Yona Friedman - Social Complexity

8/13/2019 Yona Friedman - Social Complexity

1/9

44

oping with Social omplexityThe quaternary sectorYona FRIEDMANArchitect-planner, 42, Blvd. Pasteur, 75015 Paris, FranceReviewer's introduction_ The French architect-planner YonaFriedman is joining the HSM discussion of self-service andself-help trends in the society by summarizing his many yearsof experience with the Third World countries and by exploring industrial nations counterpart to their quaternary activities. Quaternary activities consist of socially useful work,including do-it-yourself, self-service, and self-help, which isnot reflected in gross national product (GNP). Yona Friedman is not an economist (and it shows in his concept ofmutual subsidy'), he is not an academician (he does not usereferences to the works of others , especially to those dealing

with the quaternary activities), and he ignores possiblewomen's reaction to the growth of household-based activities. But his observations are keen and his insights fresh andself-made_ I am sure that the HSM readers would benefitmost by publishing the article in its simple, unadorned form .I t is the. ideas we are after.

Milan ZELENY

Yona Friedman was born in Budapest, Hungary, on July 5, 1923 . Heemigrated to France in 1945 andbecame naturalized French citizen in1966. He first studied at the Technical University in Budapest, andreceived Dip. Arch. degree from theTechnion, Haifa, Israel, in 1948.Most of his work is based on a strongbelief that architectural objectsshould be determined and designednot by the architect but by theirfuture users. His first book, Mobile Architecture, led ultimately to his founding of Group d Etude d Archite cture Mobile (GEAM) in 1958. Yona Friedman published over 500articles and books, among them: Towards a Scientific Architecture, Les Mecanismes Urbains, L Architecture de Survie,Oil Commence la Ville? and many others. He is now interested in putting into simple language, understood by laymen,the necessary instructions for self-planner and self-designer.

This paper was originally written in 1977.North-Holland Publishing CompanyHuman Systems Management 2 (1981) 44-52

Activities of modern industrial societies are composed ofsocially useful and socially less useful sectors . Concept ofmutual subsidy' is then elaborated on the basis of this classification. The proportions of mutual subsidy are unequal andchanging in different countries of the world. The concept of

quaternary sector, a socially useful work which does notfigure in the gross national product (GNP), is necessary forunderstanding their dynamics. The Third World quaternaryactivities have their industrial counterpart in a modernized quaternary sector' which is already experiencing a progressively accelerating growth. I t is argued that this quaternary development is desirable and increasingly beneficial forhumanity .Keywords: Quaternary sector, do-it-yourself, modernized

quaternary sector, migration, education, status,quaternary technology

1. The quaternary sector as a crisis response1.1. A Scenario o the impoverishment of industrialcountries

Modern industrial society is characterized by aparticular composition of its so-called active population: only a relatively small fraction of this activepopulation furnishes work indispensable for survival,otherwise called 'socially useful' work .I call here 'socially useful' all work that is indis pensable for the life of a society in any conditions.Thus food production , production of a part of theenergy, production of clothing, housing, services ofmaintenance and repair, part of the transportationservices, education, and health care are the main itemsof socially useful activities. On the other hand, luxuryproducts, fashion, a major part of administrative ser-vices and of commercial activities can be considered,among others, as socially less useful. For example,during the Second World War, the non-mobilized population of most European countries survived quitereasonably without the 'less useful' sectors, but suffered much by shortcomings in the 'socially useful'sectors.

0167-2533/81/0000- 0000/$02.50 North-Holland Publishing Company


2/9

Y. Friedman / The quaternary sector 45f we examine the situation from such a point ofview as presented above, only food producers (about7 per cent of the active population, for example, inFrance), a fraction of factory workers in industries(those who produce manufactured goods necessaryfor survival, i.e., about 15 per cent of the wholeactive population), and a small fraction of serviceworkers (about 12 per cent of the active population)- who altogether make up a total of 35 to 40 percent of the active population and 15 to 18 per cent ofthe total population - are doing work indispensablefor survival of the collectivity.The rest of the active population, about 60 to 65per cent, might work very honestly, but the social

