Category: society

Liberal democracy

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A definition

Democracies are often called liberal democracies. So what is a liberal democracy and why might it be the best way of government? There are no easy answers to these questions nor is there agreement on these matters. Liberalism emphasises the value of individuals while democracy is rule by majority. These two principles can be at odds.

Liberal democracies have elections between multiple political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life, an open society, a market economy with private property, the protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for everyone.1

Liberals believe that individuals and social groups have conflicts of interest. The social order must deal with these conflicts and resolve them in a peaceful manner. To achieve such a feat, all parties must be reasonable and there should be a balance of powers. No party should be able to force its will upon others.2 It is an important reason why liberals stress the importance of individual rights.

Democracy means that government decisions require the consent of the majority of the citizens. In most cases the citizens elect a parliament that does the decision making for them. Sometimes citizens can vote for individual proposals in referendums. In reality many democratic countries aren’t fully democratic because not all government decisions are supported by a majority of the citizens.

Principles

Liberal democracy is based on a social contract, which is an agreement amongst the members of society to cooperate for mutual benefits. For instance, labourers may accept capitalism if they get a share of prosperity. That deal turned out to be more attractive than state ownership of the means of production.

Liberalism has two principles that can be at odds, namely non-interference with people’s lives and realising everyone’s potential. In this vein there are two branches of liberalism:

  • Economic liberalism promotes freedom of the markets as well as free trade and claims that the state should be of minimal size and not interfere with people’s lives.
  • Social liberalism claims that the state should help to realise the potential of people by promoting their freedom to make choices, which includes ending poverty.

Each liberal democracy more or less embraces these values. Liberal democracies come with a market economy and respect for the rights of individual citizens. Governments interfere with the lives of people and try to promote their happiness and to realise their potential. The conflicting nature of both principles makes liberal democracies differ with regard to freedom of markets and government interference.

In the United States liberalism has a different meaning. There it is another word for social liberalism or democratic socialism. In Europe the definition of liberalism is broader and this is also the definition used here. In the 17th century liberal ideas began to emerge in what is called the European Enlightenment. Around the year 1700 the philosopher John Locke came up with the following basic principles for a liberal state:

  • a social contract in which citizens accept the authority of the state in exchange for the protection of their rights and property and maintaining the social order;
  • consent of the governed, which means that state power is only justified when the people agree;
  • separation of church and state, which means that the state doesn’t favour a specific religion and does not require a religious justification.3

Is it the best form of government?

Liberal democracy is part of the European cultural heritage. Proponents claim that it is the best form of government. These universalist claims are sometimes contested on the ground that they are a form of western cultural imperialism. Another argument is that there is no guarantee that liberal democracy leads to better decisions. From a religious perspective people argue that our Creator may prefer a different kind of social order and government, possibly even a theocracy.

The argument in favour of the universalist claims is that liberal democracy emerged out of a historical process that took centuries in which rational arguments played a decisive role. The European Enlightenment challenged existing practices in government on the basis of reason. Ideas that emerged out of the European Enlightenment were tried out in different ways and refined further. Europeans also invested heavily in educating their citizens. This produced a culture of reason and compromise as well as a massive body of practical experience and best practises.

There is also no guarantee that other forms of government lead to better decisions. In an open society better information can be available so well-educated citizens in a culture of reason and compromise may make better decisions. There are a few democracies that live up to these expectations so it can work out that way. And we may not be able to determine what kind of order God desires. If our Creator is all-powerful then the emergence and spread of liberal democracy may not be God’s plan.

One of the biggest problems facing liberal democracy is high expectations. Liberal democracy itself does not guarantee a reliable government that is both efficient and effective nor does it ensure a flourishing economy. This has led to disappointments. A failed and corrupt government can’t simply be turned into a success by allowing elections. Liberal democracy works best with a well-educated population in a culture of reason and compromise that doesn’t allow for corruption and abuse of power.

On the moral front there are a few issues too. Liberal democracy promises equal treatment for all people. In reality people aren’t treated equal nor do they have equal opportunities. There is discrimination based on ethnicity, gender or sexual preferences. And poor people have fewer opportunities than rich people. Still, the goal of equal treatment and equal opportunities can be something to strive for. It may be better to aim for such goals and fail from time to time than not having these goals at all.

If liberalism promotes tolerance then how to deal to intolerant people? Should their intolerance be tolerated? If people do not accept liberal values, should they be educated or should these values be imposed? And are free markets the best way of organising the economy or is government involvement advised? If the economy is served by stability, should dissent that causes instability be suppressed? An excessive or unnecessary use of force can undermine the foundation of liberal democracy as liberal democracy is based on reason and convincing people by argument. And indeed it is possible that liberal democracy can be overturned.

History

The preconditions for liberalism had already emerged in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. There was a larger degree of individualism than elsewhere. Liberalism itself emerged during the sixteenth century. At the time Europe was ravaged by devastating religious wars. After several decades of warfare Europeans grew tired of the conflict and began to tolerate religious differences. Some catholic countries accepted protestant minorities while many protestant countries accepted catholic minorities. Germany was almost equally divided. At the time Germany consisted of small states that had either protestant or catholic rulers.

This religious tolerance was at first more or less an uneasy truce. No party had been able to gain the upper hand. Religious minorities at first didn’t receive equal rights. They were only tolerated. Over time the case for religious tolerance became more widely accepted. It was based on two major arguments.

  • The argument of ignorance which states that only God knows who is on the right path and who is doomed so humans shouldn’t judge others.
  • The argument of perversity which states that cruelty is at odds with Christian values and that religious persecution strengthens the resolve of the persecuted.1

The concept of tolerance expanded into a general concern for the rights of individual citizens. In the 17th century liberal ideas were spreading. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England limited the power of the king. The rights of individuals were written down in the Bill of Rights. Parliament became the most powerful political institution based on the principle of consent of the governed. The 1776 Declaration of Independence of the United States was based on liberal principles too. It states that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.2

The founding fathers of the United States were also early liberals. The United States Constitution reflects this view. The aim of the United States Constitution is, amongst others, to safeguard the rights of individuals against the state. A large group of Americans believe that individual rights should prevail against democratically elected governments. The widespread support for gun ownership in the United States comes from a distrust of the state as a protector of life, liberty and possessions.

