Nonzero

Wright argues that history has a direction, driven by the increasing scope and complexity of non-zero-sum interactions, meaning situations where the parties can both gain. His claim is that both biological evolution and cultural evolution produce increasing complexity because organisms and societies that find ways to cooperate outcompete those that do not.

The historical section traces the expansion of non-zero-sum relationships from hunter-gatherer bands through agriculture, chiefdoms, states, empires and eventually global economic integration. He argues that technology, particularly information and transport technology, expands the range over which cooperation is possible, and that societies which adopt technologies enabling wider cooperation displace those that do not. The biological section makes the parallel argument for evolution, covering the transitions from replicating molecules to cells, from cells to multicellular organisms, and from organisms to social groups, each of which involved previously independent units becoming interdependent.

His argument about the direction of history is explicitly against Stephen Jay Gould's position that evolution has no direction, and Wright addresses this directly. The final section speculates about global governance and about whether the expansion of non-zero-sum relationships implies a purpose, which is where he loses most readers who accepted the earlier argument.

The thesis is difficult to falsify, since almost any development can be described as an expansion of non-zero-sum relations after the fact. Wright underweights the zero-sum conflicts and the destroyed societies that his direction requires. The framework for thinking about when cooperation is available is useful independent of the directional claim.