utility of their effort could be considered doubtful.If a strike of the socially useful working people couldcause our society to collapse, a strike of those wehave called socially less useful could go on for quite along time without producing major perturbations.As for earnings, it is evident that the income of theless useful 60 per cent is produced indirectly by thework of the socially useful 40 per cent, who, in away, subsidize the former, who are living on the work

of the useful. This fact becomes clear if one considersthat only the 'socially useful' (the 40 per cent) produce things necessary for the whole society's survival:this is the reason they cannot stop work withoutprovoking major trouble. On the other hand, the lessuseful 60 per cent are spending income resulting fromthe production of the 40 per cent, thus redistributingit to the whole society; their utility is thus in causingthe benefit produced by a minority to 'irrigate' thesociety as a whole more evenly. This system ofredistribution could work even if the socially less useful60 per cent did not perform any work and simply gottheir income as a rente originating from what thesocially useful 40 per cent produced. It is evident thatthe current system is in reality less unjust than thissimplified image of 60 per cent rentiers living on thebacks of 40 per cent workers, as our social organization makes the 60 per cent work, even if their work issocially less useful, and gives them their rente as aremuneration for this work, but this partial justicedoes not remedy the general injustice in the system.

An industrial society could thus support up to 60per cent unemployed if they would accept subsistence in utmost scarcity (as happened during the Second World War, when anybody working in or for thewar could be considered, following our criteria, associally less useful).The fact is that the less useful 60 per cent restitute

the larger part of the 'subsidy' to the socially useful40 per cent as consumers of their products.This system is characterized thus by two steps:(a) the socially useful 40 per cent produce practically the whole of the goods and services necessaryfor the survival of a society, thus making possible thesurvival of the socially less useful 60 per cent, whoare thus subsidized;(b) the 60 per cent pay back, as consumers, thelargest part of this 'subsidy' to the 40 per cent.I like to call this system 'mutual subsidy', as thebenefit of the first group subsidizes the second, wholive on it and hand back to the first group a reducedbut substantial part of the benefit. Thus, instead ofthe first group keeping all the profit and the secondbeing reduced to begging, a more even distribution ofthe produced wealth is obtained.

t is evident that a system of mutual subsidy cannot work well in completely closed circuit, particularly if the society's life-style is high above the austerity level: the system has to be jed from outside. Asociety the majority of whose active populationbelongs to the. socially less useful sectors cannot support for long the deficit caused by the mutual subsidysystem. This deficit has to be covered by someincome from the outside. Modern industrial societyassures this income through external trade; thus itexports its own deficit. for other societies which areless industrialized and where the mutual subsidy sys-tem takes less excessive proportions.In less industrialized countries (what we often callthe Third World) the active population was until veryrecent years practically the opposite of that of industrial countries in its composition: it consisted of 60per cent socially useful against 40 per cent less useful. This proportion started to change after theSecond World War; in order to understand well thenature of this change, we first have to explicate anew term - the 'quaternary' sector.

I call 'quaternary sector' that fraction of the population called 'inactive' (as opposed to 'active') thatperforms socially useful work, but whose work doesnot. figure in the gross national product (GNP).Housewives, for example, ~ l o n g to the quaternarysector: their work is useful and. indispensable withoutbeing recompensed by an income. The same is true ofdo-it-yourself craftsmen, Sunday gardeners, Sundayartists, etc. Indeed, one could say that in industrialsocieties the traditional quaternary sector could bedivided into two major groups: that of weekdays(housewives) and that of Sundays (the others).


3/9

46 Y Friedman / The quaternary sectorIn the Third World today the quaternary sector isdifferent, as it does not look for leisure but tries toassure subsistence. t becomes more and more size-able: with an active population totalling often notmore than about 20 per cent of the whole population(wherein only about half - 10 per cent of the totalpopulation - is performing socially useful work),there is a quaternary sector which often comprises asmuch as 70 per cent of the whole population. Thisphenomenon is a consequence of the growing unemployment in the classic sectors. The quaternary members of the Third World are mostly inhabitants ofshantytowns who perform work simply in order tosurvive: they build themselves their shelters; they