Democracy had not been a seriously considered since classical antiquity. It was believed that democracies are inherently unstable and chaotic due to the changing whims of the people.1 The violence during the French Revolution supported these views. It began as a popular uprising incited by liberal ideas but it soon turned into chaos and bloodshed. Order was restored by a despot ruler named Napoleon Bonaparte who did much to spread liberal reforms throughout Europe by ending the feudal system, emancipating religious minorities and imposing a liberal code of law. The spread of liberal ideas proved to be lasting and democracy was to follow a century later.

The Industrial Revolution started a period of accelerated and constant change that was disastrous for many who found themselves on the losing side. The ruling class changed. Nobility was replaced by a new elite of business people. The position of craftsmen was undermined by factories. And workers in factories laboured under miserable conditions for low wages. There were three major ways of confronting these changes:

  • Conservatives tried to hold on the old order of community, religion and nobility.
  • Socialists tried to overturn the elite of business people by giving power to workers.
  • Liberals tried to manage the change, thereby implicitly supporting the order in which business people were the ruling class.

Liberalism often coincides with the interests of business people. They have possessions and some are rich. They feared that the poor might vote for handing over their possessions to the poor. Socialism became the embodiment of this fear. Liberals were at first inclined to limit the right to vote to people who pay taxes because this excluded poor people from voting. When the threat of socialism became subdued and socialists were willing to compromise, liberals came to accept democracy based on the principle of one person one vote.

In the 19th century European countries held vast colonial empires. These colonies were kept for profit. It was generally believed that the people in these colonies had to be educated before they would be able to govern themselves. The colonial era helped to modernise these countries and most Europeans at the time believed that the oppression and the economic exploitation were justified on these grounds. There were only a few dissenters, for instance the Dutch writer Multatuli.

Liberal democracy faced a few major crises like World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. World War I demonstrated that liberal democracy and free trade weren’t a guarantee for peace and stability. The Great Depression once again challenged liberal democracy as the Soviet Union remained unaffected while Nazi Germany was able to recover and achieve full employment while other countries were still struggling. And during World War II Nazi Germany overran most democratic countries in Europe.

After World War II the European colonies became independent. The Soviet Union came to dominate Eastern Europe and China became a communist country. The United States became the protector of liberal democracy but also a number of dictatorships. This era is called the Cold War and it lasted until the Soviet Union dismantled itself after allowing the peoples of Eastern Europe to make their own choices. Major challengers of liberal democracy nowadays are the one-party system in China and political Islam.

The citizens of Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t like to lose their freedoms. Chinese too probably prefer freedom if they have a choice. And the Islamic State has shown Muslims all around the globe that political Islam can easily turn into a reign of terror. The foundations of liberal democracy may be strong, but a collapse of the global economy may turn be a more serious threat to liberal democracy than the alternatives. Reason can easily disappear once people become fearful of the future.

Reasons for success and limitations

The success of liberal democracy is therefore not a historical necessity. Liberal democracy might never have been invented or dictatorships could have gained the upper hand. That didn’t happen. Communist and fascist dictatorships came and went. Perhaps liberal democracy is a temporary phenomenon but we can’t know that now. Only the future can tell. There are a number of causes that might explain the strength of liberal democracy.

  • Liberal democracy is based on the consent of the governed so it is has the consent of the governed by default while other forms of government do not.
  • Science greatly contributes to the success of states and science is best served with an open debate that liberal democracy provides.
  • The economy greatly contributes to the success of states and the economy is best served with individual rights that liberal democracy provides.

A despot ruler or a ruling party in a one-party system might have the consent of its subjects, but if not, only force remains for the ruler or the party to maintain power. Liberal democracies usually resolve such issues peacefully through elections, making liberal democracy more stable by default. Intellectual freedom is helpful to science while economic freedom is helpful for the economy, so liberal democracy can be a potent force. Only when leadership is required, liberal democracy might not always be adequate.

Liberalism has no higher moral value than the individual, which is peculiar because the individual human is an insignificant part of this universe. And individualism may be at odds with human nature as humans are social animals. Humans are not atomic beings that choose to cooperate for mutual benefit like liberalism supposes. Cooperation is part of human nature and not a choice individuals deliberately make.

It is the success in cooperation that makes a society win out. Liberalism gives a framework for living together in peace as long as all major parties are reasonable and willing to compromise. This makes larger scale cooperation possible and that can make a society successful. For instance, the United States integrated people from different cultural backgrounds, which contributed to the success of the United States as a nation.

It is said that history is written by the victors. Strength may be the reason why liberal democracy prevailed. Liberal philosophers have tried to provide a moral justification for liberal democracy or they may have opposed it or they may have tried to improve it. Liberal democracy emerged out of thought and action, experiment and failure, and it was a process that took centuries. Philosophers like Locke contributed to its success as they set out the goals people could strife for.

Apart from individualism, liberal societies lack a higher purpose. From a scientific viewpoint there is no higher purpose to this universe. The moral codes humans live by are not more than an agreement. Only when this universe is created for a purpose there is a reason for our existence. But moral individualism can be dangerous. The challenges humanity is currently facing, most notably living within the limits of this planet, most likely requires making individuals subject to a higher causes like the survival of humanity and caring for the planet.

1. Liberal democracy. Wikipedia.
2. Liberalism: The Life of an Idea. Edmund Fawcett (2015). Princeton University Press.
3. History of liberalism. Wikipedia.

Hog barn interior. Public Domain.

Animal Rights

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Evolution theory suggests we are an animal species that evolved from apelike creatures and that chimpanzees are our nearest living relatives. In other words, we are much like the other animals. Indeed, animals can experience joy and suffering like us. A central ethical rule is not to cause unnecessary pain and suffering. So, if ethical considerations apply to our fellow humans, they might as well apply to other animals. Nature does not have ethics, but ethics are part of our nature because we can place ourselves in someone else’s position and feel compassion. Compassion helped us as a species, as did aggression, but in a utopian society, ethics take precedence.

