2.1. Assessment Framework

Several alternative theories have been put forward to explain the enforcement system choice or, as it is known in the literature, the institutional choice.Reference Chaves^5, Reference Kingston and Caballero⁶ The theories of transactions cost economics (TCE) and class conflict (CC) are of particular importance for understanding societies’ choice between the RES and SES and their implications for development and conflicts. TCE argues that competitive pressures will push out inefficient forms of organisation and only the efficient enforcement forms, which ‘minimise the transactions costs’ of governing the society, will survive in the long-run. According to TCE, the basic cause of enforcement system change is an exogenous change in the determinants of transaction costs (e.g. enforcement, technology).Reference Alchian⁷ TCE predicts that as long as a more efficient enforcement system is attainable, it will sooner or later be adopted by the society.

The classical CC literature, in line with Karl Marx and Max Weber, implies that any institutional change of societies is a result of conflicting interests that arise between different classes over the division of resources, income and wealth, which may involve conflicts and may inflict harm. In the recent literature of political economy, this theory was refined and generalised to account for wider political and economic contexts (known as the theory of collective-choice), whereby the institutional choice is perceived as a centralised political process in which individuals and organisations engage in bargaining to change these rules for their own benefit.Reference Libecap^8, Reference Ostrom⁹ According to this theory, the change of the enforcement system depends on the relative ‘economic’ size of the competing interest groups/classes and may or may not lead to an improvement of the enforcement system even in the presence of a more efficient alternative.Reference Aoki¹⁰

2.2. Implementation Mechanism

Following Chaves,Reference Chaves⁵ who puts religion in a wider societal context and considers its role with respect to secularism, we define RES ‘as a social structure that attempts to enforce its order and reach its ends by controlling the access of individuals to some desired goods, where the legitimating of that control includes some supernatural component, however weak’ (Ref. 5, pp 755–756).

Hence, the RES is an enforcement system based primarily on beliefs. The structure and motivation of norms within the RES is built around the supernatural component, as the monitoring, the collection of information, and the implementation of sanctions (and rewards) with the objective to enforce the societal norms is perceived to be implemented by a supernatural power (the God). Depending on the type of religion, the supernatural power is assumed to punish or reward after the death of individuals (e.g. Christianity, Islam) or through other spiritual forms (e.g. Scientology).Reference Choudhury¹¹ Those individuals who do not obey religious norms are believed to be sanctioned while the honest members of society are believed to be rewarded by the supernatural power, i.e. a dishonest behaviour leads to damnation and an honest behaviour to salvation.Reference McCleary¹²

From a societal perspective, the main advantage of the RES is that its implementation costs are relatively low, because the monitoring and punishment (rewards) for breaching (respecting) the rules are ‘outsourced’ to an external power. The only costs of the RES are related to promotion (information transmission) of religious norms within the society/community. These costs include the building of churches, temples, religious symbols, the time spent in attending religious ceremonies, religious contributions, and so on.

In contrast, the SES relies on contemporaneous monitoring and implementation of sanctions and rewards. It imposes sanctions directly on non-obeying individuals. This requires setting up an extensive legal enforcement sector (e.g. police, courts, prisons, legislative authority) able to monitor obedience, collect information and implement the sanctions and rewards. This implies that usually the system maintenance costs are comparably high under the SES, because the society must maintain an administrative infrastructure (legal enforcement sector) supporting the enforcement system. Thus, the maintenance costs are lower under the RES than under the SES for a given set of enforcement rules/norms (Table 1).

Table 1

Maintenance and adjustment costs under the RES and SES

2.3. Efficiency

A further important determinant of the choice of an enforcement system is its efficiency in rules enforcement. Under the RES, the ability to enforce rules depends on the intensity of beliefs among society members. If beliefs are strong, then the individuals are more likely to obey the religious norms imposed by the society. The beliefs deter dishonest behaviour, because the individuals will tend to avoid a potential punishment from the supernatural power. In the opposite case, with weak beliefs, the religious norms will most often be disobeyed, because individuals are not constrained by the existence of potential sanctions in the case of dishonest behaviour. Hence, the credibility of the RES among believers plays a key role in attaining a high belief rate and thus ensuring the enforceability of religious norms.

