Humans have always survived in tribes. Class and caste are aspects of tribes in multi-tribal societies. Both also have economic implications as well. It has been said here that a major bias of this book is that human survival is based on cooperation. That is a simple bias compared to the biases associated with class and caste.
Generally, caste is an occupational description of a tribe in a multi-tribal society. Caste is an economic description. Traditionally, the primary castes are ruling, priestly, military, scribe, craftsmen and peasant. Often, but not always, caste will do much to determine a persons economic state, but not always. The best simple description of class refers to the miller and the farmer. The farmer brings his grain to the miller to be ground. This eventually may make the miller wealthy, but the does not raise the status of the farmer the same way.
Class may be an aspect of caste, but is generally separate. A person of a high caste, but low economic state, has a higher status than a than a person of lower caste, but higher economic state.
Much of history and even pre-history has been written by the interactions between tribes. Class has led to so many things, including the largest political conflict to date, Communism. As is the case elsewhere in this book, there is a break made here. Trying to project caste or class into the future would take a book, probably many books, so the process is side stepped to look at the conclusion.
Caste, in terms of tribes, would become completely obsolete in terms of a highly hybridized population. Class is completely another issue and this is where bias comes in. I come from a society that philosophically rejects class. Natural economic factors, as well as remaining tribal issues, continually re-create class. Already we see the wealth that a technological economy can provide to all members of a society. Depending on what energy supplies and resources technology can provide us with, material wealth could become almost limitless. That still leaves real estate, but potentially, that could change too. Predicting human economic futures is not useful here not only for technical reasons, but also because our concept of wealth and subsequently class, are a matter of beliefs and are very subject to change. The best example of this perhaps is capitalism. Wealth is considered a tool of investment to create more wealth. More often historically, wealth has been considered a static thing to be accumulated and hoarded. These are very different concepts with very different results. In the second case, the role of the person of high economic class is to own wealth. The role of the capitalist is to husband and create wealth. In ways, this is similar to the idea of a politician being either a ruler or a leader. It is a matter of belief and consequence.
Here is where bias comes in. I make the assumption that we will create a classless society based on genetic equality and the creation of common material wealth. Is this bias appropriate or will we retain economic classes and genetic inequality? There is a lot of argument for that. There is the term "gene rich" to describe those able to economically afford artificial genetic improvements. While class inequality is often philosophically decried, it has been the commonest social pattern and tends to naturally develop. Notice here that class and caste, both are dependant on wealth in terms of resources and technology. Can artificial genetic improvement be widely available? What material resources will be made available by technology? The theory that is the basis of this book says that humans will not survive without widely available artificial genetic selection. It says that the truest form of wealth is genetic. The availability of material wealth to create this genetic wealth may well be more dependant on our beliefs and will than our technology.
Class and caste have served humans well as organizational systems in the past. In this
model, the caste system will vanish due to genetic changes. The class system is based on
a number of things, including inherent inequality of individuals, limited wealth and
its function as a social organizational system. According to this model,
there is going to be less of this inequality. Artificial selection is going to cause a
leveling from the bottom up. Those who are superior now, will have a harder time making
qualitative genetic improvement. They are already pretty good. Those who are genetically inferior now will have a lot more room to improve and will catch up with those that are genetically superior now. Human wealth has largely been based on two things, exploitation
of natural resources and wealth creation by individual creativity. In the past, more
wealth has come from exploitation of natural resources than from human creativity. That
will most likely change in the future to where most wealth is derived from human creativity.
As far as class as a social organizational system, it worked, but historically has been a
poor method by most standards. Husbanding of existing wealth tends to be more by technicians these days and seems to be a far superior method to what has been in the past.
There is another factor to consider after these. Some people are just good at making wealth.
They create and they organize. Generally, the wealth they create is good for everyone, again
that is depending on what model of Capitalism they are following. At the same time, their tendancies and skills are usually not as strongly represented in their children and their
wealth tends then to be managed by technicians. This is a model of a class represented by individuals, not by social components. The same thing would be expected to happen at the
opposite end of the economic spectrum as well.
The basis of any ecology of any specie is energetics. This is true for humans. Energetics and wealth are currently a matter of exploiting natural resources. This will not go on. Eventually,
and not so long from now, all resources will be derived from techniques based on human creativity. In this model, the methods of wealth controlled the way it is now or has been
in the past, just will not hold up under those conditions.