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The
phrase “The Fourth Estate” captured the
unique and important role of the print media (aka,
Journalism) in early 19th Century Great Britain.
It also was a cogent description of the power of
the press – print and briefly electronic media
– in the later part of the 19th and most of
the 20th Century in the US of A.
The
question is: Does the term “The Fourth
Estate” still apply to those who “gather”
or “distribute” the “news”?
After examining the Estates Matrix, the answer
appears to be “no.”
The
Estates Matrix is presented as a “draft” to
stimulate discussion. Every time frame and the
content of each cell of The Estates Matrix is
open for examination. The Estates Matrix is
intended to provide a “Conceptual Framework”
as defined in the prior End
Note Eight. With this Conceptual Framework
one can understand why MainStream Media is
declining as a source of information upon which
citizens can rely to make informed decisions. As
suggested in Part I, there is also a “Great
Bonus” – a look at a “Big Picture.”
Much more on that later.
The
inspiration for The Estates Matrix was derived
from the need to understand how the Fourth
Estate evolved and the parameters of MainStream
Media’s apparent decline. Here is a sneak
preview of the conclusions that can be drawn
from The Matrix about MainStream Media:
Journalism, having morphed out of the Fourth
Estate, becomes one of the competing Enterprises
of the Second Estate while informed Individuals
and Households become the fourth leg of the four
legged stool necessary to support a functional
urban society. The current Fourth Estate is,
however, without intelligence, leadership or
self awareness.
The
Matrix suggests why MainStream Media no longer
represents citizen interests and also why
Fundamental Change in governance structure –
and in a broader scope, Fundamental Change of
the overall management of contemporary society
– is important. The Estates Matrix may be
thought of as a primer on shaping and managing
contemporary civilization reduced to an 8
½ x 11 sheet of paper.
Attacks
Are Anticipated
As
suggested at the end of PART I, "The
Morphed Estate," the idea of Estates
and The Estates Matrix will be attacked by those
satisfied with the status quo. Business-
As-Usual flacks will toss up red herrings.
Scholars from a score of academic disciplines
will sniff with disgust. So will “seasoned
journalists.”
The
proponents of Business As Usual will argue that
“business as usual is good enough for us.”
They will tar anyone suggesting that the
trajectory of contemporary civilization is
unsustainable as an enemy of “growth and
prosperity,” appealing to the misconception
that continually escalating Mass OverConsumption
is required for citizens to be safe or happy.
The
current trajectory of civilization is
characterized by:
The
result is greater and greater negative impact on
the natural systems needed to support economic
prosperity, social stability and human life. (See
End Note Ten.)
Business-As-Usual
investments in misinformation promote growth,
consumption and short-term profit at the expense
of general prosperity and conservation as well
as the happiness and safety of citizens. These
Business-As-Usual perspectives contribute to an
unsustainable trajectory for civilization. (See
End Note Eleven.)
Scholars rely on
peer review for their status. The Estates
Matrix stomps across the turf of a score of
“disciplines.” While many thoughtful
citizens have broad interests, scholars must
build their reputations by exploring small
slices of reality without upsetting their peers. The Estates Matrix
cuts across many disciplines to
provide a broad Conceptual Framework. (See End
Note Twelve.)
Finally, expect the
biggest fuss from those who do not want to
reconsider the conventional wisdoms and form the
ranks of "seasoned journalists” for
the reasons outlined in PART III (to
come).
Preliminary
Notes
Before exploring
the implications of The Matrix, one needs to
understand the context. The following
notes provide an overview.
From
about 13,000 years ago until 706 years ago
(1302), a three-legged system evolved to manage
human society (aka, Civilization). There were many twists and turns over these
12,300 years, and clearly the process did not
“start” 13,000 years ago or at any other
date certain. (See End Note Thirteen.)
At
the start of
the 14th century, the three components that
controlled society were “Clergy,”
“Nobility” and “Commoners.”
The three
components, or centers of power guiding
society, were termed “Estates” or “Estates
of the Realm.” In 1302 there were many
variations of the system across the territory that is now
the European Union.
The
Estates Matrix illustrates how this “stable”
three legged system evolved over the last 706
years to a more unstable four-legged system.
This new four-legged system requires a more
careful attention to Balance if the structure is
to meet the needs on any of the Estates as well
as all of the citizens in all of the Estates.
Of critical importance was the fact that in 1302
from 60 percent to 99 percent of the population in any
specific kingdom, principality, city state or
tribal area were not “citizens” and did not
have a standing or a voice in any of the three
Estates. “Commoners” were, in reality, a
few who stood at the top of groups such as
guilds, non-nobility land owners, traders,
merchants and similar groups.
Frequently a “commoner's” place at the table
was dependent upon a commitment to not represent
disenfranchised slaves, servants, serfs,
peasants, etc.,
One further note:
It is important to understand the definitions of
“Household,” “Organization,”
“Agency,” “Enterprise” and
“Institution,” as provided by the GLOSSARY.
In summary, Agencies, Enterprises and
Institutions are defined to include all of the
Organizations created by citizens beyond the
Household.
Of particular
importance in the context of the Estates Matrix
is the definition of “Institution.”
An Institution is a cause-
or belief-driven
Organization hat is not an Enterprise created
to generate a profit or an Agency established by
citizens of a jurisdiction to carry out a
governance function for the benefit of the all
citizens.
Institutions support
the members, founders or management of the
Institution. Institutions include
Organizations with religious, educational,
cultural and political programs, goals and
objectives. Institutions include, among
others, foundations, labor unions, professional
and trade associations, universities, hospitals,
museums, political parties, political action
committees, conservation advocates, chambers of
commerce and other consumption advocates,
churches and think tanks.
Some of
the vast growth in total wealth generated
between 1302 and 2008 “raised all boats.”
However, much of it has ended up in
Institutions. Each Institution has its own
agenda and its own resources to implement that
agenda to benefit the Institution. That
agenda may support or undermine the goals of
Agencies, Enterprises, other Institutions or the
health, safety and welfare of citizens
(individuals and Households).
Anatomy
of The Estates Matrix
The
Estates Matrix is composed of seven columns and
six rows. The following notes introduce
the Columns and Rows of The Estate Matrix.
Click
on the image for a larger, more legible
version
of the matrix. We suggest printing out this one-page
graphic or opening a second window so you do not
have to jump back and forth to follow the column
by column and row by row descriptions that
follow
Column 1 – The Estates
Column 1 is
headed “Estate Designations.” This
column identifies four Estates plus an important
category titled “No Estate.”
