社会复杂化的出现——不仅仅和人口规模有关

The Emergence of Social Complexity:Why More than Population Size Matters

社会复杂化的出现是目前学术界比较关注的复杂的研究问题之一,本文将从人类合作和社会经济网络的视角来考察社会经济复杂化。尽管越来越多的学者意识到人口和社会复杂化之间的关系,但是只从人口因素一个方面不能全面解释人类社会复杂化。人类群体的规模和社会复杂化是有联系的,但并不是以一种机械的方式联系在一起。当我们不断去审视人口和复杂化之间的关系时逐渐发现一体化是我们值得考虑的非常重要的因素。人类社会在相互合作中形成了不同的一体化模式,整合的方式不同会影响规模和等级复杂化之间的关系。在大型社会政治实体中,规模和复杂化之间的关系会受到一体化性质和程度的影响。同时要理解组织复杂化出现所遵循的不同历史道路,必须对一体化不同的模式给予更多关注。

The emergence of social complexity is one of those research questions that is big,complicated and important.In this discussion,socioeconomic complexity is considered within the broader comparative context of human cooperation and socioeconomic networks.Despite the repeated correlations found between population and complexity,demographic factors alone can never fully account for the organizational complexity of human society.When zooming down on the size-complexity relationship,we realize integration is a meaningful third factor to consider.There are different integrative modes of fostering cooperation in human society.Different modes and means of integration can seemingly modify the relationship between scale and hierarchical complexity.To understand these divergent historical pathways through which organizational complexity emerged,we must give more formal focus to different modes of integration.