keep a minuscule kitchen garden, some chickens, andeventually a goat in order to assure a part of theirfood; and they survive thus without spending anymoney, as they earn practically none. For example, inone of the largest cities of the Third World about 45per cent of the inhabitants make less income than thestrict minimum necessary for survival, but in spite ofthis they are reasonably fed through their 'quaternary farming' (which does not figure in the statistics;in Egypt, for example, it is estimated that quaternaryfood production makes up about 40 per cent of thetotal output [Le Monde, 28-29.12.77]). These arecapital facts for the future.It is evident 'that the growth of the quaternarysector, which is already of Significant size in the ThirdWorld, has (or might have) a decisive influence on thepolicies of these countries. Their governments hopedfor quite a long time to be able to stop this growth bythe rapid development of industrialization, thusenlarging the secondary and tertiary sectors, whichwould then absorb the quaternary. Today, after along period of unrewarded hope, it is becoming clearthat rapid industrialization alld advantageous marketing of the hoped-for products cannot be achieved.Thus, governments in Third World countries acceptmore and more the idea that the quaternary sector isgaining in importance and that national survival ishardly possible without the development of a subsistence economy. They are becoming more and moreconscious of the fact that they cannot remain inpower while ignoring the quaternary sector and arelooking for ways to accept it at least tacitly. Thusgovernments have to defend and support quaternaryinterests, promising at the same time that the quaternary sector is but a provisory expedient. As such aprovisorium will necessarily be oflong duration, politicians in the Third World (and elsewhere) do every-

thing they can to improve the image and self-esteemof people belonging to this sector.

f Third World countries are under constraint tofollow such policies, they necessarily lose interest inindustrialization, and simultaneously reduce importation of manufactured goods from industrializedcountries. Indeed, such imported goods generally arebought by the 20 per cent of the population havingclassical jobs, the remaining 80 per cent not receivingmuch benefit from such importation. Importation ofgoods, even if envisaged in order to create jobs (suchas the importation of machine tools), does not helpvery much, as it cannot suffice to produce significantimprovement in employment within a practicallyacceptable time, especially with demographic expansion diminishing even the small improvement attainable. Thus trade with industrial countries is notprofitable for the large majority in Third World countries.

On the other hand, such trade is exceedingly profitable for industrial countries: it is vital for the equilibrium of their economy (because of the 'mutualsubsidy' system) and it is even more important fortheir production, as indispensable raw materials originating from non-industrial countries are generally obtained in exchange for industrial products exportedto these countries. Thus trade with non-industrialcountries is indispensable for industrial countries, particularly as accountancy of this trade is made on themonetary basis.

I t can be considered highly probable that at leastcertain countries of the Third World facing this situation might do everything in order to stop their tradewith industrial nations, and, in order to be able to doso, they might leave the international monetary system. Indeed, as we saw, this trade is not vital forthem (it is, rather, of negative value) as the incomethey earn in exchange for non-renewable resources islargely insufficient to assure their becoming industrialized themselves.Governments currently in power in the ThirdWorld may try to avoid cutting the supply of rawmaterials to industrial countries; but, if we considerthe social situation of most of these countries, wefmd that many governments are very fragile and thatthey may be replaced sooner or later by others, lessfragile, that will choose to base their power on activesupport of the quaternaty sector, and these lattermight encourage the suspension of any trade withindustrial nations. Many precursory signs support thisview, and it seems logical for industrial nations to get


4/9

Y Friedman / The quaternary sector 47prepared for this eventuality.

f these eventualities should become realities,industrial countries would have to choose betweentwo major strategies. The first involves the use offorce - i.e., military interventions against countriesrefusing to sell away their natural resources. Thisstrategy, besides being inhuman, would prove veryrisky, if we consider the growing efficiency of guerrillas against regular armies and with it the growingdemographic reserves of the Third World. The otherstrategy, far more pragmatic and recommendable,would be to reorganize the economic structure ofindustrial countries by supporting and acceleratingthe growth of their quaternary sector. This could bedone by emphasizing its role (a quite different onefrom that in the Third World countries), that of a'modernized quaternary sector'.1.2. The modernized quaternary sector