Over time (moving from Column 2 to Column 7) we
will see each of the Estates evolve and morph as
The Renaissance, The Reformation, Modern Science
(as distinguished from the Classical Science of
the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and scholars of the
“Middle Ages”), The Enlightenment, The
Industrial Revolution and Contemporary Urban Civilization evolved from 1302 to 2008.
Five separate Estate Conversions are explored in
depth below.
The importance of the
“No Estate” category becomes clear when one
notes the percentage of the population
identified with each Estate. The “No
Estate” category is very important in the
management of human societies over the period of
The Estates Matrix. Without those in “No
Estate” there would be no one to raise the
food or fight the wars. (See End Note
Fourteen.)
Prior to the American
Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the
emancipation of slaves and finally woman’s
suffrage, it was not considered to be an issue
of importance that many humans were not citizens
and thus had no Estate. In 1302, the vast
majority of humans had no Estate to call home,
no Organization to rely on to represent their
interests. In other words, many humans were
invisible pawns who were controlled /
owned by individuals or groups that were members
of the three Estates. (See End Note
Fifteen.)
A convenient way to come to
grips with the scope of The Estates Matrix is to
note the shift in the percentage of population
associated with each of the five Estate
categories over time.
The percentages in parentheses (X %) are the
approximate percentages of the total population
of kingdoms /
principalities / dukedoms / nation-states / etc.
total population who identify with and take
actions (vote, buy, support) that primarily
benefit each Estate. (See End Note Sixteen.)
This is an inherently confusing concept because
almost all individuals take actions that support
and take other actions that undermine the best
interest of Households, Enterprises,
Institutions and Agencies with which these
individuals have some important relationship.
Some citizen actions support, and at the same
time, undermine the interests of an Organization
to which that citizen is a member. The
“percentage that support” represents a gross
estimation of the bottom line “net balance”
of all those actions. (See End Note
Seventeen.)
An enormous contribution
by the American Revolution, the Haitian
Revolution, the emancipation of slaves and
woman’s suffrage in what is now the First
World was the dramatic shrinking of the number
of humans with No Estate.
Much of the human
population on the planet outside the First World
is still about where the US of A was in 1837. There are variations from society to society and
nation-state to nation-state but slavery, servitude and
an array of other limitations on human rights
persist. Several very
“modern” nation states – the United Arab
Emirates and Singapore
come to mind – have a percentage of citizens
among the total resident population that is akin
to 14th Century Europe.
Even worse is the fact that in the US of A the
“No Estate” population is still about 20
percent of
the total even with women having the right to
vote and a constitution that guarantees equal
rights.
Row 1 – The Time
Frames
The next step in
understanding The Estates Matrix is to recognize
the time frames for each Column. Row 1
establishes six time frames. These time
frames mark significant turning points in the
evolution of The Four Estates.
Column 2. The second column covers the
time from 1302 to 1790 and represents the
“base case” for the Transformations and
Estate Conversion in the territory that has become the
European Union. During this period, The
Renaissance (1300 +/-), The Reformation (1500
+), Modern Science (1543), The Enlightenment
(1700 +/-) and The Industrial Revolution (1740
+/-) laid the foundation for the evolution of
Contemporary Civilization. Human activity
during this time frame laid the groundwork for
the emergence of a science-based technology and
the competitively driven urban society that
exists in 2008.
The year 1302 was
selected as the start date because that was the
year King Philip IV of France called the First
“Estates General.” The Estates General
was called together – and organized as a
constituent assembly – to generate support by
“society in general” for, and spell out
limitations on, the authority of “The Church”
(aka, Clergy) vis a vis the other two segments
of society, the Nobility and Commoners.
The three Estates were also depicted as
“clerics, knights and workmen” in this time
period. (See End Note Eighteen.)
Important prior landmarks such as the Magna
Carta in 1215 could also have been chosen as the
starting point for the Column 2 time frame.
However, in 1302 there was something formally
called the “Three Estates.” An
alternate starting point for this time frame
might be 1400, which marks the approximate end of
the cyclic epidemics of Bubonic Plague, or
Black Death. (See End Note Nineteen.)
Other dates to consider for the start of this
time frame would be 1492 (Columbus’ first
voyage) or 1543 (the year most often given for
the dawn of Modern Science).
The ending point of the first period is 1790.
The exact span of this period is not as
important as the recognition that over 500 years +/- there evolved a broadly
recognized system of three “Estates” that
shared responsibility for governance and
management of society in what is now the
European Union. These three Estates were
articulated in a range of “national”
contexts. The details of the Estates
varied but were similarly configured.
Column 3.
The third column is dated 1789, a date certain and in a place certain:
France. This is the year of the last
Estates General called by King Louis XVI.
The 1789 Estates General, with the three Estates
formalized into a three-chambered
“assembly,” was charged with articulating
the Fundamental Changes needed to bring the
governance of France into harmony with the
scientific, political and philosophical thinking
of the time. The need for Fundamental
Change in France was brought into focus by the
American Revolution in which many individual
Frenchmen participated in significant ways.
The French government also supported the
American Revolution as a way of opposing its
arch enemy at the time, Great Britain.
The 1789 Estates General is notable because
Louis XVI refused to implement the changes
recommended by the assembly. He, his wife
Marie Antoinette and many others were beheaded
for failure to make those changes. Because
of the importance of the French Revolution, there
is a great deal of information about the
economic, social and political status of France
in 1789. For example the population was
about 27 million and the percentages of
population in each of the three Estates shown in
Column 3 of The Estates Matrix is quite well
documented.
Column 4.
The time
frame for Column 4 is 1775-1794 and the focus
shifts to the US of A. The period from
1775 (the Declaration of Independence) to 1794
(five years after the US of A Constitution went
into effect) was a period during which many
Fundamental Changes took place. Tying down
a specific year is not as important as
summarizing the status at the end of this
period. For this time frame, and each of
the four time frames (Columns 4 through 7) that
focus on US of A, the population of the
nation-state is noted.
Column 5.
The year 1837 in the US of A was a way-station
between the War of 1812, which ended the overt
threats to the nation-state's existence, and the
Civil War, which ended slavery and opened the door
to the full impact of the Industrial Revolution
in North America. By 1837 expansion of the
middle class, due to urbanization driven by
the Industrial Revolution as well as other
economic and social changes, was clearly
evident in Western Europe. The shift from
a nonurban (agricultural) to an urban focus of
the economy and of life in the US of A
primarily occurred following the Civil War.
The year 1837 was chosen, not because this year
was important in the US of A but because it was
the year that the Fourth Estate was identified.
