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expressed through subjective, complex interaction-enabling structures that have evolved since the emergence of the species. A current culmination of such structures is found in the religious organizations through which humans effect the complex policies that have allowed them to ascend to the top rung of the evolutionary ladder. For computer systems, the social analogue is grounded in computer networks; but, not just simple networks. Rather, we find the more profound illustration in the interconnection of networks; that is, within the all-encompassing network construct that we know as the Internet.

To be clear, networks provide the framework for a complex organization of computers, and hence in our view they suggest significant parallels with social structures that culminate in religious organizations. However, they do not constitute the religious analogue in and of themselves. Rather, they support an electronic (cyber) extension of the fabric of society that encompasses the physical and social ecosystems in which humans exist. As with religion, they still do not solely constitute the fabric themselves. To adopt a weaving metaphor, orthogonal mechanisms form the warp and the woof of social systems much like the warp and woof foundations of a fabric on which the weaver creates the finished cloth. So, what forms the fabric of our social systems? To answer this question, we suggest that one should start from the result and try to reverse engineer the cause. The authors, being computer guys in general, and software guys specifically, deem it appropriate to approach the problem by considering the environment that has facilitated the computer world as we know it within the United States.

The question we ask is, “Why has the United States been the preeminent nurturer of the software business or of the computer business in general for that matter?” Indeed, we observe that the vast majority of computer and software product companies are based in the United States. This situation emerged with the appearance of the first operational computers in the 1940’s and has now been true for many generations. If we can at least qualitatively understand this, we should be able to discern a patterned framework through which to interpret the architecture of successful software systems and their evolutionary progression. Amazon, Dell, Digital Equipment, eBay, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle; these are only a few of the past or present most familiar names that have almost no equivalent anywhere else in the world. If computers and computer networks, as we have suggested, truly reflect the social orders of the species, then we should see at least something of a cause and effect relationship.

As an added wrinkle, we ponder that while the companies that we mentioned all started in the United States, a recent lynchpin of the operational form of complex computer networks has been the emergence of trusted computers, as basic elements of families of personal electronic devices. These devices comprise major components of extensive service networks themselves, and they facilitate an entry of the individual into larger and more comprehensive computer networks. In fact, they form an intimate reflection of the very architecture of such networks. Moreover, these trusted core components of personal electronic devices were developed in Europe. Ah yes, but the software systems into which they are embedded, converging to the Internet, derived from the United States. Other recent examples of a similar kind are Linux, Skype and the World Wide Web. All are inventions made in Europe that migrated to the United States when they turned into businesses. So, again the question, “What, from an historical perspective, made the United States a superior incubator of the computer business?”

One way to look at an answer is to assume the hypothesis that somehow this situation would be reflective of the social ecosystem within which those businesses flourish. From that perspective, within the United States the Constitution forms the basis of social structure on which all else depends. Within the context of the weaving metaphor that we mentioned earlier, the Constitution

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