Modernization of the quaternary sector in industrial countries is already an ongoing process. This factalone could suffice to raise the interest of governments in the phenomenon, particularly if one considers that the leverage of governments on economicand social processes diminishes rapidly. Indeed, classical planning, in which a planning authority fixessome objectives and 'steers' a society towards theseobjectives following a predetermined program, ispractically no longer feasible: in a period characterized by 'zero growth' or even 'negative growth' theusual levers (channelling and subsidizing production)are no longer available for authorities. This is especially true for states whose size is beyond critical size(i.e., whose instruction-transmitting and feedbackmechanisms have become self-blocking with size):most industrial countries have become actually ungovernable, and authorities, instead of being able tothink about planning, can do nothing else but acceptongoing trends and seek ways to avoid conflicts andeliminate obstacles before the ongoing processes;classical planning, consisting in the orientation of processes or even in resistance to them, has had to bedesperately given up.

t is thus extremely important to examine theemerging modernized quaternary sector.The modernized quaternary sector in industrialcountries emerges as a consequence of growing unemployment. n unemployed person, even if his survivalcould be subsidized by public funds (as we sawbefore, if austerity could be accepted as a life-style,

industrial societies could subsidize up to 50 per centunemployed), prefers to improve his quality of life bystarting to engage in quaternary occupations. Hebegins to produce at least part of his food, providedhe has access to the necessary land, but does this notfor sheer subsistence as does his counterpart in theThird World countries but in order to raise the quality of his life. He starts to practise some craft he isable to do, or volunteers for some community service,always with the idea of supplementary improvementof his situation and not in order to assure his basicsurvival. f we accept the idea that unemploymentwill continue to grow in the next decades (as seemsplausible if Third World countries cancel their tradewith industrial nations), we can presume that a growing quaternary sector might be the solution forabsorbing unemployment and for reversing the absurdproportion of socially useful versus less useful activities. f this hypothesis holds true, the modernizedquaternary sector might be a major key for thefuture, both for industrial societies (by re-equilibrating them) and for less industrialized ones (giving themthe time necessary for 'development').There are many examples of this phenomenon inindustrial countries: 'black work ' originating frominsufficiency of salaries in some countries, barter ofservices and products in certain others, motivated bytax evasion, etc.

One could argue that the development of thequaternary sector in these examples results from actsof 'marginals'. That might be true, but with growingunemployment, with a growing feeling of being unfairly paid or unfairly taxed, marginals are rapidlygrowing into a majority. I t is not impossible that inthe near future classical employment will become'marginal' and quaternary activities the bulk of theeconomic system.

Let us take again as an example the period of theSecond World War, when about 60 per cent of theactive population did work exclusively for the military machine (as soldiers or as civilian workers). Theportion of the civilian population not working exclusively for the war improved their condition throughquaternary occupations and survived in spite of theinsufficiency of available resoUrces. Our present economic crisis has many similarities to that war (at leastas concerns an imminent cut of available resources),even if its motor is not of the military kind.I t seems thus important to analyze the phenomenon, and even more important to think about meansand ways by which authorities could co-operate with


5/9

48 Y. Friedman / The quaternary sectorthe trend of quaternary development. What shapecould planning take if, instead of trying to direct thephenomenon, it could be content to support it?Any governmental planning or policy-making hasto take into account that, before all, the materialization of any objective depends upon a consensus ofthe public that is supposed to act in a way recommended by the planners. This consensus cannot bemerely a verbal one but has to be actual - i.e.,expressed effectively by how the public acts. Suchpublic action cannot be either directed or manipulated by governmental decrees, and this in spite ofoften-heard statements about government manipulation. Common people follow in one way or anothertheir images and habits, and no realistic policy canignore this fact.Emerging patterns are emerging habits of the common man, and measures undertaken by authoritieshave to go with and not against such trends. The mea-sures have to facilitate the development of the trendsand, if necessary, modify institutions which obstructthese trends. Thus the principal questions concerningthe development of the quaternary sector might be:- What physical planning can facilitate the development of the quaternary sector?- What are the principal resources necessary for it?- Where can these resources be found?- What are the institutional barriers in the way ofsuch development?- How can these barriers be modified?Such a policy line could, for example, start with are-evaluation of food. Actual food prices are high, butpeople working in the primary sector (food growing)are underpaid in comparison with those working inindustry. Food producers live thus on a subSidyaccorded to them, which makes it possible to keepwages and food prices low. f food attained pricescorresponding to its real importance, and thus its realvalue, compared to the value and prices of industrialgoods (which are far less indispensable than food),both employed and unemployed would start to try toproduce at least a part of their food themselves. But,how could they do that in a twentieth-century city?Non-rural agriculture (peripheric or other) could bea main feature of a quaternary civilization if urbanand regional planning were to become aware of thisnew potential resource. Examples of such planningexisted in n i n e t e ~ n t h c e n t u r y Europe: the jardinsouvriers and the schrebergarten among others.Another measure might have to do with a certaindimunition of classic commercial activities and of

