The Rule of 150 - Power Biologically Corrupts

Many years ago I read in Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller The Tipping Point about the Rule of 150. This idea has fundamentally altered the way I look at people. This idea is accepted though not widely known, and has been covered on major online publications such as Medium and BBC.

The Rule of 150 broadly suggests that humans can only handle 150 relationships at one time. There is scientific and historical evidence to validate this theory, thanks to anthropologist Robin Dunbar. Dunbar developed this theory through studying the brains of various mammals including humans. He determined the size of the neo cortex of mammals (such as birds, rats and monkeys) correlates to the size of the tribes in which they live. For humans that's 150.

Historically, hunter-gatherer tribes rarely exceeded 150 members. A fairly recent example is the Hutterites, a subsect of Amish - when their tribes reached 150 members, they would split up into two groups of 75 and go their separate ways. One very modern example is the company Gore Tex. They restructured their company based on this Rule of 150 and have thrived under it while abolishing hierarchy. This rule has been recognized in business psychology outside of just Gore Tex.

How did hunter-gatherer and Hutterite tribes intuitively understand this rule of 150? Since everybody knows eachother, it is very difficult to misbehave and get away with it. Whenever this happened, everyone would find out, then the guilty party would be exposed and ostracized. Gossip was the primary mechanism to maintain order, so there was no need for police. However, once a group size exceeded 150 there would be subtle changes that disrupted harmony, such as seedy behaviour going unpunished, or subgroups subverting the tribe.

When everyone knows eachother cooperation and harmony come more naturally. People want to help out their neighbours, and in small enough social groups everyone is practically your neighbour. The intimacy of social groups of less than 150 allowed them to exist with an egalitarian structure where broadly there is no hierarchy. There may be some informal power given to the chief of the tribe, but that power is earned through respect and wisdom. Since the chief knows everyone, he truly wants to do what's best for them, and since everyone knows the chief, it's very difficult for the chief to abuse their power.

Power Biologically Corrupts

Upon thinking more deeply about the Rule of 150 I have arrived at an important theory that I have not yet read anywhere else: humans are not meant to have power over others.

Humans are not biologically evolved for this capability. Our brains are not wired to have power over others. Power biologically corrupts.

Humans are not meant to have power over others - art by Mark Bryan

Modern humans have essentially the same brains as ~200,000 years ago, and arguably as far back as 2 million years ago with the emergence of homo erectus. Even going by the first number, humans adopted the culture or lifestyle of hunter-gatherer for almost 190,000 years, or 95% of its existence.

Thus, our modern brains are still hard-wired for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. One in which humans lived in closed societies of 150 people or less, everyone knew eachother, and so everyone wanted to do what was in the best interest of the group, because that was also in their own best interest. Our modern brains are still hard-wired for egalitarian societies in which humans broadly do not have power others.

Our modern brains are not hard-wired for hierarchical societies in which humans have power over others. And yet this is how society evolved. With the advent of agriculture humans began experimenting with a new way of life settling in to one place. At first villages were less than 150 so the egalitarian way could be maintained.

But as I explained in this blog agriculture as an early experiment was a runaway train of food surplus, population growth and expansion that, once started, was very difficult to stop. This experiment which began as small villages where everyone knew eachother, unified over the next 12,000 years to become a single global society of more than 7 billion people, governed by extremely complex organizations wielding great power. Yet these organizations are still run by individuals who are bestowed unprecedented amounts of power.

Power biologically corrupts. This is why we see that no such large organization exists without some sort of corruption or abuse of its power by the people who run them. The larger the organization the more disconnected from society the people run them become. Sitting in ivory towers in front of screens, the people they serve become more numbers, more faceless.

Stalin quoted, "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." There is another quote I forget says that when a government reaches a certain threshold size it begins to look after its own interests. These quotes are examples of why no large organization can be trusted for the very task they are created for, organizing or serving society.

People running the largest organizations lose sight of the people - art by mear one

Capitalism and socialism are two systems of organization that, in theory, divide resources and opportunity equally among all people. However, these systems require organizations to carry out its mandate. Within capitalism, corporations carry out its mandate. Corporations, however, have gotten so large that the people who run them have lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve, and become biologically corrupted by their immense power. They run the corporation in a way that erodes the free market principles that underpin capitalism, and no longer treat people as humans, but as numbers.

Within communism, the government carries out its mandate. Communist governments such as Russia and China's, however, have gotten so large that the people who run them have lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve, and become biologically corrupted by their power. They run the government in a way that oppresses the people and centralizes more power and control.

Zoom in a bit and we can see this happening in small businesses and local communities. I have heard countless anecdotes from friends, of their managers abusing their powers or of community leaders and idols using their power to manipulate people, often for sex.

Zoom in to the individual level and we can see this happening in relationships between people, whether it be biological, emotional or professional. The MeToo movement has really exposed many people in power abusing their power for sex, and clarifies this idea that power biologically corrupts.

No matter what scale you look at you see people having power over others abusing that power. At the smallest levels, relationships such as teacher-student, manager-employee or parent-child, power is less corruptible and less visible when it occurs. But at the largest levels, governments and transnational corporations, the correlation of power to corruption is almost guaranteed, and much more difficult to hide no matter how hard these organizations try to.

Solace

This biological trait, this inability for humans to have power over others, wasn't much of a problem for at least 95% of our existence as a species. It's only in the most recent 5% of our history experimenting with a hierarchical society that this biological trait no longer aligns with our environment. This trait is now seen as a flaw. And seeing it as a flaw has helped me reframe my view of individual humans within my species.

Through the pandemic billionaires just got richer and richer

I no longer feel hatred and confusion towards billionaires or fascists. I don't want to say I feel empathetic towards them. But I certainly understand why they do the terrible things they do. They, like anyone else starting out, were just trying to contribute something to the world. They had no idea how successful and powerful they would become, and how that power would corrupt them and turn them into the people they are today.

I certainly don't envy their situation. I wonder, myself, if I were to attain billionaire status would I also become corrupted? I hate to admit it but I probably would. I'm no more virtuous than them. I'm only human, thus my brain is just as fallible to the corruptibility of power as any other human.

It must be ironically dehumanizing to work at a scale and level that dehumanizes everyone around them, that turns humans into numbers. Maybe it's just my bias, but some of these billionaires look less human and more robotic every time I see their faces in the media.

These billionaires don't work, nor appear, at a human level

Even though I have come to understand people who have power and abuse it, this also doesn't resign me to feeling helpless and powerless. In fact, it empowers me to build real connections with those around me. And the more real connections we build face-to-face with people the more resilience we build as communities to provide its members the support they need so that they can reduce their dependence on large organizations.

Decentralization Is Key

The organizations that run our society have become too large. The people that run these organizations have become biologically corrupted by their power and are abusing their power to consolidate even more power, and oppress the very people their organizations were created to serve.

The only answer is to decentralize power. And it's starting to happen at least to big tech, as I wrote in this blog.

Every individual has a role to play to decentralize power by taking steps to reduce dependence on large organizations. Buy local. Transform your community to one that is more geographically focused - apps like Nextdoor facilitate getting to know and helping out your neighbours.

Empower yourself to make positive change. Avoid getting bogged down hate for rich and powerful people. After all they're only human, and humans are not meant to have power over others, because power biologically corrupts.

With great power comes great responsibility - not to abuse it