Ultimate Primacy of Human Societies

In Chapter 1 of The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, Michael Mann makes the point that the traditional motivational model is not the primary reason for the development of human societies. Although he acknowledges that it plays a role in the development of human societies, he states that human societies are influenced primarily by the interplay among four distinct sources of power – ideological, economic, military, and political. Together, these four sources of power create and sustain societies. I feel like Mann does himself a disservice by disregarding the motivational model as the ultimate determining element in the growth of human societies.

As a hypothetical example, if I took a group of people and endowed them with a form of currency to start an economy, a set of norms and practices (ideology, in essence), some form of protection, and a system of governance, they still would not necessarily be considered a society according to Mann’s own definition, which states that a society is “a network of social interaction at the boundaries of which is a certain level of interaction cleavage between it and its environment”. If the members of this group were not motivated to survive and improve their lives, they would not be bothered to work together and interact in a societal manner. Rather, it would be every man for himself. The unifying “glue” that would bind the members of this group into a society, then, is motivation. Only if the members of this group wanted to prosper would they attempt to do so by creating religion, an economy, a military, and a system of leadership –

ultimately, a society.

A second point of contention with Mann’s model is its rigidity. I believe you could take away any one of those four sources of power, or even multiple sources of power, and still have a “society”. Certain groups of people such as the Amish, for example, do not possess anything resembling a military. Yet the Amish are still considered a society, because they interact with each other and rely on each other for subsistence. There is a clear distinction between the boundaries of the Amish society and the outside world, which would label the Amish as a “society”, according to Mann’s definition.

Mann’s theory, while giving credit to four very important determining elements of human society, relegates to a secondary role what I believe is the most important element – the motivation of humans to survive. Instead of agreeing with Mann, I would argue the reverse of his opinion. Human motivation takes precedence over ideological, economic, military, and political power in the formation of societies, but without those four sources of power in conjunction with motivation, it would be impossible for societies to form.