In 1837, Edmond Burke is said to have noted the
presence of the media -- print journalism at the
time -- in the Gallery of the British Parliament
and stated: “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate,
and they are more important than them all (the
other three Estates).” From this time
forward, the media has been known as “The
Fourth Estate.” Most important, the
press (later the media) accepted the
responsibility to represent those not in the
other three Estates. This embrace of the
needs of humans was a critical step in
decreasing those in the “No Estate”
category.
Column 6. The year 1950,five years
after the end of World War II, is an
important place to take stock. Economic
and social interests had coalesced into
Agencies, Institutions and Enterprises
representing a broad spectrum of
interests. The social, political and
governance reforms following the Civil War up
through the New Deal fundamentally changed
Agencies not just at the federal level but at
the state and municipal levels. While
there was change, the basic three-level
system that served the agrarian society was
still in place in an urban, urbane, world-class
nation-state.
By 1950,
Enterprises – primarily large corporations
whose managers were responsible for optimizing
profits – had become a dominant force. “What is good for General Motors is good for
the United States.”
Churches, political parties, labor unions and
other groups had forged new Institutions.
In the US of A, the power of the press (media)
was clear before the Revolution. The media
articulated the rationale for the Revolution and
provided the information that allowed it to
exist and expand. The 1837 date was, as
noted above, just a way-station but the
importance of the media grew steadily during the
19th and early 20th Centuries. MainStream
Media, anchored by the rise of professional
journalism and of the first families of
Journalism, staked out a broad responsibility and
vehemently defended its independence and
accepted the moral responsibilities as the Fourth
Estate.
Column 7. The
last column presents current conditions and, as
we shall see below, is represents a
fundamentally different composition of the Four
Estates. This new configuration underlies
the need for Fundamental Change in governance
structure. Beyond Fundamental Change in
governance structure – the structure of
Agencies – there is a need for Fundamental
Change in the management of society as reflected
by the lack of focus for the hundreds of
millions of citizens who now comprise the Fourth
Estate. Thus, the year 2008 provides and
appropriate place to summarize the current
status of the Four Estates.
Time
Frame Overview
One should not be
mislead by the number of columns allocated to
different time frames.
There
are far more years between 1302 (or the birth of
modern science in 1543) and 1790 than there are
between 1790 and 2008. While these 500
years are lumped together as a single column, a
vast number of important events and
transformations occurred between 1302 and 1790.
A second point is that while The Estate Matrix
focuses on the US of A for the first time
between 1775 to 1794, a lot happened in the
territory that became the US of A between 1607
and 1775. (See End Note Twenty.)
Third and most important, many think of the
later part of the 20th and the first years of
the 21st Century as being times of an
increasingly rapid rate of change. Some,
Alvin and Heidi Toffler, for example, have made a cottage
industry out of this perspective.
While the period 1950 to 2008 is thought of as a
period of great change, most of the inventions,
innovations and discoveries that have
fundamentally changed society – and especially
human settlement patterns during this period –
were made between 1880 to 1950. (See
The Shape of the Future, Chapter 2 and the
discussion of “past shock” in Chapter 31.)
Much of the apparent change in this period can
be explained by the percentages that fall in
each of the Estates in 2008. There has
been incredible impact of prior changes on
individuals and on Households. This is
because the ideas, and possibilities of the
period from 1302 to 1950 is finally catching up
to the majority of citizens. The root
causes of that individual and Household change
– the real drivers of that change – occurred
decades and even centuries before.
For this reason it is important at this point to
look again from a different perspective at the
entire time period covered by The Estates
Matrix.
Profound
Transformations on the Way to an Urban
Civilization
Before
examining the five Estate Conversions
illustrated by The Estates Matrix, it is
important to examine in more detail the Profound
Transformations noted earlier. These
Transformations provide the context for the
Estate Conversions examined below and one of the
Transformations is composed of the five Estate
Conversions.
The
“Profound” Transformations are overarching
and widely recognized society-wide changes that
took place over the past 700 plus years from
1302 to 2008, the time frame depicted by The
Estates Matrix. (See End Note
Twenty-one.)
The Four “Profound”
Transformations that occurred between 1300 to
2008:
Transformation
One. The Black Death as articulated by
David Herlihy. (See End Note Twenty-one.)
Herlihy makes a convincing case for The Black
Death opening the way for the later
Transformations buy removing millions of people
from what is now the European Union between 1346
and 1400. This decimation provided
opportunities for individuals and groups to
“move up” and take charge of places and
processes that had been the domain of those that
died in the plague. This Transformation
changed the status quo that had evolved over the
prior 300 (“feudal”) years. The
pre-Black Death society was, according to
Herlihy and others an ossified three-Estate
system riding on the backs of millions who had
no Estate.
Transformation
Two. The Renaissance / Reformation / Modern
Science / Enlightenment set the stage for
the Industrial Revolution and the rise of
Contemporary Uurban Civilization. Some
scholars will argue that each is a separate
“transformation,” because each is so
important in the evolution of contemporary
Civilization. For the purposes of The
Estates Matrix they are considered together for
the following reasons:
Each
can be studied as a unique “movement” but
they overlap and all reinforce one another.
Except for Modern Science (1543) there is no
broadly accepted start date (and in some cases
starting location or event) for the components
of Transformation Two. The impact of all
five “movements” (including the Industrial
Revolution) was not felt by the majority of the
citizens until long after the most important
landmarks of the movements were “history.”
The five “revolutions” that make up
Transformation Two set the stage for
Transformation Three which is deemed by many as
the most important Transformation in human
evolution. (For further background on how
Transformation Two impacted society in general,
and human settlement patterns in particular, see
Part One (Chapter 1 through Chapter 4) of The
Shape of the Future.)
Transformation
Three. A major focus of The Shape of the
Future is what might be called The Urban
Transformation. Driven by The Renaissance
/ The Reformation / Modern Science / The
Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution, the
economic, social and physical foundation of
human society in the First World shifted from
1800 to 2000, a span of just 200 years. As
noted in End Note Twenty Two, Peter Drucker
suggests that this transformation is the most
important Transformation in human history.
The Urban Transformation is deemed more
important than the shift from hunter-gather
societies to agriculture / traders / crafter
societies from 13,000 years ago to 1800.
It was not just far more rapid: It left a far
different human civilization.
In
summary: Between 1800 and 2000, the First
World went from a place with a five percent
urban population and ninety-five percent
nonurban population to one with ninety-five
percent urban and five percent nonurban in just
200 years.
The two largest general
classifications of citizens in the US of
A:
-
Yeoman Farm Households (and the traders and
crafters who directly serviced this nonurban
population), and
-
Household servants in both urban and nonurban
settings essentially disappeared in this
200-year span.
