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traditionally throughout history, the social order, no matter what it looked like, was hard and rigid

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order implied stability and continuity

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swift social revolutions were rare and exceptional

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most transformations in human society came about from the accumulation of numerous small steps over decades and centuries

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people generally believed that their particular social structure was inflexible and eternal

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families and communities might struggle to change their place within the order, but the idea that you could change the fundamental structure of the order itself, was foreign to most people throughout history

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throughout history, people tended to reconcile themselves to the status quo, to the way things are

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"we may not like the social order, but this is how it always was and this is how it will always be"

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however, over the past 200 years, the pace of social change has become so rapid, that the character of social order came to be something that is constantly changing, very flexible, and very dynamic

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when we speak of revolutions, we tend to think of particular years as being exceptionally revolutionary

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1789 The French Revolution

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1848 The Liberal Revolution

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1917 The Russian Communist Revolution

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but in the past 100 years, you can find instances of revolution in almost every year, unlike, say, 500 years ago

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it is difficult to define the characteristics of modern society, as it is flexible and constantly changing

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the only characteristic of which we can be certain is the constant change

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people have become accustomed to it

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most of us today think about the social order as something flexible, something which we can engineer and improve

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people are constantly saying: we should change this, we should change that

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nobody today imagines that the world in 2050 will be the same as it is today, but probably everyone in 1014 or 1314 or even 1714 assumed that the world would be the same in 1050, 1350, and 1750

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there are arguments how things will and should change, but everyone knows it will change significantly

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at the same time social order in the world is becoming more volatile, it is also becoming more peaceful

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we could have expected that the more change there would be in social order, the more violence there would be in the world

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but in fact, at least in the last few decades, as the pace of change increased, the world simultaneously become more peaceful

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the levels of global violence today are lower than any previous time in history, at least from the agricultural revolution forwards, and by a very wide margin

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the collapse of the family and the community led to a decrease in internal levels of violence

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although the news is full of crimes and murders and wars, and even though there is a lot of violence in the world today

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but if you want to know about the level of global violence, then reading a newspaper article about a particular murder case is not helpful

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you need to look at the average, at statistics, not at individual cases

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percentage of violent deaths from the total of number of deaths

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2000

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war casualties = 310,000

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violent crimes = 520,000

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human violence: 830,000

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only 1.5% of deaths

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(56 million people died)

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1.2 million from car accidents

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815,000 committed suicide

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2002

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human violence = 740,000

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in most parts of the world, most people enjoy a level of security from violence that our ancestors could not even dream about

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in most parts of the world, people go to sleep knowing that a neighboring village will not surround their town and attack it, this was common in security

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throughout history in human societies, violence was much more common, especially when traveling outside their walled and protected towns

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the rise of security is due, above all, to the rise in the power of the state

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throughout history, most violence resulted from local feuds and conflicts between families and communities

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even today, local crime is far deadlier than international wars

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2002

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172,000 died in wars

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569,000 died from violent crime within small communities and families

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measurement of violence

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in Western Europe, of every 100,000 people, only one person is killed per year by other human

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in New York, the rate is about 7 people

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in Detroit, about 50 people

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in ancient societies of simple farmers who had no political organization larger than the local community, the rate was often around 400 per 100,000 per year who were killed by other human beings, eight times the murder rate of Detroit

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as kingdoms and states became stronger, they gradually restrained local violence

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when the states and the markets became even more powerful and the communities and the families became weaker, violence rates became

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today in the world, the rate is only 9 people per year per 100,000 per year

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and most of these murders take place in places where the state and market is very weak such as Somalia and Afghanistan

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strong states are not always peaceful

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some cases such as fascism loom large in our memories and fears

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in the 20th century, millions of people were killed by the security forces of their own state

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but if you look at human history from a macro perspective, the courts and police forces of the state, increased security and decreased violence throughout history

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while the state has encourages internal violence to recede, the rate of violence through international wars is not significant

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today, international violence is at an all time low

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there was never a period in history when the international community was so peaceful as it is today

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two developments for decline in international violence

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1. quick collapse of European empires

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1945: the world was ruled by the empires of a few European nations

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Britain

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Russia

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these collapsed and were replaced by independent states

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very fast

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peaceful and orderly

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this collapse was one of the most rapid transfers of power in history

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never before has so much power been transferred from the hands of one group of people to another so quickly

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people in London controlled Nigeria, Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia

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people in Paris controlled Senegal, Vietnam, Cambodia

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within decades, these empires transferred powers from their hands to the hands of local elites and governments in all of these places who now rule these places

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it was not only done quickly, but in most cases, it was done in a relatively orderly and peaceful way

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throughout history, the one thing that empires did not want to do was give up their power, and in almost all cases tried to crush rebellions

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even when empires became too weak to survive, they usually tried to hang on to power before collapsing

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and what replaced the collapse was often bloody chaos

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e.g. Roman Empire in 5th century, they tried to hang onto power, what replaced it was a terrible and bloody struggle for control of the European and Mediterranean land masses

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British Empire collapse

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in 1945 Britain controlled nearly a quarter of the people in the world

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there were some places where the British tried to hang onto their power by using their forces

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and there were places where when the British left, a lot of violence erupted, e.g. Palestine, Cyprus, and India

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but in most cases, the British Empire left not because of a rebellion, but the rulers of the Empire decided they were too weak to continue with the power structure at hand, and tried to transfer it peacefully

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there was a lot of violence, but seen historically, the British Empire's withdraw from power was exemplary for its relative peacefulness and orderliness

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Soviet Empire collapse

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1980s and 1990s

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despite local eruptions of violence in the Balkans and Caucasus and Central Asia, it is safe to say never in history has such a mighty empire disappeared so quickly, quiety, and in such an orderly manner, for the most part in just two years

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the Soviet Empire in 1989 did not suffer from any military defeat, except for the defeat in Afghanistan, but that was a minor affair that could not cause such a large empire to collapse

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compare this to the collapse of the Roman Empire which was caused by hordes of Huns and Germans and barbarians invaded it

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nor was there a serious rebellion against the Soviet Empire

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there was not even a campaign of civil disobedience such as with Ghandi, perhaps one exception was the solidarity movement in Poland led by

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but this wasn't what caused the Soviet Empire to collapse

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no invasion from outside, or rebellion from within, controlled one of the largest armies in the world, and enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole of humankind several times

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even satellites of the Soviet Union were quite loyal to the Soviet elite

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what happened to the Soviet elite and regimes choose to dismantle the empire willingly and peacefully, with the exception of Romania and Serbia

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never in history had so much power been renounced

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Gorbachev and other leaders had the integrity, moral sense, and moral responsibility to dismantle their empire

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they not only gave up the Soviet Empire, they also renounced the much older Russian Empire

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for the most part, what replaced the empires in the decades after 1945 was not chaos, but relatively organized and remarkably peaceful states

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many of the countries that replaced the European empires are not warlike and have fought relatively few major wars since being created