Systems for Changing Society

There is No System!

Society is simply too large, diverse and complicated to be changed in any sort of management sense. The changes of most concern to the public are the societal institutions i.e. the values and beliefs that drive the meeting of personal and communal needs. Societies and their institutions do slowly evolve, and may even radically re-configure when severe crises emerge.

Changes in values are driven via social movements-PH6G53 (see Working with Values Ch.12), and handled via work on societal institutions-PH'5Q4 (details in the Satellite).

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) … Closed "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

Anon …Closed "Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses."

Governing as an Organic Process

Society is a human system and its political life is a form of life. So it is more accurate to think of governing as an organic process based on the inherently uncontrollable interaction of numerous leaders. Each leader is affected by their many and varied supporters and originating groups, all within an environment in constant flux and impacted by unpredictable and often unknowable events. So any directed and deliberate change of policy and wealth allocation is inherently difficult.

Change is hard because people desire continuity and highly value identity-defining aspects of their society. So the status quo is always the fall-back position for leaders. Nevertheless, change and how to get it is a major preoccupation of authorization and leadership. It is partly dealt with via three important mechanisms:

  • Regimes—different practical systems for organizing government in regard to mechanisms for deciding changes.
  • Ideologies—different conceptual systems for knowing how to think about change and what sort of change is worthwhile.
  • Ruling Class—different elites may develop the practical ability to push through decisions in their own favour.

It sounds fine in theory: democracy allows the effective reconciliation and harmonization of efforts by popular leaders who enable government commitments to be made and delivered. But in practice this can be inefficient, even unworkable.

ClosedAlternative regimes include:

Ideologies have been developed that specify: the organization of society and the handling of change in that society. Each claims that its values and methods are natural and appropriate to meet the needs of each and all—and mostly apply always and everywhere.

ClosedAlternative ideologies include:

See details of ideologies and societal leadership here.

Whoever may be elected finds themselves subject to the will of a particular ruling class, and therefore obliged to produce changes that benefit that class, or at least cause no harm to its interests.

ClosedAlternative elites currently include:

THEE Note:Closed Regime and ideology choices are subservient to politics. The nature and varieties of regimes and ideologies, their origins and properties, are found in THEE within Change (RL3/PH3). The ruling elites typically emerge as political life plays out in society.

Strong v Weak Leadership

ClosedStrong leadership in regard to change appears as:

ClosedWeak leadership in regard to change appears as:

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) … Closed"You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too."

So How does Change ever Happen?

The prime desire of people is for continuity in regard to aspects of society that are identity-defining for them. To produce change of any significance (and disrupt continuity), the power of the people in society must be unleashed in the form of «a will for change».

Political will depends on the intrinsic power of society as a whole—the power that if unleashed can move everybody and legitimate anything, even violence—and which no political leader can resist.

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010. Amended: 13-Nov-2023.