The Third Transformation is
obviously of critical importance to human
settlement patterns. The importance is outlined
in Chapter 1 Box 2 of The Shape of the Future
which is reproduced as APPENDIX
ONE. The
dynamics of this period is demonstrated by the
two graphs in this Box. These graphs
document the most important, far-reaching change
during the span from 1794 to 2000 in the US of
A. During this period a Fundamental Change
in human economic, social and physical activity
affecting human settlement pattern took
place.
(As an aside, these urban
citizens have the same genes as those of 13,000
years ago because one aspect of the Urban
Transformation was to suspend the application of
Darwin’s laws of natural selection as
suggested by the population growth curves found
in APPENDIX
ONE. That, however, is a
different story for another time.)
In 1794 (or 1800)
95 percent of the population was
engaged in subsistence / commoner agriculture as
well as other activities directly related to
this pre-industrial agriculture. The second
largest category of labor after farm hands and
yeoman farmers consisted of domestic servants. Only
5 percent
of the population was engaged in urban activity.
By 2000, the numbers had completely reversed,
with 95 percent of the population engaged in urban
activities and the number of domestic servants
far smaller than the number of lawyers, police
persons, accountants, school teachers or persons
held in jails.
If one considers
those who provide domestic services on a
contract basis to several clients to be service
workers as opposed servants who live in their
employer’s residence, there are more jailers
now than there are domestic servants.
Transformation
Four. The Fourth
Transformation is composed of the Five Estate
Conversions between 1775 and 2008. These
Conversions were also driven by Modern Science,
The Reformation, The Renaissance, The
Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution. The
Estates Matrix portrays these dramatic
conversions. They might also be called a
morphing, metamorphoses, transmutations,
transmogrifications or transfigurations.
What ever they are called, they fundamentally
changed the functions, roles and participants of
the Three Estates - Clergy, Nobility, Commoners
and No Estate - that existed before 1775 in the
US of A and before 1790 in the EU (specifically
France) to the current configuration of First
World society where power is shared by Agencies,
Enterprises, Institutions and Citizens
(individuals and Households).
Arguments can be made that other changes should
be considered Transformations. Future
refinements of The Estates Matrix may include
more factors. In this Backgrounder, the
importance of listing these Transformations is
to set the context for the Estate
Conversions.
Five
Conversions of the Four Estates and No Estate
The Four Profound
Transformations outlined above shaped
contemporary civilization. The
Estates Matrix examines the fourth of these
Profound Transformations – the five Estate
Conversions. These Conversions impact the
governance and management of contemporary
civilization. The following section
provides a row-by-row summary of the Conversions
in each of the Estates including No Estate over
the time span established by The Estates
Matrix.
Before going into detail it
is useful to get an overview. An example
of the scope of the Estate Conversions depicted
in The Estates Matrix is illustrated by the
following: APPENDIX ONE reproduces
Chapter 1 Box 2 of The Shape of the
Future.
Here is a paragraph from that Box with the
Vocabulary refined to reflect the words and
phrases used in GLOSSARY:
“Prior
to 1740 (the approximate start of the Industrial
Revolution), it was the sovereign, the Church or
some other elite class that made most of the
decisions impacting human settlement pattern.
Industrialization, urbanization, democratic
governance, economic competition and the
resulting increase in individual freedom have
enabled individual citizens and Households and
their Organizations to make decisions with
far-reaching collective impact on the human
settlement pattern.”
The Estates
Matrix provides details on the Fourth
Transformation – The Five Estate Conversions.
This examination is not just of “historical”
interest, it demonstrates what has happened to
MainStream Media but also why Fundamental Change
in contemporary governance structure (Agencies)
is imperative and why there needs to be other
new (non-Agency) innovations to manage
civilization.
As we will see in PART
IV, The Estates Matrix provides a platform from
which to consider and evaluate potential future
Conversions.
Row 2
The
second row is labeled “First Estate.” In the initial time frame this cell is labeled
“Clergy.” This is the terminology widely
used in designation of Estates from 1300 to
1790. Perhaps the term should be “Church”
because the First Estate included not only those
who served as active members of the clergy but
also to the administrative and organizational
structure of the Roman Catholic Church.
After The Reformation, various Protestant
denominations assumed similar roles, such as the
Church of England in Great Britain and the
Commonwealth.
Roles of the
“Clergy” -- we are referring here to the “this worldly” roles as
opposed to the “other worldly” roles -- in the
1300 to 1790 time frame included provision of
schools, hospitals, social welfare programs,
records of population statistics, granting
licenses to create Households (marriage
licenses), taxes for a number of public
purposes, support of the arts and
moral guidance, especially at the Household,
Cluster and Neighborhood scales.
From
Column Three on, the term used for the First
Estate is “Agency” as defined in GLOSSARY.
As noted above, Agency is one of the
three organizational types beyond the individual
/ Household that are formed by citizens.
The others are Enterprise and Institution.
It was from 1775 to 1794 in the US of A, that a
fundamental shift in the responsibility for
health, safety and welfare as well as education
took place - from the Clergy (church) to public
Agencies. While many of the direct
functions were, and still are, carried out by
Institutions, the responsibility for ensuring
that these Institutions exist and meet the needs
of citizens is a responsibility of Agencies (aka,
the governance structure).
In this
time frame, the role of the “Clergy” was
transformed in the US of A by the concept of
“religious freedom” and “separation of
church and state.” By and large, the
“this worldly” role of “the organized
church” shifted to Agencies of governance.
It was not that the Agencies carried out all
these tasks but that Agencies were now
responsible to see that there were Organizations
to secure the health, safety and welfare of all
citizens. Over time Institutions,
Individuals and Households and some Enterprises
– e. g. private, for profit hospitals and
colleges – took on these responsibilities.
By 2008 the vast majority of the actions were
not taken by Agencies but by Institutions - not
for profit corporations that are defined as
Institutions in GLOSSARY. “Public
Utilities,” limited profit corporations and
other “regulated” Institutions act like
Enterprises or have Enterprise
subsidiaries.
The shift of the First
Estate “worldly role” of the Clergy to
Agency, and the shift of the other-worldly role
of the Clergy to Institutions is the First
Estate Conversion.
As noted in PART
I, and further discussed in PART IV,
“separation of church and state” assumed
that the church (Clergy), when separated from the
state (Agency), would remain an Estate with
primary responsibility for “other worldly”
activities. As we shall see, the
Conversion of the church to just another
Institution resulted in individual church
denominations evolving to compete for, and
primarily represent the interest of, its members
and not society as a whole.
