The Society Wheel
Content
Background and purpose
Every activity in a society, such as producing food, provide healthcare, communicate information, make laws, create experiences (through entertainment, tourism etc.), fight crime, protect ecosystems, distribute energy etc., both affects and
is affected by other activities and therefore cannot be studied in isolation, taken out of context. In order to better understand how a society functions, you therefore not only need to have knowledge about individual activities; you must also understand how these are
interconnected. In other words, a systems approach is required, i.e. to consider society as a system (network) in which the nodes symbolize activities and the threads the dependencies between the activities. In other words, the traditional way of studying society,
i.e. to analyze the parts and more or less ignore the connections, is not valid.
It is against this background, i.e. to get a better grasp of the whole,, that I, Rolf Björnson, started developing a model, called The Society Wheel.
The model has been online since 2007 but has been changed and expanded many times since then.
The purpose of the model is to be able to quickly and systematically provide information about the diversity of activities carried out in society - not only about the activities individually, but also about the connections between them.
In order to accomplish this, a classification system is required. This means i.a. that virtually all types of activities in society, implemented by various actors - companies, academies, political decision makers and authorities, private individuals and associations - must be included.
When I started working on this model, I did some research on the internet in order to find out if anyone had already developed such a classification system, but I realized that this
was not the case. I have therefore carried out this classification, as well as all other modeling work, by myself and from scratch. The work has resulted in fifty hierarchically structured activity tables, ten of which describe different activities individually, while the other
forty are focused on the connections between them. Information about activities and activity relationships is obtained through links to information sources (websites) that I have included in the tables.
The information primarily concerns Sweden but to some extent also other nations and (supra-/inter-)national organizations.
The Society Wheel is a model of society - how it is constructed and interconnected. The model is based on
a classification of the diversity of activities maintained in society by various actors. Information
about these activities and their environment is obtained through links to external websites.
The model differs from virtually all other models of society in the sense that it not only provides
information about different activities separately, but also and primarily the relationships between them.
For example, if you are looking for information about transport and how transport is related to other activities in society, you can first
go to the page "Energy and transport" and find links to companies etc. within the transport industry.
From that page you then move on to the Governance sector if you are interested in political decisions or public administration
regarding transport or to the Protection sector if you want information on environmental or safety issues
concerning transport. If you are looking for information on the industry's dependence on products, capital,
competence or labour, you continue to the sector Supply. The Culture sector, finally, is chosen
if you want to be informed about, for example, history and cultural heritage related to transport.
In this way, as I said, not only the transport industry is highlighted but also
its external relations.
The Society Wheel consists of five interdependent main sectors / functions,
named governance, protection, net, supply and culture.
Every sector has a certain purpose in society, namely:
to control/regulate different types of activities (Governance sector).
to protect the individual, the environment and society as a whole against
different kinds of threats and strains (Protection sector).
to transmit information from a transmitter to a receiver or to transport physical
objects from one place to another (Net sector).
to provide different actors with demanded resources (Supply sector).
to satisfy people's needs for news, experiences and community (identities)
(Cultural sector).
In order to illustrate the mutual dependencies that exist between the sectors, these have been
placed in a figure picturing a wheel, hence the model name. The Net sector includes
what can be considered as the physical infrastructure, i.e. networks in the form of roads, electricity grids,
telecommunications networks, etc., on or through which physical objects or information flow between different parts of
society. Because of this central role the sector has been positioned in the middle of the image displayed on the home page.
The sector can, to use a metaphor, be considered as the hub of the society wheel.
However, it is easy to change perspectives. For example, if you want to study society from a cultural perspective, you focus
the cultural sector, etc. The focus can be changed by either clicking on the relevant main sector
in the image or menu on the left (only in Swedish).
Each of the main sectors mentioned above has been divided into
two sub-sectors, which in turn have been broken down into
smaller parts. See "Complete structure" in the menu.
Governance here means to control / regulate different types of
functions at local, regional, national or supranational / international
level.
The sector has been divided into two sub-sectors:
Political decisions
Public administration
The former sub-sector - at national level parliament and government - makes political decisions in the form of laws and other regulations.
The second sub-sector, which includes different kinds of public agencies, implements the decisions and provides support for new decisions.
The sector encompasses all functions aimed at protecting the individual (her health, property and rights), the environment (ecosystems) and society as a whole (its functionality and sovereignty) against various types of threats and strains.
The Protection sector has been divided into two sub-sectors named:
Security and justice
Health and environment
The former sub-sector includes fight against antagonistic threats and strains, such as war actions,
acts of terrorism, IT attacks against important functions in society; criminal acts and human rights violations.
The protection measures in the second sub-sector are directed towards non-antagonistic threats and strains, such as disease-causing bacteria, viruses, etc.,
abuse, old age and disability, accidents, unbalanced ecosystems or stresses from nature and climate change.
As previously mentioned, the Net sector encompasses operations, which aim to
transmit information from a transmitter to a receiver - the first subsector below - or
to transport physical objects (people, animals, goods, energy, waste) from
one place to another - the other sub-sector.
The sector has been divided as follows:
Tele- /computer communication and mail
Energy och transport
The term Net or Network Services is of course related to the fact that the transfers / transports mentioned above
is carried out via built up networks.
However, it should be pointed out that I have not included all network services in this sector.
An important exception is water distribution, which has been organized in the Supply sector below due to
its close connection to agriculture and food supply.
With regard to energy, I would also like to point out that the current sector not only includes the actual distribution of energy, but also
extraction and conversion / production (e.g. of oil products and bioenergy).
Finally, it should be mentioned that the tourism industry - which includes travel and accommodation - is located in this sector due to the connection with transport.
The Supply sector here includes all activities, except energy supply and transport (see Net above), with the purpose to
supply various actors - such as companies, public agencies, associations, educational institutions and households - with demanded
resources.
The sector has been divided into the following sub-sectors:
Product and capital supply
Competence and labour supply
The first sub-sector covers the development, production and distribution of physical products and IT systems, as well as associated services,
e.g. service, maintenance and repairs.
The sector also includes capital supply - via stock and credit markets - and related services, such as
insurance business.
The second sub-sector includes education and research, excl. the product and system development carried out in commercial companies, see above.
This section also includes reference services - i.e. production, storage, lending and sale of encyclopedias, books, etc. - and services related to the labour market, such as recruitment,
employment services, labor law and work environment issues. Finally the subsector comprises consultancy regarding e.g. management, technology, law, accounting and marketing.
The Cultural sector includes all activities aimed at meeting people's needs for news, experiences and community (identities).
The sector has been divided into the following sub-sectors:
Media, entertainment and art
Personal life, associations, cultural heritage and religion
The first-mentioned sub-sector includes the transmission of news, entertainment and advertising etc., both via traditional media (radio, TV, newspapers) and social media. This sub-sector also includes production of various types of entertainment (music, theater, film, computer games, sports etc.)
and art (visual arts, literature, food art). Note that activities that aim to satisfy other experiences than entertainment and art, e.g. nature experiences and amusement park attractions, has been classified as a part of tourism (see Net above).
The second sub-sector includes activities, which can be related to family, home, private finances / consumption and leisure as well as activities in associations, i.e. to work for other purposes than primarily financial. This sector also includes activities such as archaeological excavations and museum activities,
which aim to preserve the country's cultural heritage - this together with related education and research in archaeology, history, etc. (within the competence supply sector; see above). Finally the sub-sector includes religious practice and related activities, such as weddings, baptisms and funerals.