The SES is based on contemporaneous implementation of sanctions and rewards. The efficiency of the SES depends on the ability of the formal legal enforcement sector to detect the breach of the rules and to implement sanctions. A well-functioning formal legal enforcement sector leads to a high detection rate and hence discourages dishonest behaviour among individuals. However, the legal enforcement sector is subject to the ‘agency problem’ (principal–agent problem). The enforcement of rules depends on the oversight of the society over the bureaucrats (agents), who administer the legal enforcement sector (principal). Variation in the intensity of the oversight creates opportunities and incentives for bureaucrats to deviate from the intentions or preferences of the society (e.g. through the collusive behaviour between bureaucrats and rule breakers, corruption, low power incentives of bureaucrats) implying that, in certain circumstances, the SES may lead to low enforceability of rules. This further implies that the efficiency of the SES may or may not be higher than the efficiency of the RES (or vice versa), which depends on the society's ability to build an efficient legal enforcement sector for implementing the rules.

2.4. Technological Change and Development

Exogenous shocks in external environment, such as new technologies, innovations, globalisation and climate change, may change both the needs for the enforcement of rules (demand for institutions) and the enforcement possibilities (supply of institutions). According to TCE, societies adjust their enforcement systems to accommodate the new needs and possibilities by changing the initial rules or by including new rules within those to which society adheres.Reference North¹

The alteration of rules within a given enforcement system implies two types of adjustment costs: direct and indirect. The direct adjustment costs include actual costs induced by the adaptation of the enforcement system needed to be undertaken in order to implement the new/adjusted rules within the system (e.g. the change in maintenance costs, information costs, lobbying and bargaining costs). The indirect adjustment costs include the side-effects that the rule adjustment may inflict on the efficiency (credibility) of the enforcement system (on its ability to enforce rules). The indirect costs can be either negative or positive. For example, if the enforcement system adjustment improves the enforcement efficiency (credibility), then actually the side-effect is a benefit (i.e. negative adjustment costs).

The RES and the SES differ in terms of their capacity and flexibility to adjust the existing rules, because the two types of adjustment costs vary strongly between the two systems (Table 1). Under the RES the indirect adjustment costs are high, while under the SES the direct adjustment costs are more important. Under the RES the adjustment of rules may induce an indirect effect leading to a credibility loss of the enforcement system. Under the SES, the adjustment of rules alters the direct costs. In particular, the enforcement system maintenance costs are affected because the adaptation/extension of rules in SES may require the adjustment of the size of the legal enforcement sector. These differences in the adjustment costs have important implications for the development of societies by determining the capacity and the flexibility to adjust the rules within the two enforcement systems.

Under the RES the direct adjustment costs include the lobbying and bargaining costs for new religious norms, and the costs of informing society members about changes in the norms. The direct costs are relatively minor because the RES is not based on an enforcement sector, which would need to be adapted/extended with the norm adjustment (i.e. there are no maintenance costs). More significant are the indirect adjustment costs under the RES. They involve a credibility loss of the enforcement, because the RES is based on the idea that a supernatural power implements sanctions and rewards. Depending on the type of religion, sanctions are imposed after the death or through other spiritual manners. The asymmetry of information, however, makes it difficult to prove the existence of the supernatural power and the execution of rewards and sanctions, because they are not observable. The inability to validate the accuracy of religious norms and the inability to check for the implementation of sanctions and rewards makes the system dependent on beliefs. The norms need to be made credible within the society in order to create strong beliefs and to make them effective. This implies that a frequent adjustment of norms would damage the RES's credibility and its effectiveness declines. For example, if in one period the religion adheres to a given set of societal norms, while in the next period it adjusts/extends the set of the allowed rules, this would create incentives for individuals to deviate from respecting the norms, because they may expect future adjustments of norms in their favour, implying a reduced risk of being sanctioned by the supernatural power. Moreover, a frequent adjustment of norms brings uncertainty among believers. More people will question the existence of God if the ‘truth’ about him changes often. Thus, a frequent adjustment of religious norms reduces the intensity of belief and the number of believers.

