Introduction
This article analyzes the paradox of the global economy, where mass cooperation with strangers relies on a psyche shaped in small, distrustful tribes. The central thesis is based on the concept of tunnel vision—the ability to play a minor role in a complex system without understanding the whole. Readers will learn how institutions of trust and new technologies, such as AI, are reshaping our rationality. They will also discover patterns of cooperation offered by great religious traditions that can help redesign the modern world.
Seabright: The Shy Ape and the Mechanism of Tunnel Vision
Paul Seabright defines Homo sapiens as a "shy, murderous ape," evolutionarily unsuited to trusting strangers. For the global system to function, we had to develop institutions of trust—money, law, and banks—which act as social prostheses. The key mechanism is tunnel vision: a state of mind in which an individual focuses on a narrow task, suspending their wonder at modernity. This narrowing of attention allows billions of actions to become coherent through simple coordination rules, such as prices.
Our evolutionary heritage makes trusting strangers unnatural. Therefore, modern institutions transfer mechanisms developed for cooperation with kin to relationships with millions of anonymous partners. Trust becomes a product of social conditions rather than an innate instinct.
Globalization and AI: A Clash of Systems and New Complexity
A rift exists between the lifeworld and the systemic layer of the economy. Globalization reinforces tunnel vision through geographical specialization and abstract financial instruments. Elżbieta Mączyńska and Michał Kalecki warn that this system generates inequalities and barriers to sustainability when capital constrains social policies. Artificial intelligence deepens this process by delegating complexity to algorithms and creating knowledge asymmetries.
Models of capitalism differ in their approach to these challenges. In the US, shareholder capitalism and innovation dominate. Europe focuses on the social market economy and AI regulation. Arab countries base cooperation on tribal structures and state control. Each of these models, in its own way, increases the extent to which the individual becomes a function of systemic requirements.
Tikkun Olam and Taʿāwun: Religious Models of Cooperation
Religions offer an alternative to the cold market contract. In Judaism, cooperation is Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and a covenant based on justice (tzedakah). Islam promotes Taʿāwun—mutual assistance in doing good—and the takaful system based on solidarity. Orthodox sobornost emphasizes co-responsibility and brotherly communion, seeing the Church as a matrix for social relations.
Confucianism builds cooperation through harmony without uniformity and the virtue of ren (concern for others). Although these traditions differ in their approach to hierarchy and the scope of community, they all view cooperation as a moral practice. The synthesis of these models shows that cooperation is not a neutral technique, but an action embedded in a vision of moral order.
The Erosion of Trust and the Paradox of Rationality
The paradox of globalization is that local rationality (maximizing interest within the tunnel) leads to global instability. In the age of AI, business faces a choice: deepen tunnel vision or build institutions based on transparency. The erosion of trust and technological advancement require managers to shift their perspective from that of an optimizer to a "prudent gardener" of the system.
Globalization stands at a crossroads: it will either widen the gap between knowledge and responsibility or become a civilizational project based on renewed trust. In the era of algorithms, can we transform tunnel vision into a conscious choice rather than a thoughtless habit? The future depends on whether we will be architects or merely helpless witnesses of this transformation.
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