-states. It is just as selfish and self-centered, and just as threatening to
wellbeing in a precariously balanced global system at the edge of sustainability.
The black sheep in the social and cultural community: the fundamentalist sect
Fundamentalist sects—meaning groups, communities, organizations that hold that there is
only one truth in the world and that is theirs, and there is only one just cause in the world and
that is likewise theirs—are the functional equivalents of sovereignty-claiming nation-states in
the public sphere and shareholder-profit oriented business companies in the private sector.
Like these, fundamentalist groups place themselves first, but they add to this the conviction
that doing so is not only their right, but their sacred duty. They compete with other groups,
communities and organizations in the human family and, unlike business companies (but not
unlike some nation-states) they actively combat their competitors.
For a fundamentalist sect people in other communities, followers of other belief systems, have
strayed off the correct path and need to be brought back—if necessary, by force. That is the
essence of the “jihadh” of Muslims, with less violent equivalents in other fundamentalist
cultures. Those who undertake the holy task of fighting the heathen are heroes and could
become martyrs. They are certainly not terrorists.
Fundamentalists reduce the integrality of the human family to the opposing groups of the
faithful and the sinner. The latter are of concern mainly insofar as they do not actively oppose
and harm the faithful.
The black sheep in the global family break open the integrality of the world, the same as the
sovereignty-oriented nation-state is in the public sector and the shareholder-profit oriented
business in the private sector.
Why these sheep are a problem
There are other important black sheep in the contemporary world, the arms industry and the
military establishment together with the drug- and crime lobbies above all. The above three,
however, offer the clearest and most evident case for understanding why these sheep block
the way forward. Independently of humanistic and ethical considerations, and even of the
threat to life and limb in a violence-prone world armed for global overkill, we can understand
the road-blocking effect of these sheep in reference to the physics and thermodynamics of
complex systems.
Today more than ever, the human world has become an integral thermodynamic system. The
physics of that system applies not just to the wellbeing, but to the actual survival of its
population.
A brief but useful excursion into nonequilibrium thermodynamics
The theory of complex systems tells us that if a complex dynamic system is not to degenerate
to the inert “dead” state of high entropy, it must maintain itself in a physically improbable state
far from thermic and chemical equilibrium,. That state is necessary to fuel the irreversible
reactions that take place throughout the system. If those reactions are not maintained, the
system moves toward equilibrium. However, the system can only be maintained in this state
if all its components work together. The task they face is to replenish the energy and matter
used up by work performed by the system with fresh energy and matter, using relevant, and if
necessary updated, information. No complex system can persist on Earth or anywhere else if
it does not coordinate the functions of its components and orient them to the paramount task
of maintaining itself in the working state. This is the physical imperative, and there are no
exceptions to it or ways to bypass it. Any component that is not fully aligned with the rest in
maintaining the system in a state far from equilibrium is a flaw in the system. In a biological
system it indicates the malfunction of a cell, organ, or organ system: a malady. In a
nonbiological information-processing system it signals a malfunction: a breakdown in the
information flowing through the system.
Every component of a self-maintaining system needs to be continually and effectively “in
touch” with every other part. It must respond sensitively and correct any deviation. (A striking
example is the human pyramid created by circus acrobats. In these systems, made up of
individual acrobats who climb on the shoulders of other acrobats, every individual must
sensitively register the slightest move by every other individual, and immediately compensate
for every deviation from balance. Otherwise the whole pyramid collapses.) The sensitive finetuning of every part to every other part is what constitutes the coherence of the system.
Viable systems are doubly-coherent: coherent with regard to the interaction among their parts,
and coherent with regard to their relations to other systems in their environment. Ideally, they
are “supercoherent.” This applies to every complex system, whatetever the nature of its
components.
The humanity component of the biosphere—the complex biological and also sociocultural
element of the planetary system—is insufficiently coherent. Indeed it threatens to drag the
system into terminal incoherence. The principal culprits are the black sheep in the system. By
putting themselves first and disregarding the rest, they export incoherence in the system
instead of correcting it. Sovereign nation-states create coherence within their own country
(“law and order”); shareholder-oriented business companies create coherence in their own
sector or niche of the economy (effective money-making structures), fundamentalist sects
create coherence in their own country or region (solidarity among the true-believers). But they
increase poverty, frustration, and violence beyond their bounds. Of course, wealthy and
powerful states and companies can correct for this, either by using “soft” methods (such as
injections of money and information), intermediate technologies (cheap energy and advanced
chemistry) or hard technologies such as organized warfare with weapons of massive
destruction. But these remedial measures are of limited effectiveness. Ultimately they cost
more money than is available for them, or produce side-effects that generate more negative
than positive effects—more pollution, and more heat than light (even in the literal sense of
heating up the atmosphere). The black sheep are major sources of incoherence in the world
system. They fractionate the system, reducing its integral coherence to local domains. This is
already backfiring, as shown by signs of growing stress, unrest, violence, poverty, and
environmental degradation.
Sooner or later incoherence will be catching up with the black sheep, if not at their powercenter then at the periphery. There is no lasting substitute to functioning with intrinsic
coherence: meaning cooperation rather than competition, and systemic perspectives rather
than narrow self-concern and tunnel vision.
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The way to a better world is still open, and the will and motivation to enter on it is gathering
momentum. But it is blocked by powerful organizations that put themselves above the rest
and ignore the needs and the options of the rest. It is time to consider how we could bleach
some of these sheep. A true awakening is not selective: it must dawn also on national leaders,
corporate managers, and spiritual gurus. We are all in the same boat, with a shared destiny.
The sooner we realilze this and start managing our boat, the better it wiill be for all concerned,
black sheep included.
February 17, 2017