The high indirect adjustment costs reduce the possibility to adjust the RES and make the system non-adaptive and rigid with respect to changing societal needs and developments.¹³ As a result, societies implementing the RES have a tendency to reject new economic and social developments, because their adoption in general implies a change or extension of the set of norms initially allowed leading to a decline in the credibility and the enforcement efficiency of the RES. To prevent credibility loss, religion-based societies tend to oppose and constrain new developments taking place in the society.^{14, 15}

Under the SES, the direct adjustment costs of rule change/extension affect the size and the structure of the legal enforcement sector (i.e. the maintenance costs), but there are also the lobbying and bargaining costs for new rules and the costs of informing society about changes in the rules. Particularly important are the costs of adjusting the legal enforcement sector. The adjustment of rules requires the adaptation/extension of the system of monitoring, information collection, and the implementation of sanctions (and rewards). For example, in the case of an extension or/and a qualitative change of rules, the legal enforcement sector needs structural adjustment either through its expansion or through a restructuring of the enforcement mechanism. Both types of alterations affect the costs of the SES to the society. The indirect adjustment costs of the SES include the efficiency (credibility) change induced by the adaption of the legal enforcement system. In turn, the efficiency of the SES depends on the ability to implement the new/changed rules within the system; i.e. on the efficiency of the legal enforcement sector to enforce the new/changed rules. In general, under the SES, the indirect costs are relatively minor relative to indirect costs under the RES and could be positive or negative.¹⁶ As long as the society has sufficient resources available to cover the direct adjustment costs of the rule change/extension within the SES, the indirect costs are small or non-existent in the SES (Table 1).

The costs inherent to the RES imply that it is less suitable for, and hence is less likely to be implemented in, dynamic, volatile and innovative societies. Instead, it is more likely to emerge in and sustain rigid, static and stable environments with well defined and persistent social and economic interactions.¹⁷ In such societies, the RES can well guide individuals’ behaviour without frequent adjustment of rules. On the other hand, if the RES is implemented in a dynamic environment, it may require frequent changes of rules leading to credibility loss of the system and hence low enforcement efficiency.

In contrast, its adjustment flexibility makes the SES more suitable to emerge in economically and socially dynamic, volatile and innovative societies with sufficient resources to finance a formal enforcement system. The adjustment of secular rules to accommodate new economic and social developments and innovations does not necessarily reduce the credibility of the system. Conditional on the resources available, the SES credibility change is neutral to the rule change,¹⁸ which makes it sustainable also in dynamically growing societies and more flexible in accommodating the societal demand for rule adjustments.

3.1. Autarky

In their early stage of development societies have low productivity, limited resources and no/limited interactions with other societies (autarky). The early ancient agrarian economies resemble most closely this type of environment. These ancient societies did not create sufficient surpluses for implementing, financing and maintaining a formal legal enforcement sector. Their rudimentary technology and transportation system as well as a low accumulation of knowledge made the SES expensive and hence unattractive at that time. Relative to the available resources, the RES was the most cost efficient system. Additionally, the early ancient societies were characterised by a relatively stable social and economic environment. Social and economic structures were organised along self-sufficient types of households and communities. Usually, the communities were organised in social classes with well-defined obligations and rights. Trade was minimal, with the barter system (conducted mostly at a local/community level) dominating market transactions of goods.¹⁹ Interactions between societies were limited and had virtually no effect on the economic and social setup of the society. Technological development and innovation did not play a major role in the economy and society. Such a stable and static environment did not demand a frequent adaptation of the rules of behaviour and thus represented a sustainable environment for the RES.

3.2. Technological Development

Next, we examine the impact of an exogenous technological improvement, which increases the production possibilities of the economy. Technological development has wide social and economic implications. First, technological advancement creates new economic opportunities within the society. New technological advances stimulate the emergence of new production techniques/tools and the supply and demand of new commodities and services. In a society in its early stage of development this particularly affects the agricultural sector by boosting farm household productivity (e.g. by the introduction of new farming techniques, the development of new production tools, and/or improvement in yields). An indirect consequence is the emergence of new sectors specialised in the supply of technology-intensive products. Among other things, technological advancement increases economic prosperity and creates household/individual level production surpluses. The availability of surpluses intensifies interactions and exchanges within communities. The possibility to exchange goods and services further creates gains from specialisation because of the possibility to exchange excess/deficit production. A further important implication of the technological advancement is the fact that it may generate societal reorganisation. In particular, specialisation may lead to the formation of a new class system according to the production specialisation of individuals (e.g. craft specialisation). Different social groups may emerge depending on the specialised activities that they perform within the community.Reference Finley²⁰

Such profound structural changes in the society may necessitate an adjustment of the enforcement system. The exploitation of new economic and social opportunities arising from technological progress may be constrained, creating large opportunity costs if they are not supported within the enforcement system. They may not emerge either because the new economic and social activities may be in contradiction with the initial norms of behaviour or because, if not enforced, individuals may not have an incentive to undertake them because of an inability to realise the gains. In such circumstances there will arise a need for enforcement system change. According to TCE theory, a system change is optimal and will occur when the productivity gains from a new system can compensate for the costs of system change. An adaptation of the existing RES to accommodate new societal needs within the enforcement system leads to high indirect adjustment costs. It causes a decrease of the RES's credibility and hence enforcement efficiency. Another option would be the adoption of the SES, which however is conditional on resource availability to finance the legal enforcement sector. For the moment we assume that a technology-induced productivity increase does not generate sufficient resources to finance the SES.

