Social rules are what I like to call “important.” In Who Rules the Earth?, Paul Steinberg explains to his readers how socially constructed rules shape and govern different areas of the earth (Steinberg 2015). He claims that “… these rules — which social scientists call institutions — are the machinery that makes coordinated social activity possible” (Steinberg 2015, 11). An important aspect of Steinberg’s argument, which he delves into for the most part of his book, is not only how societies form rules themselves, but how the coalescence of various societies, understood through economic, political, and cultural terms, incorporate rules into their interlocking relationships. One of the main arguments Steinberg presses, however, tells us that if we want to successfully combat the effects of climate change, we have to change the rules we live by (Steinberg 2015, 15).
But how is it possible to change the rules we live by? And, what does this mean? To understand how it is possible to change the rules we live by, me must understand Steinberg’s definition of rules. According to the author, there are two types of rules. First, there are those rules that a group of children may create setting up a game at the playground. These type of rules, such as no one can go past the rocks, construct the inner workings of civilization, which is just a vast infrastructure of rules (steinberg 2015, 245-6). Steinberg claims, “Every business and every community, every religion and non-profit organization, every terrorist network, taco vendor, and art museum relies on social rules to achieve its ends” (Steinberg 2015, 246). Some may critique this viewpoint as too simple a way to understand the complex structures that the social world operates on. However, the author further introduces an exogenous set of rules that govern the way these social rules may be created. Steinberg calls these super rules. For instance, small organizations may not carry out their goals any way they intend to, unless the social rules comply with the government’s allowance. If one wanted to join the UN security council, she would not be able to simply show up. She would have to, among few options, align herself with an “accredited” NGO which is permitted to attend UN functions (Steinberg 2015, 247). The reason it is important to study these rules, the author claims, is that these super rules
“Lock in place power relations among groups of people and reproduce these relationships down through the generations.” Furthermore, “When these super rules undergo change… the effects reverberate throughout the entire system, affecting numerous policies and regulatory standards by revising the very process through which rules are created” (Steinberg 2015, 247).
This understanding of rules, albeit clear and thought-provoking, essentially implies something else. That the systems which are bigger than individual social rules truly govern, or, rule the earth.
One of the underpinning arguments of this book is that although individual actions may seem significant to a person, it is really the overarching institutions that control the earth. This argument is what most affected me while reading this book. Although my family is very intent on constantly recycling, minimizing food waste, and trying to keep our energy consumption relatively low, I have always understood this to be as almost insignificant in the overall scheme of the world and its population. This book in practice allowed to pinpoint how I actually feel about the planet and its population’s carbon footprint, and how to not “think globally and act locally,” but simply how to think globally and act. This newly found understanding of mine may come from Steinberg’s theory of thinking vertically (Steinberg 2015, 181), which states that different pieces of action should coalesce to create greater, amalgamated outcomes. Or perhaps the notion that scarce water resources fueled the US Water Department to create incentives for residents to plant water wise plants (Steinberg 2015, 265). The situations and ideas that the author has presented in this book has not only enriched my ideas of how the world’s people traverse the rules that they have made for ourselves, but also of how the world can and should be changed.
Citations
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York: Oxford University Press.