Suffering is something a conscious mind experiences, but consciousness comes in different levels. You can beat a stone, but it does not feel anything. A plant is less aware than an insect if it is aware at all. An insect has less awareness than a fish. And fish are less conscious than mammals. And we may relate more to animals that are more like us. That is why mammals elicit the most sympathy. And so, murdering a cow feels very different from killing an ant.

We care more about people we know than strangers, so we may also care more for our pets than people in faraway countries. The suffering that goes unnoticed does not affect us. Only when we see the misery, for instance, in factory farms and slaughterhouses, do we become aware of it. But once we know, we can react in different ways:

  • Not caring. You may have more urgent problems than animal welfare.
  • Accepting. You could argue that meat is a natural part of our diet.
  • Doing something. You might become a vegan.

Humans have been murdering animals since time immemorial. And our distant forebears drove several animal species to extinction. So, why stop now? Today, humans dominate the planet, and much of the remaining wildlife is under threat. Hence, it may not be a luxury to ask ourselves some questions like should there be animal rights like there are human rights? And if so, what rights should animals have? Animals themselves do not think they have rights. Respecting nature and animal suffering are reasons why we think about animal rights. But those considerations can conflict with each other. So whatever choices we make, they can raise controversy.

Even when we think animals have rights, animals transgress our moral rules, for instance, by murdering each other. After all, predators eat prey, and nature does not care. It is survival of the fittest. Should we stop them from doing that? Some species go extinct because of our actions, while others profit. Rats, cockroaches, and crows do well where humans have disrupted the balance in nature. Should we restore the balance in nature? And, if you own a cat and allow it to go outside, you contribute to a bird massacre. In the Netherlands alone, cats eliminate twenty million birds per year. Should you keep your cat inside or not keep a cat at all? And should we control pests? Probably so because pests threaten us.

And what about eating meat? Meat has been on the human menu since time immemorial. It provides us with some of the nutrients we need. There may soon be artificial meat and replacements with those same nutrients. And so, we might end the suffering of animals in the meat industry. Animals in the meat industry often live under miserable conditions, but in some areas like the European Union, there are regulations regarding the welfare of animals on farms. If animals cannot behave naturally, they experience stress and suffer, for instance, when confined to small spaces.

These European animal-welfare regulations conflict with practical economic considerations. For instance, what to do with a pig that resists stepping into the truck that brings it to the slaughterhouse and gentle prodding does not help? Transport companies and slaughterhouses must make money. Unruly beasts take time and can make the operation unprofitable. Whether animals in the wild always have a better life than those on farms remains to be seen. Wild animals must deal with predators, food shortages, and humans. Still, it is fair to say that ending factory farming promotes animal welfare. And we may need to limit meat consumption to reduce our impact on the planet.

In a caring utopian society, we should not make animals suffer unnecessarily. We can extend that to nature. For instance, if there is not enough food for the deer in a forest, is it not better to shoot the weak and eat their meat than to let them starve? Perhaps, you could introduce wolves, but that might cause even more misery. A deer suffers less from a clean shot from a rifle than a lengthy chase by a pack of wolves. And it gets worse when there are pastures with sheep nearby. Or do sheep lives not matter? Sheep, whether these are black or white, are mostly peaceful creatures who do nothing wrong.

If you prefer the wolves chasing deer, you believe the value of nature takes precedence over the rights of animals and that it justifies animal suffering. But nature itself does not suffer, nor does it care. And humans have profoundly disturbed the ecological balance, so unspoiled nature as it once was, is gone in most places. Letting wildlife coexist with humans can cause problems. For instance, bears are beautiful creatures, but it is better not to let them roam in cities as they are intelligent enough to adapt and may kill people. We can restore the original situation in areas where few people live, stop agricultural and industrial activities, and create large nature reserves. In other areas, we can better manage what remains of nature as a park.

Latest revision: 6 June 2023

Featured image: Hog barn interior. Public Domain.

Can we be happy?

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What is the point?

The purpose of our brains is to keep us alive so our genes can copy themselves, not to make us happy. Anxiety keeps us from doing stupid things. And happiness can make us complacent, and that could be fatal. There is a struggle for survival. So what is the point of new ideas, technological development and social struggle? Why do we have agriculture, industry, cities, writing, money, empires, science, property, human rights and democracy? If these things don’t make us happier, what is the point of pursuing them? The historian Yuval Harari asks this question in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.1 Things often don’t happen to make us happier.

Our forefathers switched from hunting and gathering to crop planting and animal herding because agriculture feeds more people. It was a success for human genes, as there were more copies of them, and also for the genes of domesticated animals and plants. But it made the lives of humans and animals more miserable. By growing crops or herding animals, people had more food. But more children survived, so they had more mouths to feed and remained as hungry as before. Meanwhile, returning to hunter-gathering had become impossible as it would mean starvation. Compared to hunter-gatherers, farmers worked harder, their diet was less varied, and they had more violent conflicts.1

The competition between businesses and states drives the change. States are the most effective war machines. And writing made it possible to have states. Investors expect to profit from technological advances, or governments see a use for them, for instance, to win a war. And so, scientists fetch budgets for their research and get busy. We have smartphones because investors profit from making them. Your smartphone does not exist to make you feel better but to make you addicted. Many people now think their lives are meaningless without their smartphones.

Social reforms like equal rights for women intend to increase fairness, thereby making people happier. But it doesn’t always work out as planned. If there is a norm, for example, the man being the head of the family, many women might be content with the arrangement. Men might have accepted that women had been in charge if that was the norm. A norm gives clarity, and change brings discomfort. Feminism liberated women, and overall, it probably made women happier, but not always, and the process of changing these norms raised tensions. So what makes us happy? That is not easy to answer. It depends on our characters and circumstances. Several issues influence our happiness:

  • our needs
  • chemical processes in the body
  • money
  • our expectations
  • our desires
  • having a sense of purpose
  • social trust
Maslov’s hierarchy of human needs

Hierarchy of human needs

Abraham Maslow thought of a hierarchy of human needs. He claimed that basic needs such as food and shelter are paramount. Once you have them, you desire security. Maslow believed that if you have food and security, you crave love and attention. And if you have all that, you want to be respected and have a sense of purpose in your life. These needs exist but not in such a neat hierarchical order.