If the SES is not a feasible option, then the optimal path of institutional change tends to favour the replacement of the existing RES with a new RES or with a new denomination of the existing RES. Such an institutional change, a move from the existing RES to a new RES (denomination), was often observed in the ancient period and in the Middle Ages; for example Judaism evolved to Christianity and further to Islam.Reference Al Azm²¹ Similarly, intra-religion adjustments were observed: e.g. in Christianity the reformed Protestants split away from the orthodox Roman Catholic Church; similar development occurred in the Islam, for example, with the separation between Sunni and Shi'ite denominations. All these transitions show the common feature of an absolute refusal of the opposing religion (or denominations) and the introduction of a new/adjusted religion (or denomination) still based on the belief in an external (supernatural) power as the legitimate source of the new/adjusted norms.

A side-effect of the inter-intra-RES change is the potential for eruption of intra-societal conflicts. The conflicts could be a result of two driving forces: (i) the classical ‘class conflict’ and (ii) the conflict over the protection of the RES credibility.

First, the classical Marxist CC theory and its modern version collective-choice theory imply that a societal organisation change may imply frictions and confrontations, if it involves redistribution of wealth. The source of conflict is the heterogeneity of society, which may be stratified along many dimensions such as more productive versus less productive individuals, current generation versus future generations; ‘upper’ class versus ‘lower’ class, and so on. Due to societal heterogeneity, different members of a society may prefer different adjustments in institutions depending on the wealth distributional effects of the system change. This heterogeneity of interests is a potential source of confrontation among the societal groups, and was often the case in history.Reference Dahrendorf^22–Reference Smith²⁴ Moreover the system change may not occur in the presence of heterogeneity of interests. The transition to a new RES (denomination) is conditional on the emergence of a sufficiently strong group benefiting from the new system and ‘powerful’ enough to introduce its own rules over the opposing vested interests.

Second, the introduction of a new RES may stimulate certain religious groups to undertake actions aimed at protecting the credibility of their own (existing and/or new) RES (denomination). As discussed in Section 2, it follows that when two or more RES coexist, they reciprocally harm their credibility. For the existing RES, it is costly to adjust its norms or to accept the implementation of a new parallel system, because it is at the expense of its credibility. At the same time, the newly emerged RES (denomination) needs to build its own credibility in order to enforce its efficiency. For the new RES it is desirable to weaken the existing RES because this has an adverse effect on the latter's credibility. In principle, both the existing and the new RES (denomination) compete for a belief of the same nature (the belief in an external power) but differ in the type of norms they offer and want to enforce. If both RESs were to be implemented in a society, their efficiency will be mutually reduced as individuals could arbitrary move between them, and individuals would face a higher uncertainty of belief. One type of action that may be conducive to building the credibility of a RES is to induce a situation where the opposing RES (denomination) is perceived as an inferior choice by individuals in terms of guiding their (social and economic) life. This can include various types of actions spanning from propaganda to persecution but also by creating a situation of instability and insecurity among the members of the competing RES undertaken with the aim to eliminate or reduce the importance of the opposing RES.

A continuous and sustained expansion of new technologies further increases the production possibilities of the economy, fostering gains from specialisation and from intra-societal trade. Such a sustained growth-induced higher availability of resources may alter the enforcement equilibrium. The society under continuous technological development experiences growth of new economic and social activities leading to profound changes in economic and social institutions. Such structural changes require continuous adaptation of the enforcement system to accommodate new societal developments. Implementing RES in this dynamic environment creates high opportunity costs and the society will fail to benefit from economic and social changes. The inflexibility of the RES makes it unsuitable in an environment with constantly changing enforcement needs. Preserving and adapting the RES will lead to a continuous decline of its credibility and low enforcement efficiency. The sustained growth in resource availability may allow society to reorganise its enforcement system by switching to a more expensive but a more flexible SES. Although the SES has high direct adjustment costs (i.e. has high maintenance costs of the rule change), its advantage is low indirect adjustments costs (i.e. low efficiency/credibility loss to rule change). The reverse holds for the RES which has low direct but high indirect adjustment costs. This difference between the two systems makes the SES more suitable for adoption in dynamic growth-driven resource-abundant societies.