transportation dependent upon commerce, two ofthemain sources of: waste in our economy. This could beeffectuated by the authorization of 'wild sales' (inFrench, vente sauvage, free sale on the street withoutany permit or other formality), which could developinto a sort of 'quaternary trade'. The quaternarymarket, where quaternary producers would sell orbarter their own products, could emerge with such ameasure and could become a source of improvingsurvival in a period of ever-increasing unemployment.Finally non-union craftsmanship (our equivalentto 'black work') could become as well an importantquaternary resource: one could call this form of activity the 'quaternized tertiary' sector within a neighborhood. Governmental measures could, for example, protect activities of this type and liberate themfrom all formal authorizations, permits, etc. whichmake them illegal in many countries today.Non-rural agriculture, free sale on streets, and freeexercise of skills could, among other occupations,absorb a very large part of unemployment and re-equilibrate the proportion between socially usefuland less useful activities.1.3. The status image

The development of the quaternary sector has atthe same time a by-product which acts against it: thestatus problem.Indeed, the life-style in industrial societies emphasizes consumption as the image of status and of socialsuccess. One has to earn much money in order to buymany things, to use much transport and many ser-vices; all this counts as the measure and the symbol ofa man's status and personal value. On the other hand,to live economically at a subsistence level is considered a sign of poverty and of low personal value andstatus. A peasant living in quasi autarky is scorned bya factory worker (who consumes more). Farmingbecomes more and more an industry, in spite of theover-exploitation of the soil which often impoverishesthe soil irreversibly: the farmer consents to ruin hismain tool, his land, in order to earn more for a shortperiod and buy higher status symbols with hisincreased revenue. Only when he realizes that he cannot improve his status does he turn to a procedurewhich-we could call a 'farmer's strike': he stops producing food 'for the city' and produces only for himself and his family, trying to get better prices andhigher status with it.

t seems essential to consider how status symbols


6/9

Y. Friedman The quaternary sector 49could be revised in order to make the quaternarysector 'respectable' - what new status symbols couldbe accepted by people, how could they be propagated, etc. In many countries efforts toward creatingan new aristocracy (party members, a professionalcaste, an educational caste, etc.) have shown provisional success in supplanting consumption as a statussymbol.Sports or cultural activities, too, could furnish newstatus symbols, but still there has been practically noexploration of how such symbols could enter publicconsciousness without becoming commercial. I tmight be one of the most important tasks of futureeducation to help establish the respectability of thequaternary sector. t is important that the membersof the quaternary sector themselves should acceptsuch symbols, once they understand that they are nosocial failure but the safeguard of society. Their selfrespect might force the respect of those who refuse torecognize their importance today.1.4. Recommended measures

The most reasonable response for authorities tomake, therefore, would seem to be to the processus,without supposing a definitive rupture with the current economic system.It can be assumed with some certainty that anyextension, even limited, of the quaternary sector willproduce enormous social problems: division of asociety into two sections as different as the quaternary sector and the classic ones could provoke heavyconflicts between two life-styles and two ideologies.This problem cannot be treated casually, and questions arise: First, could the division of our societyinto employed and unemployed be desirable? And,second, is quaternary development 'reactionary' andagainst progress?I don't think I can really answer these questions. Ibelieve that the development of the quaternary sectorre-orients progress - a progress based more on biology than on mechanics (is this a contradiction?), lessimpatient, and better evaluating its own means andgoals. We can certainly imagine a 'quaternary progress' - a development paying more attention to anew concept of the sciences of food, of habitat, andof social realities - which would be increasinglybeneficial for humanity.But, to start with, is the trend already irreversible?