One role of the Clergy (Church) prior to 1974
was to create and maintain the sub-municipal
level of governance (the Parish) that did not
require a license (charter) from the Nobility
(Second Estate) to exist. This role
atrophied with the establishment of multiple
churches without coterminous “congregation
territories.” This vacuum at the Cluster
and Neighborhood scale exists to this day.
It is partially and incompletely filled by
property owners associations, civic associations
and sub-municipal ward / magisterial /
councilmanic (sic) districts.
The
First Estate Conversion created Agencies at
three levels:
-
Nation-state
-
State (province)
-
Municipal
As noted
below in “TIME OUT” and in PART IV, this
three-tier structure has ossified and failed to
evolve to reflect economic, social and physical
reality that now finds New Urban Regions the
most important building block of contemporary
civilization and a vastly increased role for
inter-regional and international economic,
social and physical Agencies, Enterprises and
Institutions.
Row 3
The
third row is devoted to the Second Estate and
the first cell is labeled “Nobility.”
In the US of A, the Second Estate made a
Fundamental Change similar to the First Estate
at the time of the Revolution. Before 1775, the
Second Estate was the Nobility and after 1794
the role of the Second Estate was assumed by the
well-to-do, landed gentry.
Some of
the roles of the Nobility - defense, regional
security, taxes for roads and navigation,
licences (charters) to create urban enclaves and
creation of Enterprises shifted to Agencies with
some role for Institutions.
However, the landed gentry controlled political
parties and held the senior positions in
Agencies and Institutions in time frame three
(column 4). Over succeeding
time frames the control of the Second Estate
shifted more and more to the well-to-do and to
the Enterprises they owned.
The rise of
stockholders fundamentally changed Enterprises.
While a well-to-do owner might have multiple
objectives for the Enterprise he / she
controlled, the advent of stockholders /
investors put the emphasis squarely on profits.
Since 1837 laws and regulations to protect the
interests of stockholder / investors have
changed the dynamics of Enterprises
Enterprises now reflect the interests of
managers and of investors. These interests
may not be the same with respect to details of
operations but they are both focused on profit.
Managers now like to claim they are looking out
for the interests the large number of
“owners” who have interests via mutual funds
and retirement programs. This introduces a
third focus of interest, that of the fund
manager (aka, “Masters of the Universe”).
Since 1950 the role of Enterprises has increased
exponentially within the Second Estate. By
2008 there is almost exclusive domination by
Enterprises. While Enterprises were
frequently owned or controlled by the very
wealthy in prior time frames, the focus has
shifted to management and stockholders. It
is the Enterprise, in particular the
Corporation, that is the focus of the Second
Estate at the present time. (See resources
cited in End Note Ten.)
A shift from
Nobility to Enterprise is Estate Conversion Two.
Both Conversion One and Two are initiated in the
third time, column four frame (1775 to 1794).
However, the Second Estate (Enterprises) continued to
change over succeeding time frames while the
First Estate (Agencies) changed far less.
Like
Agencies, there are “levels” of Enterprise
ranging from Dooryard, Cluster and Neighborhood
to Village, Community, subregion, Region an on to
Multi-regional, nation-state and multi-national.
Due to a failure to understand the organic
structure of human settlement patterns, "out-of-scale" Enterprises contribute to dysfunctional
human settlement patterns, as will be documented
in the Backgrounder, "The Problem with
Cars" (forthcoming).
Row
4
The Third Estate (Commoners)
depicted in the forth row is far more complex
than the first two.
From 1794
to 2008 this Estate experienced as much
Fundamental Change as the First (Clergy) and the
Second (Nobility) Estates. However, there
is not a single landmark event or time frame for
the Conversion such as there was in Row 2 and
3. The role and importance of the
stalwarts of the pre-1775 “Commons” - trade,
crafts, finance, insurance, banking, merchants,
markets grew after 1775.
As
noted in Row 2, after 1775 the Clergy (church)
lost its own Estate. It became part of the
Third Estate as an interest group outside the
realm of Agencies (First Estate) –
“separation of church and state” – or
Enterprises (Second Estate) – because it was
not a for-profit organization. Some of the
roles of the church in governance at the
Dooryard, Cluster and Neighborhood scales has
shifted primarily to Individuals / Households
but most are floating in limbo. Some
activities of the church are carried out by
Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions. The governance and security at the Village and
Community scales was shifted to Agencies.
The biggest change for the Third Estate during
the 1775-1794 time frame was that large numbers
of yeoman farmers joined the Third Estate.
This enabled the merchants / craftsmen, et. al,
to gain political swat. This change was
more theory than reality during the early
administrations, when Agencies and Enterprises
were controlled by the well to do and the landed
gentry. That changed with the election of
Andrew Jackson in 1828. The core of
Jackson’s platform was to expand the status
and opportunity of the “common man.”
By 1837 the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution were expanding the number of
industries and the population of factory
workers. The larger factories were
controlled by the Second Estate but the workers,
especially the skilled workers and managers,
became part of the Third Estate.
By
1950 the Conversion of the Third Estate created
a substantially different configuration of
interests.
By this time the Third
Estate had morphed from an Estate of farmers,
craftsmen, merchants with a non-urban
orientation to an Estate with an urban
orientation. Managers, senior factory
workers, independent farmers, and white collar
office workers had coalesced into something
called “The Middle Class.”
Institutions had become much more important but
had not yet displaced informal groups and like-minded individuals who made up The Middle
Class.
By 2008 The Middle Class has
by many measures disappeared. Perhaps it
is more accurate to say that most of those
that were in the old Middle Class became
“otherwise occupied.” They are running
as hard as they can in an attempt to keep up
with those at the top of the economic food
chain. This mad scramble to keep up fuels
Mass OverConsumption and Business As Usual.
The former member
of the Middle Class, the Running as Hard as
They Cans (RHTCs), are profiled in depth in
PROPERTY DYNAMICS.
Institutions now dominate the Third
Estate.
It is useful to
repeat that an Institution is a cause or belief
driven Organization and that Institutions
support the members, founders or management of
the Organization. Much of the wealth that was
once controlled by Households has ended up in
Institutions. Each Institution has its own
agenda and its own resources to implement that
agenda to benefit the Institution. That
agenda may support or undermine the goals of
Agencies, Enterprises, other Institutions or the
health, safety and welfare of citizens
(individuals and Households).
Like Agencies and Enterprises, Institutions
operate at all levels of settlement patterns
with Institutions that focus from the Dooryard
and Cluster scales to one with a Global
orientation.