Over the last millennium, a gradual secularisation of societies (a general trend from the RES to the SES) can be observed in many regions around the world.Reference Dobbelaere²⁵ With expanding technology, innovations and rising productivity, the RES was unable to secure the full benefits arising from the new economic and social developments. At the same time, economic growth and increasing productivity allowed for the financing of a legal enforcement sector specialised in the enforcement of rules. According to TCE theory, a system change is optimal and will occur when the productivity gains from a new system can compensate for the costs of the RES replacement, the SES set-up costs and the maintenance costs of the legal enforcement sector.Reference Weber²⁶ However, it is difficult to identify and predict the exact time of transition from RES to SES for a given society. The timing associated with the system change depends on the particularities of each RES and on the characteristics of a particular society. Each type of RES is associated with different rules and thus implies different benefits to society as well as different costs of withdrawing it from enforcement of social and economic activities.Reference Platteau²⁷ Additionally, the timing and the magnitude of the shift to the SES depends on the set-up costs of the SES and on the resource availability for financing the legal enforcement sector. Differences in the relative costs and benefits of the SES and RES may explain why certain regions have moved faster to the SES (e.g. Europe) while others are still predominantly implementing the RES (Middle-East, Africa).

Moreover, according to the collective-choice theory, under certain circumstances, particularly if the vested interests (the religious conservative groups) are strong, the institutional improvement may not occur even if individuals are rational and/or if a more efficient SES is attainable (contrary to TCE). Some regions may be stalled in low equilibrium by continuing to implement the RES for a long period, whereas other regions may move faster to SES and thus enhance their development. The transition to the SES is conditional on the emergence of sufficiently strong reformist groups benefiting from the new system and ‘powerful’ enough to introduce their own rules over the opposing vested interests. The formation of the reformist group or groups depends on the perception and the expectation of individuals about the potential benefits from the system change. For example, expectations about the growth and stability/instability under the SES may affect individuals’ preference for the SES and hence may affect the transition to the SES.

The transition from RES to SES normally takes a long time and is accompanied by multiple types of impact on the society. In particular, the adoption of the SES has huge implications for economic growth and may create strong divergences in the development with respect to the RES.Reference Acemoglu²⁸ Regions implementing the SES have the potential for development, but this is conditional on the introduction of an efficient legal enforcement sector. Regions implementing the RES tend to stay underdeveloped, because the RES is not conducive to development. Instead, it constrains dynamic changes taking place in the society.

Similar to the RES–RES enforcement system change discussed above, the transition from RES to SES may also be accompanied by conflicts either due to classical ‘class conflict’ and/or due to conflict over the protection of the credibility of the outgoing RES.

A shift from the RES to the SES leads to a redistribution of wealth between the reformists, who would benefit from the new developments, and the conservative groups who may lose by the change. According to classical CC theory, the interaction between groups may be a cause of frictions and confrontations because it involves redistribution of wealth. The potential gains from the new developments provide an impulse to the reformist group to pressurise for structural adjustments to the enforcement system. The RES is unable to secure gains to them because of its inflexibility in accommodating norms' adjustment. At the same time, the conservative groups lose from the SES, because it shifts the control of economic and social activities away from the RES to the SES. These contradicting interests are potential sources of confrontation between the two societal interest groups.Reference Dahrendorf^22, Reference Smith²⁴

Second, the introduction of the SES may stimulate religious groups to undertake actions aimed at protecting the credibility of the RES. Such action may be of various types, including religious confrontations and conflicts. As discussed in Section 2, the adjustment of norms, including the implementation of a new enforcement system (SES or a new RES), is costly for the RES because it endangers the credibility and the enforceability of its norms. The introduction of the SES may affect each type of RES differently, which depends on the magnitude of the RES involvement in regulating social and economic activities.²⁹ In the case of a comprehensive RES, which regulates all main societal activities, the emergence of an alternative enforcement system, such as the SES, will likely intersect with the interest of the RES and thus the RES credibility loss is imminent and hence requires the uptake of measures to protect the credibility. One type of action that may be help to preserve the credibility of the RES is to induce a situation where the SES will be perceived as an irrational choice by individuals in terms of serving as an enforcement system. Other types of action may span from propaganda to persecution, creating a situation of instability and insecurity within the SES.