2. Some additional remarks on the quaternary sector2.1. Migration

Visiting in a Third World country, very rich innatural resources but the majority of whose peopleare terribly poor, with one of the lowest populationdensities in the world, and having a ferociously capitali st public mentality (even the poorest people in theslums believe in the possibility of earning a small capital which will bring profit for them - generally in theform of real estate, on which they rely more than onthe continuously devaluating money), I perceived particularly strong evidence of the relation between intocity migration and the quaternary sector. In thiscountry the largest part of the national area isextremely under-exploited, and rural poverty increasing by the under-exploitation drives people massivelytowards the city (the largest city tripled its population in the last 30 years). Those migrants who findjobs do so either in industry or in the tertiary sector.The tertiary sector of this country is roughly thesame in proportion to the total active population asin industrialized countries.The case of a country that is quasi empty, rich inresources, and thinking in the capitalist way is particularly interesting: the United States of the nineteenthcentury was such a country. The policy of the UnitedStates of that period was decisive to its future: itstipulated free immigration for anybody dissatisfiedwith his way of life on the old continent. These werethe i m m ~ g r n t s who built up the present Americaneconomy - first as farmers, then moving into industry and the tertiary sector.

t would be possible to imagine an internationalpolicy-making use of the phenomenon of the quaternary sector by stipulating free immigration to suchcountries. A country like Brazil could open its doorsfor peasants coming from the poorest countries.Large areas such as the Patanao, which is actuallysparsely inhabited marshland, could not be convertedinto productive farmland except by quaternary (subsistence) farming, performed by people who would becontent, at least for one generation, to grow not morefood than necessary for the living of their family,WitllOut producing for the market. Those who arestarving in Bangladesh, for example, would agree willingly to settle those marshlands and to convert them,let us say, into rice paddies, investing an amount oflabor that farmers from more prosperous sociallayers would refuse to do.


7/9

50 Y. Friedman / The quaternary sectorAn immigration policy open for the poorest isoften an implementable way of achieving a moreequal distribution of the resources necessary for sur

vival. Making possible a nonaggressive overflow fromeconomically disbalanced regions could lead thus tomaking practically uninhabited areas habitable (in thesense a civilization associates with it).Establishing an international foundation to support free migration could be one of the most important operations of international organizations, in anepoch where national, etc., identity is more and moredefined in terms of 'how to keep them out' .2.2. Education

Education can be interpreted as the operationwhich seeks to improve the capacity of the membersof a species for procuring the means of their survival.Present education, in most countries, seeks only toprocure jobs for those who follow a particular curriculum. Once, when the primary and secondary sec-tors were the important ones, education formedfarmers and technicians. Today, even with the hypertrophy of the tertiary sector, education exclusivelyproduces people for this sector.

In spite of the tertiary sector's becoming plethoric,the number of people prepared for jobs in this areacontinues to increase at a rate faster than the numberof available jobs. The cost of creating jobs in othersectors is prohibitive, and - as we saw when discussing the introductory scenario - it is practicallyimpossible to increase the tertiary sector withouteither at the same time increasing the number ofsocially useful jobs to balance the resulting deficit ordestroying the current economy completely. Evensharing a job among several persons does not resolvethe problem, as a system of production can supportonly a limited number of jobs: in an economic systembased on the market, jobs can become more numerous only if production increases (which, as we saw,seems not too probable).This situation leads evidently to the emergence ofthe quaternary sector: quaternary production doesincrease, as it is largely independent of the market.

In sum: current education makes the tertiary sec-tor grow without increasing production at the sametime. On the other hand, appropriate education fortraining people in quaternary production is completely lacking.To characterize appropriate education for quaternary production, we have first to emphasize that

the quaternary sector is complementary to the othersectors: it is different from the other sectors not inwhat it produces (food,manufactured objects, or ser-vices) but in how it does so (it uses tools simpleenough to be repaired or made without necessitatingbig organization). t differs as well from the other sec-tors in the way the production is accounted for, andthus makes new concepts of profitability and ofexchange emerge. There are many products whichcannot be produced but the quaternary way, be theyplants, objects, or services. If housewives' activitiesstay quaternary in all economic systems, this isbecause these activities cannot be made profitable inthe same way as activities in the other sectors.