Chemical processes in the body

Some people are always cheery despite adversity and misery. Others are always bitter and fret, even when they prosper and have nothing to worry about. That has to do with body chemistry. If cheerfulness comes from chemistry, we can be happier by taking pills. Pharmaceutics can end depression but might also give a false sense of happiness. And do pills make you better, or do you become addicted to them? The difference between prescription drugs and harmful substances like cocaine is not always clear. Nevertheless, more and more people use pills to feel better.

Money

If you are poor, some extra money will make you happier. Poor people worry about making ends meet. And that is why poor people often feel miserable. It becomes less clear once you can buy the things you need and have no financial worries. More money can make you happier, for instance, if you spend it on the right things. What is right is a personal matter. So if you can afford it, you should buy that garden gnome you always craved.

The more you have, the less extra makes you happier. Your first automobile can make you happy. You can go where you want when you want. A second car makes less of a difference. You and your husband can go to different places on the same evening, but that rarely happens. A third and a fourth car probably have no use unless you are a car collector and have a garage where you can spend your days gazing at your automobiles.

Expectations

Suppose I promised you ice cream. If you expected a small cone, but I gave you a medium-sized one, the outcome exceeded your expectations. It can make you happy. But if you anticipated a large cone and got the same medium-sized cone, the result failed to meet your expectations, and that can make you unhappy.

If you anticipated less than what you get, that could make you happy, but if you expected more, it could make you unhappy. We adapt to new situations. After a while, our happiness or sadness is gone. Having low expectations can be a path to happiness. If you expect the day to be miserable, and that does not materialise, it can make you happy.

Similarly, if you are better off than your peers, it can give you satisfaction. Alternatively, being worse off can be displeasing. Your happiness depends on the people to whom you compare yourself. The attention given to celebrities, their riches, and their beautiful husbands and wives can give you the unpleasant feeling that your life is subpar.

That can make you go to the gym or the plastic surgeon, buy things you cannot afford and turn down potential spouses who are not rich or do not look so great. The advertising industry uses this to make us buy more stuff. People in more equal societies are often happier. And we might be happier without the Internet and television.

buddha
Rock cut seated Buddha statue, Andhra Pradesh, India

Craving

Gautama Buddha also weighed in on the issue. He lived 2,500 years ago and founded Buddhism. Mr Buddha taught that people crave temporary feelings and things, which causes permanent dissatisfaction. As soon as you have achieved a desired goal, such as love, or acquired a desired object, for example, a car, you will crave something else.

That ties us up in this world so our souls will reincarnate and keep suffering from craving, or so Mr Buddha said. When we stop doing that and disengage ourselves from this world, we disappear into nothingness, a state of eternal peace. So, according to Mr Buddha, happiness is about letting things go. And that became a religion.

Having a sense of purpose

Believing your life has a purpose can make you feel better. If you believe in God, you may think you play a role in God’s cosmic scheme, while atheists may believe their lives have no purpose. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman arrived at a similar conclusion. He interviewed women about their daily activities, which gave them pleasure. He also asked these women what made them happy.

Caring for their children was among the activities that gave them the least pleasure. But when he asked these women what made them the happiest, they answered that their children gave them the most joy. The children gave meaning to their lives. Maybe these women deluded themselves. Similarly, if you think your job is significant, that may give purpose to your life, but that can also be a delusion.1

Social trust

Societies can contribute to our happiness when there is social trust, which means you can trust other people and organisations. There is no social trust when your neighbours steal from you, or you fear that they do, criminal gangs roam the streets, corporations dump their toxic waste, the government spies on you, or you need to carry a knife or a gun to protect yourself. Wouldn’t life be better if you don’t need to worry about criminals, the government, or corporations, and you can go where you please without feeling unsafe?

When people do the right thing spontaneously, there is less need to check on them. And so, moral values matter. Without values, liberty is the road to hell, and Paradise is a dictatorship. Doing the right thing comes from a sense of connectedness. If I do wrong, it adds to the wrongs done, and this world becomes a worse place to live in, even though I may not notice it. That requires empathy and taking responsibility for our actions. That defines what good and evil are in Paradise.

Latest update 14 April 2024

Featured image: Smiley. Public Domain.

Other images: Maslov’s pyramid chart of the hierarchy of needs. Androidmarsexpress (2020). CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons. Rock cut seated Buddha statue, Andhra Pradesh, India CC BY-SA 3.0. Adityamadhav83. Wikimedia Commons.

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.

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Wisdom of Crowds and Mass Delusions

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Emergent properties

How well groups make decisions depends on how their members share information and form opinions. In this regard, there are two opposing ideas: the wisdom of crowds versus mass delusions. As a collective, we know far more than any individual, but collectives can act more stupidly than most individuals would alone. You can more easily reason with individuals than with groups. Shared beliefs hold a group together and define its identity. Hence, groups are likelier to stick to their beliefs than individuals when confronted with evidence that they are wrong. Groups know more, but are also less rational than most of their members would be on their own. As the number of individuals in a group increases, their knowledge increases while their wisdom decreases.

Why is that? Groups aren’t merely the sum of their members. Groups have what experts call emergent properties. These are properties that emerge when individuals form a group. These properties seemingly appear out of nowhere. An individual water molecule can’t generate a wave, but billions of water molecules in a lake can. One cell doesn’t make a horse or a rabbit, but billions of cells do. A group of starlings can fly in intriguing patterns, which a single starling can’t. A single neuron can’t produce awareness. These properties emerge from the properties of the individuals. Individuals have properties that determine what they can do in groups, so a group of starlings can fly in intriguing patterns, while a group of humans can’t. And a group of water molecules can’t become a rabbit.

Collective intelligence

Collectives cooperate and achieve much more than individuals. And they can process more information, which the experts call collective intelligence. Their strength lies in their cooperation and in sharing knowledge. Bees and ants demonstrate collective intelligence. They share information about where to find food and use it collectively. Bees build beehives using a sophisticated division of labour, while ants can collectively defeat enemies many times their size.1

It is a natural behaviour of bees and ants. Ants also demonstrate what can go wrong with collective intelligence. They follow each other’s trails. If an ant accidentally walks in a circle, an entire colony might follow it. They could end up walking in circles until they die. In this case, otherwise beneficial behaviour goes wrong with fatal consequences. That is collective stupidity.1 We cooperate based on shared beliefs, which can be incorrect. Usually, our beliefs are beneficial. They strengthen the group’s cohesion, which is often more crucial to our survival than being right.

