Science History and the Future

Søren Hetland Basse ©

Copenhagen

The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

                                                         

                                     Albert Einstein

Acknowledgments

It is largely thanks to my wife Kirsten (Bergfjord) Basse that the publication of this book has been made possible.  Throughout our entire marriage she has backed me up, in the realization that its subject matter was an important and essential part of me - so essential that in many instances it has been allowed to dominate our family life.  During all the years I have been working on the book Kirsten has been the only person with whom I have been able to discuss my thoughts in depth, and her clever, critical and mature comments have frequently helped me on my way.

My warmest thanks are also extended to the Direktør E. Danielsen og hustrus Foundation, without whose help the Danish edition and its translation into English would not have been possible.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements   4

Table of contents   5

Science

Introduction   8

The prevailing theories of science   9

My approach   9

Basic assumption   11

The cognitive procedure   11

The main categories of science   12

                             The Systematizing-scientific level   13

                             The deco‑scientific level   13

                             The Deductive-scientific level   15

The consequence of a stratified theory of science   19

Categorial transitions   21

The preconditions for this deductive‑scientific theory of science   22

The foundation of the intellect   24

The cognitive process   27

The limit of deductive ”scientificness”   29

Logical unequivocality is not primarily a quality of the empirical world but a level of human consciousness   31

The status of modern physics within this theory of science   32

A thought experiment   35

Billions wasted  36

Deco-scientific geometry   38

Positivism, hermeneutics and falsificationism   39

The status of philosophy within this theory of science   45

Science today   49

History

The developement of history as a science   53

A universal historical theory   54

History as a science on the initial-scientific level   56

History as a deductive science   57

Life and entropy   59

The impact of the optimization urge   61

The main historical categories   62

The three main categories as a stylized sequence   64

The hunting category   64

The agrarian category   66

The trading category   69

The interaction between different categorial structures   73

Regressive revolution   76

Theory of science reflections  78

Concrete historical elements   82

The Middle East of antiquity   82

A developmental shift   86

Changes in shipbuilding techniques   86

Interpretative considerations   87

Greece   89

Italy   92

The development of Europe   94

An alternative view of fundamental economic elements   97

The oregin of long term growth    100 

The present day and the linear future   106

Ideological time lag   111

International relations   113

Categorical leap   115

The Future

The fourth main historical category   118

The historical preconditions   118

The idea society   122

The establishment of the idea category   124

The technical make‑up of the idea category   128

The elaboration of an idea‑exchanging system   130

Initiative and Idea exchange in firms and larger organisations   131

The Model   133

The selection of developable ideas   139

The content of the three IRI functions   140

Creating on demand   143

The present and the "near" future   145

The industrialized countries and the fourth historical category   153

 And so to work   155

Bibliography   156                                                                                                               

                                                         Science 

 

Introduction

 

Right up to the breakthrough of modern physics at the end of the nineteenth century the most common scientific assumption was that the future would bring no radically new, basic scientific knowledge, but that the task of scientists would consist exclusively of refining and perfecting the Newtonian view of the world. Despite obvious discrepancies between experiment and theory in various branches of physics, science chose at that time either to ignore them or to presume that they could be eliminated within the Newtonian framework of understanding. However, the growth of modern science has demonstrated beyond any doubt that the sciences are not only developed through an accumulation of knowledge, but also that ruptures big and small are constantly appearing in the theories that make up the established view of the world.

                             Consequently, the most obvious places to search for new knowledge are in those scientific areas where there are discrepancies between the various conceptions of science.

                             The theory of science, which ought per definition cover all scientific phenomena, contains within itself a fundamental discrepancy: a lack of understanding as to what causes the division of the sciences into two markedly different categories - the natural contra the social sciences.[1]  The existing theoretical models are capable of elaborating theoretical frameworks in which both of these categories are described, as far as their sociological characteristics are concerned. But no model has yet been able to encompass these two basic scientific categories satisfactorily within a single consistent theoretical framework at the same time reflecting the marked differences between the two categories.

                             The theory of science has not yet provided any possibility of understanding the qualitative differences in "scientificness" that is readily discernible in the natural sciences on the one hand and the social sciences on the other. Until now, this lack of accordance as to what constitutes the basic structure of all science has functioned as a kind of cognitive obstacle that impedes further dynamic development, especially within the social sciences.

 

The prevailing theories of science.

 The reader already familiar with theory of science will want to know what differences there are between this theory and the prevailing theories.

                             To describe the problems of the prevailing theories of science, and especially the solutions to those problems, a conceptual framework which transcends the existing ones is needed. That is precisely what this theory offer, so even to the reader already familiar with theory of science, the easiest way to understand the differences between this theory, Positivism/Logical Empiricism, Hermeneutics, Falcificationism and Kuhns science-sociology, and the solutions to their problems, will be to read the first third of this book.
Never the less it can be stated that the fundamentally new approach in this theory is based on the now natural scientific proven fact, that more than 90% of human brain activity takes place in the form of subconscious processes. This fact leads to dramatic changes when it comes to theory of science and of scientific understanding as such. 

