| Did Our Economy Split from Our Social Needs? “The pursuit of technological progress leads to a fundamental question: who are we, and what truly matters to Homo sapiens?” Complexity, Progress and Fragmentation A thought that has long troubled me is the stark growing contrast between technological progress and social development. Imagine transporting people from the Revelation at Mount Sinai 3,500 years ago into today’s world. The sight of airplanes, skyscrapers, and smartphones would leave them convinced that aliens had taken over the planet. And yet, in matters of human relationships, morality, and social structures, they would feel right at home. They would recognize our laws against murder, theft, and slavery and would understand the concepts of villages, cities, and governments. How is it that we have mastered flight, split the atom, mapped the human genome, and developed AI, yet our social and emotional evolution has barely budged? What does this tell us about the nature of progress? More importantly, what if we could advance our social and emotional development as we have with technology? What extraordinary possibilities might humanity unlock? In the previous column, we explored how the rapid acceleration of economic and technological complexity has left social and emotional complexity behind, creating a growing misalignment that impacts prosperity and well-being. This raises an urgent question: How have historical societal structures influenced this divergence, and what lessons can we extract to design a more balanced future? Addressing poverty and fostering prosperity require a deeper understanding of Complexity, not only in economic and technological terms but also in the evolution of social and emotional structures. If we aim to build sustainable, thriving societies, we must ensure that our guiding principles - the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity (ULIC), Genordo (i.e., the opposite term of entropy), and the Prosperity Formula - are robust enough to serve as a reliable foundation for future policies and economic models. While today’s world boasts unprecedented technological and economic progress, the foundations of human social structures are steadily eroding. Our ancestors; though materially poorer before the Agricultural Revolution, enjoyed stronger communal bonds, deeper emotional fulfillment, and a level of belonging we can scarcely imagine. If we fail to recognize and address the widening gap between economic advancement and social cohesion, we risk forging a future in which material prosperity thrives while emotional and communal well-being collapses, a rift that could ultimately lead to widespread instability, alienation, and unrest. To understand the historical evolution of societies, it is crucial to define two key dimensions of complexity: » Economic & Technological Complexity (ETC): Measures the sophistication of economic and technological systems, including trade networks, financial institutions, industrial production, and digital economies. A higher ETC reflects greater economic interdependence, technological advancements, and institutional complexity. » Community Social Complexity (CSC): Represents the depth of human social structures, including kinship networks, interdependence, communal support, and the cohesion of societal bonds. A higher CSC reflects stronger community ties, mutual reliance, and shared social responsibilities. For millions of years, ETC and CSC evolved together, supporting small but deeply interdependent societies. The Agricultural Revolution (~12,000 years ago) marked the first major split: as food surpluses enabled larger, more specialized settlements, economic complexity grew, but tight-knit tribal bonds weakened. The rise of cities, feudalism, and modern economies accelerated this divide, as large-scale trade and corporate structures distanced individuals from traditional community support systems. While economic and technological complexity (ETC) has surged over time, driving extraordinary material progress, community social complexity (CSC) has often declined, weakening human social bonds. This divergence has shaped the rise and fall of civilizations, as illustrated in the figure below. Today, economic and technological complexity (ETC) is at an all-time high, while community social complexity (CSC) has reached historic lows. Modern societies no longer depend on direct community networks; instead, they rely on financial systems, state institutions, and digital platforms; advancing prosperity, but often at the cost of deepening social fragmentation. As previously illustrated in “Modern Economic Case Study: South Korea, North Korea, the Soviet Union, China, and the USA”, history suggests that societies prioritizing economic expansion at the expense of social cohesion risk collapse. If we are to build a sustainable and thriving future, we must rethink how we structure human connections alongside technological progress. |