Groups know more and perform better on quiz questions than individuals because they can share knowledge. In 1906, an Englishman named Francis Galton discovered a phenomenon, later dubbed the ‘wisdom of crowds’. Galton visited a livestock fair where an ox was on display. In a contest, the villagers estimated the animal’s weight. Nearly 800 people participated. No one guessed the weight of 1,198 pounds, but the average of the estimates was 1,207 pounds, thus less than 1% off the mark.

Galton concluded that the finding suggests that democracy is the best form of government. Taking every view into account in Parliament could result in the best possible decisions. At the fair, the contestants independently assessed the ox’s weight. They didn’t arrive at their estimate in a group process, which may explain why it worked so well.2 And so, the term ‘wisdom of crowds’ is deceptive because it is merely the aggregate estimate of independently thinking individuals.

No wisdom of crowds

There is no wisdom of crowds, but the stupidity of groups does exist. A single Jew can make peace with a single Palestinian, but the Jews and the Palestinians as peoples have failed to do so. Groups have collective intelligence, so they process more information than an individual. Humans are social animals rather than rational beings. Crowds can make better estimates on aggregate, but only as independent individuals, so if their members don’t influence each other.

As long as we retain an independent perspective, we can’t develop groupthink and become collectively stupid. When we influence each other, we can go collectively crazy. We desire our peers’ approval, which clouds our judgment. We are social animals who need the group to survive, so we share our group’s beliefs and don’t openly disagree when we don’t. We may share ideas we know are incorrect, so we ignore our knowledge and pass on the group’s views.

We are prone to moral panics, which undermine our rational thinking. A moral panic is a widespread feeling that some evil person or group schemes against our interests and well-being. Often, genuine concerns are causing these feelings, but the claims exaggerate the harm’s seriousness, extent, and certainty. Usually, the panic comes with false claims inciting hatred and fear. The role of moral panics is to promote group cohesion and generate collective action to remove the perceived threat.

Herd behaviour

Information often spreads through herd behaviour. We usually behave the same way.1 YouTube makes use of it. If you come across a video with ten million views, you are more likely to watch it than one with only ten views. Usually, videos with ten views are not worth watching. In most cases, herd behaviour works to our advantage. It allows individuals to survive with less knowledge by depending on collective intelligence. We can’t know everything, so it is usually better to follow the herd. That saves time and energy. Social media is prone to herd behaviour. A cat video can become more popular because it’s already in favour, while a funnier one may go unnoticed.

The same is true for markets. During the Dot-com bubble, investors piled into Internet stocks. Many investors knew these stocks were crap, but they bought them anyway because they kept rising. Groupthink can cause stock market bubbles. In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote about three financial manias: Tulipomania in the Netherlands, John Law’s Mississippi Scheme, and the South Sea Bubble. He argued that greed and fear drive financial markets and can make people act irrationally to the point that people believe a tulip is worth a mansion.3

Confidence game

Information spreads via opinion makers like influencers and can lead to mass delusions. Confident but mistaken people play a crucial role. Self-assured people aren’t always wrong, but when they are, they amplify their errors because they have followers. Most people are insecure and follow the lead of people who appear self-assured. Leaders must be self-assured. Otherwise, no one will follow them. The business of influencers on the Internet is making money out of insecure people by advertising products no one needs.

Confidence is contagious. During the Dot-com bubble, the loudest voices on Internet message boards boasted about their profits in Internet stocks, thereby pulling in more suckers. The quality of group decisions depends on how we aggregate information. To take advantage of collective intelligence, we should try to:

  • make people feel free to come forward with their information and opinions;
  • prevent groupthink or group members from becoming biased by the information or opinions of others;
  • and focus on the underlying causes rather than incidents.

That is difficult in small groups and even harder in societies. It goes against human nature. We follow confident people. And we don’t always like to hear the truth. The most successful politician in Dutch history was Mark Rutte, who became the longest-serving Prime Minister. He is jovial and cheerful. He was also the most prolific liar, and no Dutch politician had ever lied so often and with such confidence. Rutte once admitted that he had no vision, which probably is not a lie. It allowed him to remain pragmatic and make deals.

Rutte’s talents are now coming in handy as he has become the Secretary General of NATO. So far, he has succeeded in keeping the United States on board by praising Donald Trump for being a master strategist. Humans cooperate based on fairy tales, so lying is in our nature. We even learn to believe the lies, so that they become the truth to us. But if our leaders are friendly, visionless, pragmatic deal-makers, who lie to stay in power, we are surely doomed, given the magnitude of the problems humanity faces.

Collective action

Large groups struggle with collective action problems. The larger the group, the less effective it becomes at addressing challenges. Today, humanity faces global collective action problems, most notably the looming technological-ecological apocalypse and the increasing likelihood of another world war. It has become impossible to hide our incompetence in addressing them. The inconvenient truth is:

  • It is unlikely that we can save ourselves, as the wit of a single worm already exceeds the collective wisdom of humankind. You would make better decisions if you were the leader of the world, even if your judgment is subpar.
  • We must agree on what to do. In cases of fundamental disagreements, we fight. We cooperate based on fairy tales. Force rather than reason is our most convincing argument. The ideas that won out often did so by force.
  • Non-contributors benefit from the group effort while enjoying the advantages of not contributing. If they get away with it, the free-loading will spread. It will undermine the group’s morale, and the collective effort will collapse.
  • Most notably, people in the West suffer from the mass delusion that individual freedom and the interplay of personal interests and preferences through markets and elections ensure the best outcome for the general good.

By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on combating climate change, the United States has demonstrated once again that it is the land of the freeloaders. Along with our pursuit of material wealth, nation-states and individual freedom are means by which we are about to commit suicide. We can’t deal with the responsibilities that come with freedom.