 

 

My approach

 In order to discover what has caused the division of science into "exact" natural sciences and social sciences, it is necessary to incorporate a historical perspective. Thus, in sketching this theory I have focused on the fact that all the sciences, even those we nowadays regard as "exact" natural sciences, have undergone a process of development. In the past even mathematics, physics and chemistry, for example, have had a scientific structure similar to that of the social sciences today, and parts of the natural sciences still linger on that level.

                             This book sets out to show that the very categorisation of science into natural and social sciences has prevented us from taking the consequence of there being in reality only one type of science. But within this one type of science there are three essentially different levels of development, and the various scientific disciplines are themselves at different stages of development.

                             The fact that the so‑called exact sciences have once been on a developmental level corresponding to what we nowadays associate with the social sciences is important as regards the history of science. But even more important is the fact that the so‑called social sciences may be developed to the extent that they will in future contain the same dynamic and scientific characteristics as the so‑called exact sciences. We must bear in mind, however, that that is something very different from prematurely attempting to apply natural scientific praxis directly to the social sciences - e.g. from applying mathematical equations. The application of natural scientific praxis to social sciences will, on their present level of development, only contribute to blurring the limitations and thus impede the real developmental possibilities of the disciplines in question. The first step must be to clarify on which developmental level each and every individual scientific discipline basically is.

                             It is characteristic of the “classic” natural sciences that their structure today not only renders us capable of understanding the elements we have already investigated, but also of predicting - not guessing the content of elements we have not yet investigated and may not immediately be capable of investigating.

                             If the social sciences were raised to the same structural level as that of the “classic” natural sciences, something extremely dramatic would occur. When, for example, the theory in this treatise is applied to the scientific discipline history it will not only be possible to adopt a more rational attitude to individual historical societies and epochs, our own time included, but it will become possible to outline the fundamental structure of future dynamic developments, and in due course it will also be possible to predict future societal developments with the same precision as we are now able to predict chemical reactions resulting from the interaction of known chemical compounds! In trying to accept such a radical claim, please keep in mind that natural scientific predictions 2-300 years ago were as primitive as those of today's social sciences.

                             Thus it is the intention of this book to increase the understanding of the basic dynamics of science, and to introduce a universal theory of history which is capable of predicting future structural developments.

The constant driving force and motivating factor behind my entire work, however, has been an awareness of the urgent need of better conceptual instruments to cope with the historical, societal and environmental challenges we are faced with today.

 

It must be obvious to everyone that the natural sciences have enabled us to understand, manipulate and control our physical surroundings to an extent that no one would ever have imagined possible, even in the immediate past. It must be equally obvious that if we become capable of understanding the societal and social parameters in a like manner, our possibilities of stabilizing the world will be increased to a fantastic extent.

 

 

 

Basic assumption

 This treatise takes as its point of departure the basic assumption that the universe consists of one great interacting whole in which everything affects everything else. This applies not only to what we nowadays regard as physical phenomena we are capable of registering and measuring, but also to thoughts, feelings, and phenomena we have not yet fully recognized and understood. Remember that the phenomena we can register and directly measure only constitute about 5 % of the phenomena we reluctantly accept must be part of our existence - the universe!

                             An important consequence of this basic assumption is that it is not possible to say anything unequivocal about individual phenomena without describing everything in the universe - the entire universe. And since this is not humanly possible, we must continue to suffice with imprecise and approximate descriptions of more or less isolated parts of reality!

 

 

The cognitive procedure

 The basic procedure employed in the scientific cognitive processes is in fact not anything specific to the sciences. On the contrary, it is a general mode of procedure we employ in our interaction with nature and with other people. The procedure encompasses feedback processes whereby the individual consciously or unconsciously formulates a question or need on being confronted with a problem. This is followed first by unconscious processing and then by conscious processing, ultimately leading to a tentative solution, which is then tested. Should the solution not prove satisfactory, the from the test newly reaped experience will then be used to reformulate the question, and be followed by new unconscious processing, conscious elaboration, a reformulation of the explanatory model and further testing, etc., until satisfactory results have been achieved.

                             It is important to note that one of the fundamental elements of the above procedure is unconscious processing. Thus, satisfactory results may well be obtained without any conscious understanding of the origin or internal structure of the problem. The initial interpretations and descriptions might very well be based on superficial considerations instigated by the specific situation or line of approach to the problem rather than by the problem`s fundamental origin or nature.

