The Threefold Economy: The transformation of science, politics & economics

The Threefold Economy: Preparing for a successful transition into the third millennium. The transformation of science, politics & economics

All the political and economic conceptions of the past were rooted in a specific national consciousness. Although this level of awareness represented progress in the course of historical development from the individual to an ever larger community, it no longer represents a viable instrument for shaping our future.

The challenge now facing us is to use the advances of civilization achieved so far to release our slumbering potential and to preserve humanity from global disaster. This can be done by integrating nationalistically-oriented patterns of thinking and behavior in education, politics and economics - that continue to promote a mentality of separateness - into a superordinate global conception.

THE HUMAN ORGANISM

– The whole human being
– The bodily organs
– The cells of the body

In the human organism, the organs and cells form an indivisible whole. Each individual organ and its cells can live only because they are embedded in the life of the organism as a whole. All parts perform their specific tasks for the benefit of the whole. (The heart beats for the whole body. In like manner, the lungs breathe, the stomach digests and the legs run for the whole body ...)

THE GLOBAL ORGANISM

– All of humanity
– The nations of the world
– Individual human beings and enterprises

In analogy to the human being, the 197 nations within the global organism form the organs necessary for life. At the present stage of the development of civilization, they too can survive only as parts of an indivisible whole. Today, every nation must fulfill its specific mission as a part of the whole for the benefit of the whole.

Those who bear responsibility in politics, science and economics in all nations are faced with the challenge of preparing to shape the global organism as an indivisible whole and to organize it for the benefit of all 197 nations.

Despite tremendous progress in science, society and technology, all sectors of today’s civilization are beset with increasing difficulties, collisions and misunderstandings. And the social sciences are quite unable to propose relevant solutions with any hope of success.

The social sciences are losing their ability to anticipate the further development of education, politics and the economy. They are based on outdated assumptions and are insufficiently aware of the reasons for the present crisis of global civilization: for it is the inevitable expression of an egoistical mentality that the world can no longer tolerate in this form.

THE OLD IMAGE OF MAN

The change of mentality that is urgently needed cannot take place as long as the sciences - and above all the social sciences - base their premises on an egoistical-materialistic image of man that assumes him to be an egoist by his very nature, incapable of changing. The story of human evolution thus far certainly supports this thesis when observed from outside. But all truly great human beings from the domains of philosophy, religion, art, politics and economics whose example and commitment have brought human civilization a decisive step forward prove just the opposite. Explicitly or implicitly, they were aware that at his core man is not egoistic and materialistic, but sunlike and divine.

THE NEW IMAGE OF MAN

If the core of the human being is sunlike and divine, then according to the law that "each seed gives forth of its likeness", the egoistical mentality that can be seen and felt everywhere cannot represent a final state, but is merely a temporary phenomenon. The most critical and urgent question facing the sciences - in particular the social sciences - concerns the nature of the true essence of man and the consequences of the answer for education, politics and economics.

The key to resolving the apparent contradiction between these two images of man lies in gaining an insight into the dual nature of the human being. Man has two natures, a higher and a lower one. Whereas his lower, egoistical nature is highly developed, his higher sunlike nature is for the most part still in a state of profound slumber.

Although the development of the lower nature represents a necessary stage in the process of human evolution, it has now reached its zenith as a civilizational pattern and has even gone beyond it to some extent. Science, politics and economics are faced with a momentous decision: whether to cling to the curriculum of the lower nature that is now completed from an evolutionary standpoint - be it out of a lack of insight, out of laziness or for reasons of personal interest - or whether to make a start on a curriculum designed to develop man’s higher nature with its exacting demands. The impulse of transformation for the social sciences, politics and economics that such a step requires will now be outlined and combined into an overall picture.

The new world view and image of man is the source of the threefold economy. This in turn gives rise to three transformation sciences that bring the threefold economy into being in gradual states:

– The science of man - the basis of a new education
– The science of universal laws - the basis of a new jurisprudence
– The science of social organism - the basis of a new economics

These three sciences pour out over the social sciences like a renewing, quickening and transforming force - just like the light, warmth and life of the sun. The transformed social sciences in their turn renew and transform politics, and both together transform the economy.

The threefold economy now acts on the human being as a harmoniously-coordinated interplay of education, politics and economics - renewed in their core - and gives him effective support in the process of changing his mentality and in satisfying his true universal, collective and individual needs.