The saying ‘everyone for himself and God for us all’ reveals a profound truth about ourselves. Humans aren’t capable of solving their problems because of collective action problems and mass delusions. And we are better off with a single leader with unlimited authority. Ideally, this person is like a biblical good shepherd or Plato’s philosopher king. Even someone with a mediocre vision would do, as the wit of a single worm already vastly exceeds the collective wisdom of humankind.

If you like this story, you might want to see this video:

Collective Stupidity – How Can We Avoid It? Sabine Hossenfelder.

Featured image: Texel Rommelpot Tulips View West. Txllxt (2009). Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Latest revision: 30 October 2025

1. Collective Stupidity – How Can We Avoid It? Sabine Hossenfelder. YouTube.
2. The Wisdom of Crowds. James Surowiecki (2004). Doubleday, Anchor.
3. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Charles Mackay (1841). Richard Bentley, London.

New World Order

nivtric1 Comment

Direction of history

There is a historical trend toward closer integration. Humanity has been integrating via ideas, trade and politics for thousands of years. Religions and ideologies unify diverse people under shared ideas. Trade and money enable cooperation between strangers. Empires govern several peoples with varying traditions.1 We all benefit. New ideas, such as the scientific method, have transformed the world. States succeeded in dramatically reducing violent deaths within their borders. And without trade, you wouldn’t have most of the items you have now. On the other hand, there is the conspiratorial view. Groups in society support particular developments because they hope to gain from them:

  • Priests and intellectuals benefit most from religion and ideology. They attempt to make you believe their ideas.
  • Merchants and bankers benefit the most from trade and money. They try to make you believe you need their merchandise.
  • Rulers and bureaucrats benefit the most from government. They attempt to make you believe you need their rule.

We need ideas, merchandise and authorities. Had that not been the case, we would have figured it out by now. Humans are political animals, so in principle, every political act is a conspiracy. Because we need fairy tales to make sense of the world, conspiracy theories have become an industry catering to that demand. The conspiratorial view is a model of reality that has limitations, but it also explains certain phenomena better than other approaches. A global elite of politicians, businesspeople, career bureaucrats, engineers, journalists, scientists, opinion-makers, writers, and artists runs the world. They have more in common with one another than with their compatriots.1

It is the price we pay for complexity. Doing business is now a global affair, even for small businesses, as supply chains span multiple nations. The same applies to governments. Issues such as trade, global warming, disease control, organised crime, and economic management require international cooperation. Or not. The latter is the conspiratorial view. They make us believe that we do. But what is the alternative?

In the old world order, states were sovereign. In the New World Order, there will be no sovereign states. The New World Order conspiracy theory alleges that the elites conspire to make that happen. The elite’s actions are responses to situations. England established a central bank to promote confidence in the currency and financial markets and, after bankers introduced fractional reserve banking, to address the problems coming from it. England benefited. The Industrial Revolution took off there.

Bankers in the United States later conspired in secret to replicate the idea and established the Federal Reserve. In The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin depicts their actions as evil, undertaken to enrich themselves. To bankers, the Fed may have seemed necessary, and the public uninformed and uncooperative. Griffin was a conspiracy theorist, not a monetary theorist, and it shows. Bankers profited, but central banks manage the financial instability caused by interest-bearing debt or usury. Central banks give countries an edge. Previously, American banks depended on the Bank of England. Many conspiracies went hand in hand with a perceived necessity.

The Fed became a linchpin in the global US dollar-based usury financial system, which helped the United States to become a dominant power. That might have been impossible without a central bank. An empire rests on credit, and cheap credit helped the British build theirs. After World War II had ruined Europe, the elite promoted European cooperation. Their efforts led to the establishment of the European Union. Secret meetings at the Bilderberg Group helped the elites agree on it. Those making these efforts believed that they were doing something good. If you see the European Union as a meddlesome bureaucracy, you might disagree. But then you have to face the reality that more than half the Brits now regret Brexit, while only a third are still content with it.

The Fed became a linchpin in the global US dollar-based usury financial system, which helped the United States to become a dominant power. That might have been impossible without a central bank. An empire rests on credit, and cheap credit helped the British build theirs. After World War II had ruined Europe, the elite promoted European cooperation. Their efforts led to the establishment of the European Union. Secret meetings at the Bilderberg Group helped the elites agree on it. Those making these efforts believed that they were doing something good. If you see the European Union as a meddlesome bureaucracy, you might disagree. But then you have to face the reality that more than half the Brits now regret Brexit, while only a third are still content with it.

Globalisation

By 3,000 BC, there was already trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley involving spices, metals, and cloth. An even longer-distance trade, the silk trade, between China and Rome commenced 2,000 years ago. Later on, Arab traders brought spices from the Indies to Europe. Trade transcends borders and religions. In the Middle Ages, Muslim traders accepted gold coins from Christian states, invoking Christ and his virgin mother. Christian leaders would even mint coins with the Arab inscription, ‘There is no god except Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s messenger.1 Christian traders readily accepted them as well. Gold was the religion of traders, not Islam or Christianity.

Jesus said that you cannot serve both God and money. Money is more powerful than religion, unless there is a God. It is hard to build an order, and it is easy to corrupt it. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver after having seen the proof that he was the Messiah, if we are to believe the scriptures. About 500 years ago, Portuguese explorers set sail for Africa to find new trade routes to the Indies. It was the beginning of a new phase of European colonisation and trade, integrating the world. With the Industrial Revolution, globalisation accelerated. Today, we are the servants of a system driven by money and trade. In 1848, Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto,

Because the bourgeoisie needs a constantly expanding market, it settles and establishes connections all over the globe. Production and consumption have taken on a cosmopolitan character in every country. That is true for materials and for intellectual production, as national sovereignty and isolationism become less and less possible to sustain. The bourgeoisie draws even the most barbaric nations into civilisation and compels all nations to adopt its mode of production. It creates a world after its own image.

In the 20th century, European nations fought two devastating world wars, thereby enabling the United States to become the West’s dominant power. At the same time, the Soviet Union, the utopian alternative of state planning, imposed its vision on the countries it occupied. It was the beginning of the Cold War, during which both sides supported armed groups and governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The United States promoted European integration and military cooperation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The United Nations (UN) were another American initiative. Some of the most well-known UN agencies are the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank. These institutions were part of the US-dominated world order.

