Paradigms for Societal Transition

Abstract

Three world views or paradigms-Industrial (I), De-Industrial (D), and Symbiotic (S) -are compared in their expression in 12 selected key institutions of Advanced Western Industrial Societies at four levels: at the macro level, the nation state, the market economy, the pattern of Advanced country-Lesser developed country relations, the Welfare State and representative political democracy; at the meso or intermediate level, the private corporation and the metropolitan city; at the micro level, the nuclear family and the autonomous individual; at the socio-cultural level, classical science, the pattern of technological choice, and continuous formative education. The "whole-brained"processes associated with Paradigm S are adjusted to be increasingly more suitable for our present and future turbulent society and provide the basis for a paradigm for societal transition.