                             Thus, when produced by different activities, phenomena or processes which are in fact identical may very well acquire different descriptions and different names. A few centuries ago, for example, the same chemical processes could be utilized in the production of both medicine and perfume, but because these identical processes originated from different activities, they inevitably acquired different, more or less metaphysical explanations, and no one at the time had any idea that the processes were in fact identical. To give another example, the same mass psychological phenomena often acquire widely different descriptions, explanations and names, depending on whether they are described in a psychological or a historical context.

 

 

The main categories of science

 The past century has brought about an explosive development in almost all fields of science, and a number of entirely new disciplines have been established. It is also characteristic of the past century that a gradual merging and overlapping of different scientific disciplines has taken place. The theory of science itself, however, has not kept pace with this development, and thus it is still not possible to provide consistent explanations as to what causes the differences in the nature of "scientificness" between the various scientific disciplines.

                             The traditional division of the sciences into two main categories - the social and the natural sciences - did not present any particular problem as long as the majority of the scientific disciplines were independent and isolated from one another and there were no great need for interdisciplinary interaction. But gradually, as interdisciplinary exchange has acquired greater and greater importance, the need for a comprehensive, logical and consistent theory of science that covers all scientific areas has become urgent.

                             With the establishment of such a framework of understanding for the entire scientific spectrum in view, it is my intention to argue in favor of establishing three scientific categories which reflect with greater precision the qualitative differences between the various scientific disciplines.

 

 

The systematizing-scientific level.

 As already mentioned scientific disciplines are founded on societal activities. What initially turns these activities into science is not their content but the way that content is treated.

                             A couple of hundred years ago history e.g. was treated more or less like any other literary activity. Not until in the nineteenth century did history become a distinct science through the introduction of systematic and strict principles for the investigation of historical source material.

                             Although we may note that the transition, from the pre-scientific level of activity we regard as a framework of understanding for ordinary societal and artistic activities to a scientific framework of understanding is gradual, we can say that the systematizing-scientific level has been reached with the establishment of systematic and strict principles of investigation within the field in question.

 

 

 

The deco‑scientific level.

 The cognition on the systematizing-scientific level is only capable of establishing criteria for systematic and strict treatment of the scientific material. Source material that fundamentally belongs to the same category might at this developmental stage both acquire different names and be interpreted very differently depending on the scientist`s or group of scientist`s approach to and understanding of the phenomena in question.

                             When it though becomes obvious that the scientists within different fields are dealing with the same phenomenon or problem, even though their descriptions and explanations of the phenomenon differ, the need arises to gather describe and co-ordinate all the acquired knowledge and express it within a single conceptual framework.

                             It is characteristic that it too is impossible, on the basis of theories formulated on this second scientific level, to predict any courses of events, apart from repetitions of the events leading to the formation of the theory.

                             After a scientific discipline has been established on this second level, which I henceforth shall call the deco‑scientific level, the systematic investigation may be continued, but instead of this taking place within separate and narrow lines of activity each with its own conceptual framework and "language", the knowledge reaped and coordinated from such different branches of a discipline may now contribute to a more general description and understanding.

                             Such a deco-scientific theory naturally endeavors to fulfil its task as a coordinating and organizing element as well as possible. But on this second scientific level competing theories are often advanced, each of which insists that its own angle of approach provides the best possible understanding of the phenomena in question. In reality each of the theories will cover some aspects of the phenomena better than others, but it is not possible on this deco-scientific level to determine whether one theory is more correct than the others. Consequently the dissemination and popularity of a theory on this level depends on a great many factors, such as whether it offends social, religious or ethical norms more than its competitors, or whether it is accepted by a new generation of scientists.

                             Even mathematics has undergone such a development, and although it took place thousands of years ago, it must have involved the same procedure - that of formulating a question or need, unconscious processing, conscious processing, formulating a solution, testing, etc. This must have led to the organization of the numerical, geometrical and quantifiable experience under systematizing‑(scientific) theories, in order later to be subsumed under a single deco-scientific theory - before ultimately becoming the qualitatively superior science it is today. (Such an archaic mathematical system still exists and functions in the north eastern part of Africa, a dynamic system based on experience that only recently has been logically understood and described with the help of modern binary mathematical understanding.)

                             As far as physics is concerned, the transition from the above‑mentioned deco-scientific level took place so late in history that we have ample historical evidence of this. With regard to chemistry, which is the most recently developed of these three sciences the transition from the deco‑level took place so late and in such a manner than it may well serve as an illustration.

