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Promote awareness of the
unavoidability of the transformation, as a first essential element
of the strategy. Pulled by the emergence of a "new
transcendentalism" and pushed by the demonstrated inability of the
industrial-state paradigm to resolve the dilemmas its successes have
engendered, the fact and the shape of the necessary transformation
are predetermined.
Growing signs of
economic and political instability indicate that the time is at
hand. No more than the pregnant woman approaching the time of her
delivery can we now stop and reconsider whether we really want to go
through with it.
The time is ripe for a
great dialogue on the national and world stage regarding how we
shall pass through the transformation, and toward what ends.
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Construct a guiding
version of a workable society, built around a new positive image of
humankind and corresponding vision of a suitable social paradigm. As
the old order shows increasing signs of falling apart, some adequate
vision of what may be simultaneously building is urgently needed for
mobilization of constructive effort.
Perhaps the most crucial need of our time is to foster the dialogue
about, and participatively construct, such a shared vision. (It is
almost self-evident that an effective image of a humane
high-technology society, congenial to the new image of humankind,
would have to be participatively constructed-not designed by a
technocratic elite nor revealed by a charismatic leader.)
Chapter 7 describes some
of the broad characteristics of an evolutionary-transformation
future. But the guiding vision must be more specific than this. In
particular, the four dilemmas of the "new scarcity," the changing
role of work, control of technology, and more equitable sharing of
the earth's resources must be satisfactorily "re-visioned."
There must be a new economics, if not steady-state in a strict
sense, at least compatible with the constraints of the "new
scarcity." An economic theory and practice always implies a
psychology or, more particularly, a set of assumptions about human
motivation.
If motivations change,
because the basic picture of man-on-earth and man-in-the-cosmos has
altered, then economics must change. If the old economics required
steady material growth as a necessary condition for a healthy
economy, it does not follow that the new economics will likewise.
Similarly, the
definitions of good corporate behavior and good business policy
depend upon tacit social agreements about the bases for legitimation,
and change when those bases change. It may seem wildly utopian in
1974 to think of the multinational corporations as potentially among
our most effective mechanisms for husbanding the earth's resources
and optimizing their use for human benefit-the current popular image
of the corporation tends to be more that of the spoiler and the
exploiter.
But the power of
legitimation is strong, as discussed in Chapter 7, and the concept
is growing that business must "derive its just powers from the
consent of those affected by its actions." The vision of a workable
future must include a resolution of the present unsatisfactory
situation where what is apparently sound business practice and good
economics is often very unwise when viewed in the light of the "new
scarcity."
Second, the guiding vision has to include some way of providing for
full and valued participation in the economic and social affairs of
the community and society, especially for those who are physically
and mentally able to contribute but find themselves in a state of
unwilling idleness and deterioration of spirit. Here too there seems
to be a fundamental wrongheadedness in the conventional way of
formulating our economics. It is implicit in that formulation that
laboring is something man tends to avoid. The outputs of the private
sectors are considered to be goods and services, which persons
produce for pay.
But according to the
emergent image of man this calculus is based on faulty premises.
Human beings seek creative work, and find it is the means of their
own self-realization. Thus, the outputs of the private sector should
be goods, services, and opportunities for meaningful work. The new
society will have to provide for significant expansion of
social-learning and social-planning roles, as discussed in Chapter
7, and also for expansion of productive roles for those whose
capabilities are more modest.
The control dilemma requires for its resolution an effective network
for participative planning at local, regional, national, and world
levels, and again modifications to the economic incentives which at
present make it good business to do violence to the environment,
squander natural resources of all sorts, and treat persons as
manipulable objects.
The fourth dilemma, the
need for more equitable distribution of resources, may prove to be
the most difficult of all to resolve, considering the exploding
numbers of the earth's human beings. We have found it comfortable to
believe, for some time, that the solution to the problem of the
world's poor is not redistribution of wealth but helping the poor
become productive.
But the constraints of
the "new scarcity" preclude solving the problem this way. At any
rate, the poor of the world cannot become productive as America did,
by exploiting cheap energy and institutionalizing waste as a way of
life.
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Foster a period of
experimentation and tolerance for diverse alternatives, both in life
styles and in social institutions. Experimentation is needed to find
out what works, but there is a more important reason for trying to
maintain an experimental climate.
That is to reduce
hostile tensions between those who are actively promoting the new
and those who are desperately attempting to hold on to the old. In
public education, for instance, it is equally important that new
experimental curricula be tried and that the traditional subjects be
available for those who resist moving precipitously into the new.
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Encourage a politics of
righteousness, and a heightened sense of public responsibilities in
the private sector. Surveys and polls display drastically lowered
faith of the American people in both business and government. At the
same time, an atmosphere of trust is needed for the tasks ahead, the
emergent image of man supports a moral perspective, and private
lapses from moral and ethical behavior are harder to conceal.
A politics of
righteousness might have been laudable in any generation; it may be
indispensable for safe passage through the times just ahead. A
greatly heightened sense of stewardship and public responsibilities
for powerful institutions in the private sector is, the appropriate
response to rising challenges to the legitimacy of large
profit-seeking industrial corporations and financial institutions.
If these are to be more
than merely pious statements, changes in institutional arrangements
and economic incentives will need to be instituted so that
individuals and institutions can afford to behave in these
commendable ways.
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Promote systematic
exploration of, and foster education regarding, man's inner life. At
the end of Chapter 4 we postulated an emergent scientific paradigm
placing far more emphasis than in the past on explorations of
subjective experience-of those realms that have heretofore been left
to the humanities and religion, and to some extent to clinical
psychology.
The present situation leaves far too much of this societally
important research to informal and illicit activities. Interested
persons, not all young, resort to cultish associations, bizarre
experimentation, and illegal drug use because they find legitimated
opportunities for guided exploration in the society's religious,
educational, scientific, and psychotherapeutic institutions to be
inadequate, inappropriate, or inaccessible.
This nation's guarantees of religious freedom have been in a curious
way subverted by the preponderating orthodoxy of a materialistic
scientific paradigm.
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Accept the necessity of
social controls for the tranHtwn period while safeguarding against
longer-term losses of freedom. The transformation that is underway
has a paradoxical aspect, according to the five initial premises. In
considerable measure it has been brought about by the success of
material progress (through better nutrition, higher standard of
living, education, and the media) in raising more persons above
excessive concern with subsistence needs.
On the other hand, as
the transition-related economic decline and social disruptions set
in, they will tend to accentuate materialistic security needs.
Political tensions will rise, and disunity will characterize social
affairs. Regulation and restraint of behavior will be necessary in
order to hold the society together while it goes around a difficult
corner. The more there can be general understanding of the
transitory but inescapable nature of this need, the higher will be
the likelihood that a more permanent authoritarian regime can be
avoided.
This is no strategy of "business as usual," if these six elements
are taken seriously. They can contribute to a more orderly
transformation, with fewer social wounds to be healed, than would be
otherwise the case. Appendix E lists some exemplary specific actions
that might be part of implementing such a strategy.
One last word.
The general tone of this
work has been optimistic, which is fitting since there does indeed
appear to be a path-through a profound transformation of society,
the dynamics for which may already be in place-to a situation where
the present major dilemmas of the late-industrial era appear at
least resolvable. That optimism, however, relates to the
potentialities only.
It should not be
mistaken for optimism that industrial civilization will develop the
requisite understanding, early enough, to enable it to navigate
these troubled waters without nearly wrecking itself in the process.
In hoping this, some of us would be less sanguine.