This is an appropriate place
to point out that to achieve the status of an
Alpha Community there is a need, not just for
functional Agencies at the Community scale (and
at all levels above and below the scale of the
Community) but that there is a need for
Community Enterprises and Community
Institutions. This means not just a
functional governance structure but Institutions
such as a Community hospital, a Community
college, a Community theater, etc.
Time
Out
At this point it is useful
to depart temporarily from the row-by-row
survey. Now that the scope and intent of
The Estate Matrix is clear from the review of
Rows 2, 3 and 4, it is instructive to consider
the following overview with respect to
governance and the broader concept of the “management of civilization.”
For
perhaps three million years – since before
human ancestors migrated out of Africa –
humans evolved the Three Estates / No Estate
structure. It started with extended
Households, bands, clans, tribes and evolved in
fits and starts. However, by 1302 this
structure was widely accepted in the territory
that became the European Union. This evolution
is further explored in PART III. Over the
next 500 years Two Profound Transformations laid
the ground work for the Estate Conversions.
When the US of A was created,
the Three Estates
were transported into a new context. The
Clergy and the Nobility were stripped of
controlling power. The ideal was to
eliminate No Estate. However, all humans
did not become citizens until indentured
servitude was curtailed, slavery made illegal
and women gained full participation in the
governance process. As indicated by the
percentage who occupy the No Estate category,
this goal still has not been achieved, even in
the US of A and other First World
nation-states.
One of the reasons
that this (and other parameters of safety and
happiness) have not been achieved is that the
governance structure – the framework of the
First Estate (Agencies) was not optimum in 1789
and has not evolved in any significant way since
that time.
The US of A
governance structure put in place by the
Constitution in 1789 can be characterized as a
three-level, three-branch system. We might
call this a 3X3 system. The three branches
(executive, judicial, and legislative) were
intended to avoid the concentration of power
that the Nobility had agglomerated, specifically
in Great Britain just prior to the Revolution.
The First Estate was seen as the
“government” but there was no comprehensive
conversion of powers that were held by the three
pre-1775 Estates. There was no conversion
of the Three Estates powers to the three
branches of government and it would have been a
mistake to make such a conversion. It
would be “convenient” to think of the role
of the Commoners becoming the legislative branch
but that is clearly not the case.
The role of
Clergy split in two, the role of the Nobility
split in three, the role of Commoners fragmented
and while many within No Estate gained standing
in one of the three “new” Estates, there
were many others that did not.
In
retrospect, there was real genius in the three
branches, although there was precedent for three
branches in the system in Great Britain forged
over the prior 709 years (or 560 years,
depending on whether the starting date was 1066
(Norman Conquest) or 1215 (Magna Carta).
There were also practical politics in the two
houses of Congress and most state legislatures
that have served citizens well.
There was less genius in the three levels of
governance: nation-state, state (province) and
municipal. These three levels were
hangovers from the Roman Empire and before.
Adding the “County” to manage the judicial,
legislative and administrative functions in
nonurban areas where the vast majority of humans
existed did not contribute much. A 3.5X3 system
is not a substitute for a 7X3 system.
In the most favorable
light, the three level structure reflected a
society with five percent urban citizens and 95
percent nonurban. The nonurban humans were
primarily surfs, peasants and tenant farmers
eking out a subsistence living and becoming
cannon fodder in time of crisis. They made
up much of the No Estate cohort.
The
Northwest Ordinance of 1791 codified the 3.5X3
system, applying the three-plus level structure to govern the new territories as they
became part of the US of A.
Urban
society now exhibits six levels of organic
structure below the nation-state. In fact these
levels existed prior to 1775 in nonurban
settlement patterns. However, this reality
was not reflected in the governance structure
because this structure relied on the pre-1790
three Estate structure. (For a more
complete discussion of this issue see Chapter 15
of The Shape of the Future.)
As seen
in the European Union in 2008, the nation-state
is not “the” all-important level of
governance that it was thought to be in 1794.
What worked in 1794 does not work in 2008.
The profound need for Fundamental Change in
governance structure is a result of the Estate
Conversions and emergence of organic levels of
human activity and human settlement patterns.
Beyond the need for change in governance
structure, there is a need for Fundamental
Change to evolve an effective way to manage
civilization that goes beyond the
“improvement” of governance or the
restructuring of “government.”
Finally, as we shall see below, there was no
entity to fill the void in the Fourth Estate
when MainStream Media decamped and became just
another form of Enterprise in the Second Estate.
As will be explored in PART IV, an important
goal is that no single Estate should concentrate
power or dominate the other Estates. There
is historical documentation of attempts to exert control of one
Estate by another, as when Henry VIII (Second
Estate) created and then controlled the Church
of England in place of the Roman Church.
Now back to a
review of the remaining Rows:
Row 5
The fifth row is devoted to
the Fourth Estate. While there are no
entries in prior time frames, the Fourth Estate
(journalists and journalism, aka The Media) did
not just “appear” in 1837. Some
aspects of “Journalism” (reporting,
recording – at this point “remembering”
– and dissemination of information) were
practiced long before the emergence of
functional writing 5,000 years ago.
The history of the Fourth Estate is briefly
reviewed in PART III of this Backgrounder.
Suffice it to say, what is now “The Media”
played the key role in all the events of
1302 to 1790 (Column 2)
especially after the invention of moveable type
circa 1455. The media was an important
catalyst in the events of time frames two
(Column 3) and three (Column 4).
The Fourth Estate, however, did not become a
“recognized entity” until it was identified
and named in Great Britain by Edmond Burke, as
reported by Thomas Carlyle and others. Burke observed that the power of the press in
1837 made them “The Fourth Estate.” He
applied the still commonly accepted First
Estate, Second Estate, Third Estate
categorization of the components of societal
management of the time. This is another
argument against the proposition that the three
Estates disappeared between 1775 and 1815. (See End
Note Twenty-three.)
The original Fourth Estate had its peak
influence in the late 19th and the first half of
the 20th Centuries. After the second World
War, it appeared to be growing in influence
because of the emergence of television –
joining radio and print journalism – as
components of MainStream Media.
In fact, the impact of the Fourth Estate was on
the decline because of the Fourth Estate
Conversion. Large journalism Organizations
were becoming Enterprises by 1950.
These corporations were frequently owned by the
immediate family of a “golden age publisher”
but they transitioned to stockholder-owned Enterprises
by 1950 or soon thereafter. By 2008 they are almost exclusively Enterprises which
are controlled by stock holders, profit margins
and return on investments, as noted in PART
I. Employment of those with formal
training in “journalism” peaked in radio in
the early '80s, and in print media in the early
'90s. The total number of journalists
produced by colleges and universities continues
to grow but they now apply their skills in
advertising and other parts of the “Spin
Sector.” The average age of print media
Journalist reflects the lack of entry level job
opportunities. (These issues are further
explored in Part III.)