There was a plan behind it. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) played a crucial role. The CFR is a think tank of prominent figures in business, science and politics in the United States. The CFR began its work in 1921 when the US was isolationist and European colonial powers still dominated the world. In the 1930s, the CFR received funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation. During World War II, the CFR, in cooperation with the US government, developed plans for a new world order after the war, which became an order dominated by US financial and political elites.

The planners of the CFR believed that protectionism had worsened the Great Depression and led to World War II. Prosperity was the key to political and economic stability in Europe. They argued that open markets would promote democracy and that the United States would benefit from prosperity elsewhere. After the war, European countries received loans to rebuild their economies. By helping other countries, the United States gained economic and political influence.

Under the guise of fighting communism, the CIA organised coups in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba and Chile, among others, and fought wars in Korea and Vietnam. In several cases, they did so to protect the interests of big business. The Cold War also led to the build-up of the so-called Military-Industrial Complex, comprising the armed forces, military contractors, intelligence services, think tanks, and university research projects.

The US dollar reserve status, established at the Bretton Woods conference, underpinned the American-dominated post-war world order. US planners believed that stable exchange rates would promote trade and therefore implemented a fixed exchange-rate system. The gold-backed US dollar became the international reserve currency. This system remained in place until 1971, when the US dollar’s gold backing ended.

Market forces thereafter determined exchange rates, but the US dollar remained the primary reserve currency. The US dollar reserve status allowed the United States elites to harvest the productivity of other nations. That began in earnest when the United States started running deficits and kept the US dollar attractive through high interest rates, a policy known as Reaganomics. It allowed wealthy Americans to live well while American industries lost competitiveness due to the demand for the US dollar, thereby raising its value. The US empire gradually became a financial empire, supported by the US dollar’s status as a reserve currency.

Rules-based international order

The rules-based international order (RBIO), also called the liberal international order, is the system of political, legal, and economic agreements, norms, and institutions, such as the United Nations, that guides state interactions, promotes cooperation, stability, and predictability through international law, aiming to prevent conflict, foster trade, and uphold human rights. For eight decades, the order functioned to some extent, but it was a Western project, and several other nations viewed it as a tool of Western dominance and economic exploitation. Furthermore, might makes right. Powerful states such as the United States and the Soviet Union often acted as they pleased. Moreover, many countries aren’t democracies that respect human rights and are corrupt, but they do have influence. In 2024, Saudi Arabia’s election to chair the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was a particularly noteworthy low point in the UN’s record of integrity. In other words, corruption pervades the international institutions.

To a great extent, the postwar world order envisioned in Washington became a reality, a fact not lost on conspiracy theorists. It was a remarkable feat of geopolitical planning and another step in globalisation. It is the basis of the New World Order conspiracy theory. Globalisation switched into a higher gear in recent decades. The outcome was not primarily the result of a deliberate plan by the elites, even though they helped the process by promoting neoliberal reforms. The recent globalisation is the outcome of economic, political and technological developments:

  • the rise of neoliberalism around 1980;
  • the fall of communism around 1990;
  • personal computers and digital data storage;
  • optical fibre and the Internet, making it possible to connect people around the globe;
  • global standards for data exchange, making it possible for every computer to exchange data with every other computer;
  • software that enables cooperation between people and businesses worldwide.

Neoliberalism began to take shape in the 1970s and has dominated Western politics since the 1980s. In the 1970s, Western economies were stagnating. Unions had a lot of power. Foreign competition intensified and eroded corporate competitiveness. The welfare state became a burden on state finances. As a result, many businesses faltered. Meanwhile, the left dominated the intellectual climate. Business-sponsored think tanks began pressing for an intellectual counter-offensive, deregulation, lower taxes, and less welfare.

The 1971 Lewis Powell Memo became a watershed moment. It spoke of an attack by the left on the American system of free enterprise. It argued that businesses generate wealth, create employment, and pay taxes.2 They felt they paid taxes to fund universities where anti-capitalists conspired against them. From then on, businesses organised themselves to exert political influence through think tanks, thereby changing the political climate and contributing to the Reagan Revolution. Governments left more to markets, curtailed labour rights, reduced welfare, and lowered taxes for corporations and wealthy people. Income inequality increased while jobs moved to low-wage countries.

The collapse of the Soviet empire further spurred globalisation. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A few years later, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the European Union enlarged. From then on, there seemed to be no alternative to capitalism.3 Countries, such as China, India, and Russia, realised that they had to compete in global markets and transformed their economies accordingly. India now specialises in services and information technology. China became the global industrial powerhouse. Russia has specialised in energy exports.

In the 1980s, personal computers entered our homes. Businesses also employed computers, but exchanging data between them was arduous. Computers weren’t interconnected, and software suppliers used different data formats.3 The Internet changed all that. Using a personal computer and an Internet connection, you can view any web page from anywhere using the standard language, HTML. Investors realised the Internet would change the world, and they could make enormous profits. It resulted in a massive over-investment in everything related to the Internet during the 2000 Internet bubble. One area of over-investment was in optical fibre, so the price of data transport dropped dramatically.3

Standards for data exchange emerged. Software suppliers began to focus on facilitating the interaction, competition, and cooperation of people around the globe, effectively enabling the world to become a global village in which people everywhere can participate. It transformed the way we cooperate. The traditional way of organising is top-down, via command-and-control. The new way of organising is through teams of people sharing responsibility for a task or product, enabling more complex forms of cooperation. China and India developed and integrated into the global economy.

As businesses used cheaper overseas labour, workers in developed nations experienced greater job insecurity and stagnant wages. On the other hand, hundreds of millions of people in China and India experienced improved living standards. Globalisation may have been the best development aid ever. But
the real winners are the oligarchs all around the world. A 2019 Oxfam report points out that the world’s 26 wealthiest people own as much as the poorest 50%.4 A 2022 Credit Suisse Wealth Report states that 1.2% of adults own 47.8% of the world’s wealth, while 53.2% must do with 1.1%.

