Societal Order and Evolutive Process

The aim of this chapter is to clarify the concept of societal order, on the one hand, and to put into relation the concept of order with the concept of evolution. As usual, the concept of order is defined based on the identification of its (four) sufficiency predicates, and, in such a context, the issue of revealing an order to a generic observer is examined. Next, the rapport between order and entropy is discussed under three perspectives. Starting from the abstract concept of order, the concept of economic order is introduced by adding new sufficiency predicates, and the rapport between economic order and economic entropy is also clarified. Based on five criteria, a typology of the economic order is proposed, and then the mechanisms working within an economic order are presented, in the framework of the three categories of principles: institutive, regulatory, and evolutionary. Further, the main classes of the economic mechanism are identified and examined, from two distinct perspectives: automatic and discretionary. From the economic order, the analysis passes to the concept of social order, based on which three classes of societies are established: nomic, quasi-nomic, and supra-nomic. Starting from the social order, the societal order is discussed, based also on its own sufficiency predicates, and the relationships between societal order and societal entropy are revealed. Based on some criteria, the typology of the societal order is put into evidence, and a qualitative examination of the identified classes is delivered.