The shift from
assuming a “separate” role in the
Fourth Estate to taking part of the Second Estate is
perhaps the most profound, and surely the most
unrecognized of the five Estate
Conversions. When MainStream Media (MSM)
left the Fourth Estate, there remained the
“alternative media.” We will explore
who filled the void left by MSM after a review
of Row 6.
Row 6
The sixth row, No Estate, is
critical, as suggested earlier. The
“Process of Civilization” can be
characterized as the Conversion of those with No
Estate into one of the three (and later four)
Estates. Fairy Tales are often stories
about humans in No Estate moving into one of the
Three Estates. This is where the most
significant Estate Conversion has taken
place.
From 1303 until 2008, the
number of people who are represented by “none
of the four Estates” in control of the course
of civilization has dramatically decreased from
perhaps 98% of the population in some 14th
Century and 15th Century kingdoms to 90 percent of the
population of France in 1789 to half the
population just a few decades later in the
United States.
That percentage has
declined in the periods 1837, 1950 and 2008.
There is still perhaps still 20 percent of the
population, “the poor” and the those
economic and social “radicals” who are
living ‘off grid.” They are
effectively left out of the role as citizens
regardless of legal or theoretical
“rights.”
Before leaving the
discussion of the Anatomy of The Estates Matrix, two important
items are left to consider: The Percentage
numbers in each cell and who replaced MainStream
Media in the Fourth Estate.
The
Percentage in Each Estate
The
information most subject to debate are the
percentages the total population that fall
within each one of the cells on the Matrix. As
noted above, the percentages in parenthesis in
each cell of The Estates Matrix is the percentage
of the population in a kingdom, principality or
nation-states that identifies with, votes and takes
actions in the marketplace on issues primarily
in the interest of one of the four Estates plus
No Estate. Now that the full scope of The
Estates Matrix has been laid out, one can more
carefully consider these numbers.
For example, consider the percentages in the
2008 column. There are more public (Agency)
employees than the 8 percent of the population, however,
many of the individuals in the larger groups
(teachers, public safety workers and scientists)
may not vote or take actions to represent the
best interest of the Agencies where they work.
This is particularly true for the Agencies that
are dominated by political factions. Recall that
political parties, political actions committees
and similar entities are Institutions, not
Agencies.
The same is true with the
Enterprises: Far more
than 15 percent of the population is employed by Enterprises but that
does not mean that even the leadership or the
stockholders of specific Enterprises vote or
take actions which are in the best interest of
the Enterprise. The legal responsibility of the
managers of Enterprises to optimize profit --
which
really means optimizing short term profit -- would create an
intolerable condition if carried to extreme. That is especially
true with a largely unrecognized and thus
largely powerless NEW Fourth Estate.
Again, with the Institutions, most citizens are
members of many Institutions. An
individual may belong to a church, a political
party, a labor union, a bowling club and many
others. Citizens do not and could not take
actions which were in the best interest of each
of those Institutions. This makes
the 45 percent +/- of the population that primarily
takes actions in the interest of the individual
citizen and Household particularly important.
This is overwhelmingly true because 70 percent
of the economy of the US of A is based on
consumer consumption. Unfortunately the
great majority of these, as pointed out in
PROPERTY DYNAMICS, are RHTCs. They must
devote all their energies to keeping up and
cannot participate actively or intelligently in
the Institutions, including political parties,
much less in Enterprises and Agencies.
Who
Will Fill the Void Left When MainStream Media
Abandoned the Fourth Estate?
First, no one says the Fourth Estate is
completely vacant. “The alternative
media” are attempting to fill some of the void
but they lack an overarching Conceptual
Framework in which to focus their activities.
Next, there are millions of informal grassroots
“networks,” especially ones focusing on
single issues and on culture war topics. Most of these networkers (bloggers, newsletter
contributors and readers, etc.,) do not know
they are in the Fourth Estate because they lack
an understanding of the need for an Estates Conceptual Framework. In
addition many of them are disoriented and
“global” because they are on the web and
they welcome all comers as a sign of “growth.”
Networkers often lack a territorial anchor much
less an understanding of the organic structure
of human settlement patterns.
Finally, there are some who believe that The
Middle Class exists outside the rhetoric of
political posturing. These Middle Class
true believers do what they can with supper
clubs, quasi study circles and other face-to-face groups.
In addition there are a few
Institutions that support these interests.
The
most important aspect of the Fourth Estate
Conversion is that few yet realize that, as
the First, Second and
Third Estates converted to Organizations (Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions)
and
as MainStream Media became part of the Second
Estate, citizens (individuals and
Households) were left with no focused voice. They
are just voters, customers and members.
The greatest potential for a robust Fourth
Estate lies in the citizens (Individuals /
Households) that were once in the Middle Class
– especially RHTCs – who are no longer
represented by the Institutions of the Third
Estate and citizens who are bootstrapping
themselves up from No Estate. All these
citizens are in danger of falling back into No
Estate due to the aggressive work of the
denizens of the Second Estate (especially
MainStream Media) and Third Estate.
How do citizens secure a place in the Fourth
Estate? By continuing what they have done
to get to the threshold. They are at the
door via new ways to communicate outside the
other three Estates and especially outside
MainStream Media. They started slowly with
letters, handbills, essays and self-published
books. The telegraph, the telephone and
the FAX allowed them to expand their scope and
set the table for an exponential leap. The
Internet and Blogging exploded from 1986 to
2008. By 2008, citizens (individuals and
Households) have the tools and the potential to
control what was for a brief period of time the
role of journalism.
In their
rush to sell more “stuff,” the Second Estate
has armed those who have to potential to end
Mass OverConsumption and Business As Usual.
Citizens, due to
the emergence of electronic communications, the
Internet, telephone and the skepticism about
what they read or saw or heard in traditional
“journalism” outlets, can emerge as the new
Fourth Estate. Could this be the second
coming of Bacon’s Rebellion?
As suggested in PROPERTY DYNAMICS the majority
of the citizens (individual/Households) are now
so occupied by Running as Hard as They Can (RHTCs), they have little time to effectively
participate in governance or in political
activities as the Fourth Estate drifts without
a rudder. We will revisit this issue in
PART IV.
--
December 10, 2007
End
Notes
(10).
For an interesting discussion of this
perspective see “Who
Rules Virginia?,” 29 October 2007, on the
Bacon's Rebellion website, and “The
Political Economy of Growth,” 1 November
2007 in the Bacon’s Rebellion blog.