But let us come back to education. We alreadyknow an example of education for quaternary production: the training girls got in the past in order tobecome good housewives. This training was indeedvery useful, and it is instructive as an example.Quaternary education has to be training for dailylife: survival techniques, including the use of bothprimitive and sophisticated technologies, are its mainsubject matter. Such an education has to encourageinnovation and improvization: one has to be able toproduce things necessary for one's own survival, or tomake substitutions for such things, and to know howto repair them if necessary. Many examples for sucheducation exist already: training for sailors, for themilitary, for hunters and other sporting people.The very large public for kitchen recipes mightdemonstrate how much interest 'quaternary information' can command.2.3. Status

A society is governed more by custom than bylaws. There is no doubt that in case of conflictbetween laws and custom it is the custom which will bevictorious (except in the obvious cases when thecustom in question is already on its way out). Theconflict between laws and custom becomes particularly interesting when it arises between two differentkinds of custom: this is generally the case when lawscan play the arbiter over customs.A conflict of this kind emerges with the quaternary sector gaining importance: the quaternary attitude as a response to shortages is accepted by customon the one hand; but, on the other hand, social contempt for the quaternary way of life is also customary. An example of such a scorn is the low respectpaid to housewives' work, both by 'male chauvinists'


8/9

Y. Friedman / The quaternary sector 51and by the women's liberation movements.The arbitration of the law (of the state) in the conflict between quaternary survival and current ideas onsocial status might be decisive. Thus the duty of thestate should be to make the quaternary sectorrespectable.(a) The first step towards this goal would be torecognize the legal existence of quaternary praxis: atpresent such praxis is outlawed in most countries, andits legalization could re-establish its status.(b) The second step had to go beyond simple legal-ization: government should protect quaternary praxisagainst aggression coming from those in other sectorswho might be jealous of their privileges in certainfields, privileges which often become monopolistic(trade unions, etc.).(c) The third step would consist in publicly attributing a real importance to the quaternary sector(by the way, what would happen if housewives wereto form a trade union or go on strike?). The lawshould recognize publicly the indispensability ofquaternary praxis in a context of growing unemployment. Indeed, there is no other actual way to resolvethe problem of survival of an ever growing numberof unemployed.The granting of legal existence, the protection ofprivileges, and recognition of the indispensability ofa social group are the most important factors to makeit attractive to people. These three factors are at leastas important as are profits; the hypertrophy of thetertiary sector was more the result of its status thanof the profits it brought. Governments should graspthat they could facilitate the restoration of socialequilibrium by helping the quarternary sector to abetter status.2.4. Where are the levers?

It is easy to write an anlysis of the emergence ofthe quaternary sector, and it is easy to describe theadvantages this emergence would produce. I t is farmore difficult to determine and propose ways andmeans which could lead to such a development and toidentify the levers which could trigger and regulate it.Even if some of these levers have been mentioned(education, migration, legalization, etc.), all of themrepresent rather complex policies which cannot beimplemented by a simple declaration decided on by agovernment.

Indeed - and this one of the fundamental characteristics of our present societies - no government, no

executive has real access to the 'levers' which mightgovern social mechanisms. (This thesis I havedescribed and demonstrated in my book RealisableUtopias.) Social mechanisms become oversized andoverly complex, and they do not obey in any simpleway simple commands coming from any of theirorgans, governments being among these. In the bestcases, the social mechanism cannot be considered anymore to be governed by a 'brain' but rather is anentity following a random process resulting from unforeseeable acts decided on by a multitude of individual brains, which act like 'black boxes' to the observer and whose interconnective pattern is largelyunknown.

Let us take an example. What would be society'sreaction to legal recognition, etc., of quarternary praxis(such as growing one's own food, organizing one'sown energy husbandry, etc.)? Any legislative bodyfavoring such actions could only with difficultytransmit its opinion to the public, either by legal procedure or by propaganda. A government does nothold power enough to create quaternary praxis.On the other hand, if there exists a scarcity in certain commodities or in certain services, quaternarypraxis establishes itself spontaneously even if government is against it (for example showing up as a black

