Nabil Fares
2 min readJun 14, 2024

--

I like your writing very much but I'm afraid the vision for your book is not compelling enough. Your vision is really a wish that doesn’t delve into the underlying dynamics. If “wishes were horses ...”

Read the book "Super Cooperators" by Novak. The central jewel in that book is that the underlying incentives, whether implicit or explicit, determine whether you get cooperation or domination on top. Incentives drive dynamics and dynamics determine social structure. If you want to analyze a particular social structure, you need to identify the underlying incentives. Conversely, if you desire a particular social structure, you must identify compelling incentives whose adoption would get you there. Incentives are at the heart of systems and grand narratives describe either implicitly or explicitly the incentives of the social-economic-political game being played.

For example, underlying the Capitalist narrative are incentives for individual power mediated through the control of finance. Therefore, you get a hierarchical structure with domination on top. Underlying the Soviet-Communist narrative are incentives for individual power mediated through party membership. Therefore, you again get a hierarchical structure with domination on top, though through a different mechanism. China has a grand narrative built on the Confucius-based culture with a “common prosperity” theme which is still being articulated. China's narrative has incentives for both cooperation and competition.

To get “beggars to ride”, you must provide a grand narrative where the dominant incentives are for cooperation.

I believe that through your experience and compelling writing you can highlight the incentives underlying the Western-Colonial-Capitalist narrative. Can you provide a compelling narrative for a 'new world order' with incentives that will make your wish come true?

--

--