Global cooperation

Since World War II, Western elites have promoted the rules-based international order, both openly and secretly. Most elite members believe they act in the interests of humankind and aim for international cooperation. There is no denying that the alternative to a global government is warfare. The main problem is who will control that order? You can’t trust the elites to act in our interest. Conspiracy theorists claim that they operate behind the scenes in secret gatherings like the Bilderberg Conferences to create a global political economy in which they rule the world, and we will be serfs. The British politician Denis Healey, who attended these Bilderberg Conferences, told The Guardian,

To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing, killing people and rendering millions homeless. So, we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.5

The elite is, first and foremost, a social network. Those gathering at the Bilderberg Conferences have discussed the European Union in advance. It helped them agree on European cooperation and integration. And after two devastating world wars, that seemed a good plan. The American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller also found himself in the crosshairs of conspiracy theorists. He worked for the Trilateral Commission, which promoted cooperation between Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. In response to the accusations, Rockefeller wrote in his memoirs,

Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure–one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.6

Internationalist liberal Western elites have cooperated to create a global order, believing that a single world order is preferable to national self-determination. Nationalism is a primary cause of war, a lesson Europeans learned the hard way during World War I and World War II. These were nationalist wars with an estimated combined death toll of 60 million. America was spared, which allowed Americans the luxury of indulging fantasies about these efforts as being evil. Few of us aspire to be at the mercy of the elites, but what are the alternatives? You can step out and live like a hermit or join a self-sufficient community like the Amish, but that does nothing to change the global political economy.

The rise of the non-West

The West consists of Europe, North America, and Australia. Today, about 15% of the world’s population lives in the West. The modernisation that began in the West has transformed the world, and today’s modern world is the legacy of that past. Until 1800, Asia had the largest share of the global economy. Asia’s share of world GDP declined from over 50% in 1800 to 17% by 1950. Today, Asia is back where it once was, and China has surpassed the United States on several fronts. The dominance of the West is ending. Vlad the Empirebuilder was the first to seize on the opportunity by invading Ukraine.

The post-war liberal world order dominated by Western elites is on its way to the dustbin of history. New powers have emerged, most notably China and India. Half the world’s population lives in Asia. The populations of India and China each exceed the combined populations of the European Union and the United States. As these countries develop and modernise, the West’s clout in the world declines. China is on its way to becoming the world’s leading nation, followed by India. These trends will likely persist, barring an apocalyptic event or an unexpected historical twist.

Progress or conspiracy

The European Enlightenment refers to the era from 1680 to 1820 during which Europeans’ worldview changed. With its emphasis on reason, empirical evidence, and scientific method, the Enlightenment promoted individual liberty, religious tolerance, progress, and natural rights. Prominent European thinkers such as Newton, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Hume, Kant, and Voltaire led the movement that inspired the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. Conservatives were not keen on these developments that they believed were undermining traditional Christian values. The bloodshed during the French Revolution also shocked the conservatives.

In 1797 and 1798, a French Jesuit and a Scottish physicist published two remarkably similar books claiming that secret societies were undermining the social order and had organised the French Revolution. Both named the Freemasons and the Illuminati as the main culprits. It was the start of modern conspiracy thinking. The Illuminati were a secret society aiming to counter the influence of religion and the abuse of power, and promote an enlightened, rational society. It had a short existence. The Freemasons were another secret society with similar views, and they still exist. Several Freemasons have played a prominent role in the American and French Revolutions.

You can find Freemason symbols in a variety of places, including US dollar bills. Some see it as evidence that Freemasons run the world. Around 1900, the Russian secret services published another bestseller, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, about a fictional secret Jewish plot to achieve Jewish world domination, which, in hindsight, proved prophetic. Shortly thereafter, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian regime. The communist movement featured several Jews in prominent positions, which made conspiracy theory seem more credible. People like Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler fell for it.

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel took an entirely different view. The schemer behind the scenes was God, our Creator. The Enlightenment revolutions were the means by which God’s plan would bring us closer to our ultimate destination, God’s Paradise. He then laid out the scheme of Hegelian dialectic, by which that progress was to take place. New ideas would replace old ones, and that might take revolutions and wars. The Marxists drew on Hegel’s ideas, and Marxism looks like Christianity without God:

  • In the Christian view, the meek will inherit the Earth. The Marxists believed it would belong to the wretched of the earth, the proletariat.
  • Christians believe that history unfolds according to God’s plan, whereas Marxists hold a similar view: history unfolds according to historical necessity.
  • The Christians envision an end time with a battle between good and evil. The Marxists prophesied the coming of a proletarian revolution.
  • According to the Christian view, we would enter God’s kingdom, while the Marxists believed we would enter a communist paradise.

Despite claiming to be rational and scientific, Marxism looks like a religion, with prophets such as Marx, holy books such as Capital, missionary zeal to spread communism, heresies like Trotskyism, and, of course, religious wars. Marxism has been the most successful cult in modern history by far. Even the Chinese, despite their proud heritage, abandoned Confucianism for it. After the Western working class had emancipated and come to live an affluent life, the Marxists sought to liberate new groups of wretched people, in an effort now known as Cultural Marxism or Woke.

The conspiracy view, held mainly by conservatives, is that progressive efforts to implement modern ideas, which include racial equality, equality of the sexes, and equality of LGBTQ people, are imposed social-engineering efforts aimed at undermining freedom and traditional Christian values and the family. The movement comes with racism, misogyny, and hatred of LGBTQ people. Cultural Marxism is Christianity in disguise. Woke has tried to curb hate speech and change our language. As Jesus taught us to love and not to hate, Woke sought to impose Jesus’ teachings on us. Conservative Christians try to do the same. That is a high point of irony. And it demonstrates the extent to which Jesus’ teachings have influenced Western culture. The conspiracy is that everything was planned in detail, because we live in a simulation that runs a story. The New World Order will be God’s Paradise. Hegel was right, and so was the Quran. The progressives schemed. The conservatives schemed as well. But God is the greatest schemer of all.

Latest revision: 10 January 2025

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.
2. Powell Memorandum. Lewis F. Powell Jr. (1971).
3. The World Is Flat 3.0. Thomas Friedman (2007). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
4. World’s 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam. The Guardian (2019).
5. Who pulls the strings? (part 3). The Guardian (2001).
6. Memoirs. David Rockefeller (2003).