The latter reviews the issues raised over 30
years ago by Harvey Molotch in “The City as a
Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of
Place.” This essay, referenced in The Shape of
the Future, provides insights useful in
discussions presented in PARTS II, III and IV.
(11).
The following is an edited excerpt from a recent
note to a WaPo editor and writer. (See
APPENDIX TWO.) Billions of dollars are
being spent every year to stall the advent of
broad citizen understanding of reality. The most
significant Business-As-Usual “investments”
in obfuscating the future are:
These
categories make up the “venture capital” of
Mass OverConsumption. It worked for tobacco,
cotton and sugar. It is now working for
Autonomobiles, petroleum, corn, big grid energy,
toll roads and other exponents of Mass
OverConsumption. The myths and illusions that
the investment in misinformation buys obfuscate
reality concerning every aspect of Business As
Usual. Even the meaning of reality
is muddled and in dispute.
(12).
One of the concepts to be explored in TRILO-G will be the need
for science to move
beyond “peer review.”
(13).
The genetic roots of this system go back perhaps
3 to 5 million years but the evolution of the
three Estates comes into focus over the past 13
millennia and is made intelligible by the work of
Jared Diamond and others.
(14).
It is interesting to speculate at what point in
the evolution of the Three Estates that members
of a band, clan or tribe became so unimportant
as to loose standing and status. At the
outset, everyone was important to the survival
of the group, as noted in PART III.
(15).
This last sentence and other statements in the
Anatomy of The Estate Matrix are intentionally
broad generalizations. The advantage
of using The Estate Matrix as a Conceptual
Framework is that the idea of the three, and
later four, Estates grew over thousands of years
and by 1302 was well accepted in Europe.
The Estates were a major topic of discussion
before and especially during the French
Revolution. It was still in wide enough
use in 1837 for the Fourth Estate moniker to
stick as a description for print media and to survive to this
date.
(16).
The percentage numbers are broad
generalizations, especially in Column 2.
The role of citizens in the Cantons (and
nation-state-wide) in Switzerland, in
city-states such as Sienna and in other
jurisdictions varied widely over the five-and-one-half centuries from 1300 to
1790. All
the statements, but especially these percentage
numbers in The Estates Matrix, are “order of
magnitude” approximations intended to
establish a Conceptual Framework. They are
not a definitive articulation based on
multi-disciplinary research. Suggestions
on evolving the language and these
quantifications are welcome.
(17).
There is one specific complication associated
with the “identification with” percentage:
It is a “Household identification with
percentage” up until Column 6 (1950).
(“Household” is defined in GLOSSARY. Column 6 shifts to an individual
citizen “identification with percentage” for
Estates One through Four. The reason is
straight forward: In Column 5 (1837) women did
not have a vote in most societies that now
comprise the First World.
Because this is an “order of magnitude”
percentage, trying to sort out the influence
that women had in the market place and in the
voting booth for the time frames before 1950 is
beyond the scope of this inquiry. Adding a
1920 Column to reflect woman’s suffrage in the
US of A would not clarify the important
Transformations and Conversions that are the focus of The
Estates Matrix. The influence of women in
the market place and in the voting booth before
they had the right to vote could be part of a
future refinement of The Estates Matrix.
(18).
Here is a brief summary of how the territory
that is now the European Union got to 1302.
This summary is over simplified but provides a
sketch for those who slept through or have
forgotten high school World History:
With the decline of the Roman Empire in the
fourth century AD, a complex array of empires,
kingdoms, principalities, city-states, religious
groups, trading partnerships and tribes held
sway over territories in what became the
European Union. The Christian Church in
Rome grew in power. With this expansion of
influence there also emerged the widespread
belief that the world would end at the
Millennium. When the world did not end,
“leaders” of all the Organizations that
existed at the time “hitched up their
drawers” and tried to create systems of
governance and management to achieve their
Organizations' “this
worldly” goals.
These were
not “dark” ages (either before or after the
Millennium) except in the sense what happened is
not simple, easily summarized or clear to
contemporary observers. (They were brutal
times but the last 80 years been brutal as well
with the first two World Wars, Atomic Bombs,
Genocide of unprecedented scope, etc.) By
the early 14th Century, events such as Runnymede / Magna Carta (1215) in England and
the calling of the First Estates General (1302)
began to establish frameworks for governance at
the municipal, provincial and nation-state
levels.
The Wikipedia entry on
“Estates of the realm” provides an overview
of the “Three Estates,” not just in France
but in Scotland, United Kingdom and elsewhere in
what is now the European Union.
(19).
The Black Death arrived from Asia Minor in 1346
and ravaged Europe in recurring epidemics during
the rest of the 1300s. As David Herlihy
has documented, The Black Death weeded out much
of the Organizational dead wood that had
accumulated in Europe in all three Estates after
the turn of the Millennium. This
“Transformation” – the term coined by
Herlihy (See End Note 21) – was followed by
the “redevelopment of Europe,” the
reinvention of Planned New Communities and the
emergence of other economic and social strategies used
to resettle territory laid fallow by the Black
Plague.
These tools and resources were later employed by
Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France,
Netherlands and others in the colonization of
the “New World.”
(20).
For an interesting perspective on the forces
that caused changes between 1607 to 1790 in the
territory that became US of A see “Berkeley
the Butcher,” 4 September 2007 and
Blog post “”Nathaniel Bacon Vindicated, Gov.
Berkeley Shamed,” 4 September 2007.
(21).
We call these developments “Transformations” not in honor
of science fiction robots or the toys that mimic
theoretical supernatural silliness. We use
the term “Transformations” because that is what
David Herlihy called the first one in his
important book on the Black Death. Herlihy,
David; "The Black Death and the Transformation of
the West"; Cambridge, MA; Harvard
University Press; 1997.
(22).
On page 14 in Chapter 1 of The Shape of the
Future we summarize the third Profound
Transformation as follows: The
progress of industrialization, urbanization and
democracy has caused the human settlement
pattern to:
The underlying basis for
this change in the human settlement patterns
(from nonurban to urban) has been cited by Peter
Drucker as the most important change in human
history. Citizen understanding of the economic,
social and physical context has not kept up with
this phenomenal change. Chapter 1 Box 2 provides
further insight into the evolution of human
settlement pattern components. The text
and graphics of Chapter 1 Box 2 is reproduced as
APPENDIX ONE.
(23).
The
continuing existence of “nobility” and a
royal family in
Great
Britain
and in other nation-states such as
Denmark
and
Sweden
make the Conversion of the Estates more
difficult to follow clearly than in the US of A.
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