3.3. Trade³⁰

In this section we examine the impact of inter-societal interactions. Inter-societal interactions may result, for example, from technological improvement in transportation and communication. Trade may bring two dimensions to institutional settings: (i) the inter-societal technological spill-overs and gains from trade and globalisation and (ii) inter-societal enforcement system heterogeneity.

If there is a development gap between societies, technology spill-over may take place from the more developed society to the laggard one. The technological diffusion may be materialised in technological advancement and economic progress particularly in the laggard society. Additionally, gains from trade and globalisation may enhance inter-societal interactions and may foster economic progress in both societies. Both effects further enhance the need to adjust the enforcement system as they induce economic and social changes in the society. The internationally induced structural changes in the society have similar implications for the enforcement system choice as the intra-societal induced structural changes discussed in the previous section, but their impact is additional to the impact of the latter.³¹ The gains from inter-societal interactions may strengthen the economic and social pressures for enforcement system change.

The literature on trans-national institutional cross-effects argues that the heterogeneity in enforcement systems between trading societies adds a stress factor on their enforcement system.Reference Campbell^32, Reference Streeck³³ In addition to intra-societal conflicts, inter-societal conflicts may also emerge. The cause of intra-societal conflict is similar to the case of autarky discussed in the previous section. The inter-societal tensions arise when different societies relying on different institutional frameworks attempt to interact with each other, e.g. through trade. The interactions between societies require certain rules (analogous to rules for a society's members). Assuming that societies have the optimal institutional setting under autarky, the more different are the rules and norms of the interacting societies, the less likely they will be willing to adopt the rules and norms of the interaction (trading) partner. As a result, tensions and conflicts may arise between societies. On the one hand, because of comparative advantages, the societies involved in the inter-societal transactions would gain from interaction (trade). However, because of the costly adjustment of the enforcement system, none of the societies is willing to deviate from its equilibrium institutional setup, i.e. to adopt the trading partner's rules. In the stage of development were the RES is the optimal choice in all societies, the heterogeneity between societies may degenerate into an inter-societal conflict, if a society attempts to impose its RES over the other society's RES to exhaust the gains from trade. This is a class-type conflict, because it leads to wealth redistribution between societies, which affects heterogeneous interest groups differently. Inter-societal conflict over the protection of credibility of the RES may also emerge because the availability of an alternative RES in other societies threatens the credibility of the domestically implemented RES. Their credibility is mutually adversely affected, which potentially stimulates actions from both sides to harm the credibility of the RES available in the other society with the purpose of protecting the own RES credibility among one's own believers. This may, among others things, lead to inter-societal (inter-religious) conflicts and frictions (e.g. crusades).

Next, consider a continuous and sustained expansion of new technologies and globalisation, where the SES may be an attainable choice as an enforcement system in some or in all societies. The inter-societal interactions bring forward global variation between the enforcement systems. For example, societies may implement a different enforcement system (RES versus SES) because they find themselves in different stages of development. This variation in enforcement systems may lead to diffusion of institution knowledge between societies but may also represent an additional source of conflict between societies when the inter-societal interactions take place between heterogeneous societies, e.g. between a SES-based society and a RES-based society (SES-RES), because both sources of conflict are present: the classical ‘class conflict’ and the conflict over the protection of the RES credibility. This result is similar to the previously discussed intra-society RES-SES conflict but it is international in nature (i.e. it is inter-societal). The inter-societal wealth redistribution caused by enforcement system change aimed at capturing the gains from trade may result in inter-societal ‘class conflict’. In the second case, the societies implementing the RES may tend to harm the societies implementing the SES in order to protect the credibility of their system (Table 3).

On the other hand, the conflict between homogeneous SES-SES societies may only be caused by wealth redistribution resulting from classical CC theory. An attempt to replace the enforcement system of a society's SES with an SES of the other society may lead to wealth redistribution between interest groups and societies, and potentially erupt in inter-society class confrontations. Inter-societal conflict over the protection of credibility (efficiency) is irrelevant and will not emerge in SES-SES societies, because the credibility (efficiency) of the domestically implemented SES does not depend on the type of the enforcement system implemented in other societies. The credibility of the SES depends solely on the productivity of the own formal legal enforcement sector (Table 3).