According to Harari, the subversion of state and market overtaking the dominant values of family and community can be explained by human desire. Government and widespread markets allowed for the possibility of an individual lifestyle. No longer did the decisions of the individual have to rely on the whims of their families, their neighbors, and the elders in their community. Where once to leave behind your home was to become an outcast, in this new emerging system it meant a realm of possibilities previously inconceivable. As this style of life became more popular it effectively killed off the old way of living. The individual grew stronger alongside the state and market, but in doing so weakened the family and community, until those values and that lifestyle became a mere shadow of their previous prominence, really only evident in intimate social interactions. With their role in society thus relegated, the way was open for bigger and greater forms of government and economy to dominate day to day life.
I believe that historians should be consulted by leaders and public alike. The study of the past is one of the keys to understanding the future. To understand and predict the course of the future requires an understanding of human nature and human culture as we are today. This can best be achieved by studying the developments that shaped our society into its current form, and the study of those developments is the responsibility and speciality of historians. Better than perhaps anyone else they understand the attributes that define a culture, as well as the how and why of its shaping. The input they have is therefore valuable to anyone who wants to decipher whatever course that society’s future will follow, and doubly valuable to anyone who wants to alter that course.