market). Quaternary praxis can thus be createdthrough scarcity, as its essential quality is to be aweapon against need, similar to certain biologicalagents which manifest themselves only when the organism is subject to certain aggressions. Quaternarypraxis is the tool of society to survive in critical situations I 'have called it elsewhere 'guerrilla survival').I t is interesting to make a remark here about scarcity: when commodities are abundant, there is a'scarcity of status symbols' (a commodity or a servicebecomes a status symbol only when it is scarce). Forexample, when cars are widely available, they losetheir quality as status symbols; on the other hand,

when they are difficult to procure, they gain a highstatus value. When a physical scarcity prevails, anycommodity (or service) can become a status symbol:there is no scarcity of status symbols any more. Similarly, once there is physical scarcity, the status obstacle blocking the development of quaternary praxisdisappears.Thus, theoretically, a government could have oneobvious policy in order to promote quaternary development: it could promote scarcity. But, of course, nogovernment could openly follow such a policy. How-ever, if a government cannot fight emerging scarcity


9/9

52 Y Friedman / The quaternary sector(coming from the 'exterior'), the quaternary praxisstarts immediately, spontaneously, in the fieldaffected by the scarcity.The lever governments can use to assist the development of quaternary praxis could thus be the choiceo the field hit by the scarcity. Knowing that thequaternary sector is called into existence by scarcityand that it is the only means to fight it, the rationalaction of a government would be to tolerate scarcityin those fields where quaternary praxis has been prepared for (by education, by legalization, by propaganda, etc.): in these fields society could react fastenough.

It would be thus a sine qua non of any governmental planning first to make clear what quaternarytechnologies and what quaternary organizations couldbe operative, related to such planning.2.5. Remarks on quaternary technology

In order to determine which technologies couldbecome 'quaternized', we should perhaps first re-examine what technology is.The definition which seems to me the most appropriate is: a set o ways and means which seek toincrease the number of individuals of a species) whocan find their subsistence in a given area. Thus, forexample, humankind increased this number over whatit had been during its prehistory, first by introducingagriculture, then industry, and so on.

I t is evident that this defmition locates any technology as. a set of survival techniques, and that themeans used by a technology can be two-fold: 'protheses' (objects borrowed from the environment toserve as tools) and 'skills' (ways of making use of theindividual organism, adapting it to the environmentin order to need fewer protheses or less consumptionof materials). t is surely not necessary, in our civilization, to give examples of tools. But skills are lessexplored: they could include, for example, adaptation to a certain diet (which has an effect on agrotechnics), adaptation to a given climate (which influences techniques of building shelters), etc. Thus, avegetarian ethnic group uses different skills than doesa carnivorous group, and consequently develops different tools. If, for example, on a given territory a

vegetarian ethnic group could enable 100 persons tosurvive, and the carnivorous group only 15, thiswould signify that the technology of the vegetariangroup was superior to that of the carnivores.We could add another category of means - that oforganization'. I t is evident that appropriate organization can playa role in defining a technology. Thus,technologies belong to three distinct sets: those usingprotheses, those developing skills, and those exploiting organization.Grading technologies becomes more complicatedonce we give attention to 'power': in our example, itcould happen that the carnivores (who have a survivaltechnology of a lower grade but might compensate

for it with high-grade military skill) would chase awayor enslave the vegetarian ethnic group in order toensure survival for their own kind.Thus, it would be better to describe a technologyby at least two terms: the number of persons it canenable to survive on a given area, and the means ofself-defense t can develop in the face of aggressors.Quaternary technology has thus to be characterized by the very high coefficient of 'survival density'(number of persons fed on a reference area) and veryefficient self-defence. Techniques satisfying theseconditions are not necessarily primitive, not based onso-called 'convivial' techniques: we are not lookingfor romantic attitudes. Urban agriculture (as ex-plained in my book Survival Architecture) is notprimitive, nor is quaternary organization of a society.Self-defense by guerrillas proves the point: one of themost important phenomena of the second half of thetwentieth century is the fact that guerrillas systematically beat regular and over-equipped armies.

We can now conclude by trying to defme one ofthe most important functions to be performed bygovernments: the preparation of mes for high sur-vival density techniques and for security by selfdefense and keeping the public informed about thesemes, introducing the subject into public education,thus supporting the emergence of the quaternary sec-tor when needed.The existence of the quaternary sector might bethe safety valve for the survival of our civilizations,and who knows, even for our species.

Documents

Yona Friedman - Social Complexity