                          As already mentioned chemical practices had for centuries been involved in the production of many different chemical compounds, but within the various disciplines different - and often metaphysical - explanations had been given of the cause and course of the chemical processes concerned. (J.D.Bernal)

                             About three hundred years ago, however, the application of chemistry and especially the instrumental practices involved had become so advanced that the need arose for an all‑embracing chemical theory, and several such theories were in fact formulated. The last and most successful of these chemical deco‑theories was the phlogiston theory, which gathered all known chemical phenomena within one theoretical framework. According to this theory, if chemical substances were combined in the presence of phlogiston - an undetectable element presumed to be universally present - then the respective chemical reactions could be observed to take place. It was necessary to assume the universal presence of this undetectable element phlogiston because at that time it was already possible to weigh and measure with sufficient precision to ascertain that when a number of substances were mixed or combusted, the total weight of the new chemical compounds obtained was different from the total weight of the original mixed substances. The phlogiston theory could be used to systematize, describe and coordinate chemistry before the different components of the atmosphere were known. It was not, however, able to predict hitherto unknown chemical reactions. The phlogiston theory was finally abandoned following the discovery, in 1774, of oxygen as one of the components of the atmosphere, but not until hundred years later, in 1869, did it become possible definitively to raise chemistry from the deco‑level to the qualitatively higher level of today, based on the development of the periodic table, and its quantum mechanical interpretation.

 

 

The deductive-scientific level.

 As I have intimated, our interaction with nature and with one another depends on the continuous reciprocal action between our various cognitive achievements and the latter`s relationship to the empirical world.

                             Therefore the basic factors in scientific processes consist of our cognition and the empirical world. But as long as the cognition is restricted to “a descriptive and coordinating systematization” (the deco‑level) scientific investigations are often just repeating each other leading to quantitative development but with slight conceptual development. Qualitative scientific development is consequently relatively slow.

                             At some point however the vast Deco-scientific described material will lead a scientist to achieve a break through (by way of his 90% subconscious brain activity and subsequent logical thinking), raising the field to the level where it is possible to construct models capable of predicting the course of hitherto uninvestigated empirical aspects. These predictions can thereafter be compared with investigations of the empirical phenomena concerned, thus enabling us to verify whether a prediction is in reasonable accordance with the observable phenomena in question. If this proves to be the case, the scientific process has reached a qualitatively higher level.

                             At this stage it is important to recollect that due to “the interaction of everything in the universe” scientific unequivocallity is never possible. Consequently an acceptable coincidence between the purely theoretical description of a phenomenon and the subsequent investigation of the corresponding empiric phenomenon is the closest we can ever come to “scientific truth”! 

 

Due to the belief that conscious, linear thought patterns and inductions were the only acceptable factors of scientific theories, other theories of science that have utilized deductions have been focusing on the fact that the premises of the deductions already have been confirmed through the inductive procedure. Or at least people have thought that inductions were "symmetrical" with deductions. If that should be the case the value of the deductive procedure would be eliminated by the circular reasoning employed!

Although it has been a general understanding for over 100 years within psychology, it is only during the latest decades that neurology, by way of brain scanners, has ascertained that approximately 90% of our brain activity is in the form of unconscious processes, therefore earlier generations of scientists have not been able to eliminate the above misconception.

The benefit from the deductive procedure emerges when new scientific assumptions leading to deductions partly originate from non-linear thought patterns (as they always do), and thus are not satisfactorily confirmed. In that case the deductions are not tied into a circular reasoning. The deducted theoretical consequences can be compared with empirical observations thereby confirming or invalidating the premises of the deduction. The deductive-scientific level has not been reached due to the expression of the prediction, as such predictions can be made about everything, but the deductive-scientific level has been reached when the prediction and successive other predictions has been confirmed through comparison with hitherto uninvestigated aspects of the field in question. This procedure is closely related to thought experimenting.

                             It goes almost without saying that the conditions and rules for the testing of deducted predictions have to be agreed upon before the actual testing is done.

 

In other words, as long as a scientific field is relatively undeveloped, it is only possible to pose relatively primitive and superficial questions. But ultimately, as more and more aspects of that scientific field are described, coordinated, developed and illuminated, the information available for scientists to process will eventually become sufficient to enable an open‑minded scientist to transcend the deco‑level and formulate a more fundamental scientific theory. A new scientific theory of this type will differ from its predecessors not merely by virtue of its ability to describe and coordinate its field of knowledge, but it will also differ radically from these deco-scientific theories by enabling the scientist to formulate models that predict and illustrate specific processes or phenomena  within said science. It will then be possible to compare these models or predictions with hitherto uninvestigated empirical aspects. It will thus provide a precise picture as to whether the models deduced on the basis of the new scientific theory have as high a degree of correspondence with the observable reality as the technical proficiency at the time permits. Given a discrepancy between what is expected and what is registered, it will be possible, on this scientific level - which I shall henceforth term the deductive‑scientific level - to continue the scientific investigation with great precision in the specific directions rendered conspicuous by the lack of accordance between the theoretical models and the empirical observations.

                             The shift from the Ptolemaian system to the Copernican system constitutes the shift from the deco-level to the deductive level within astronomy, as only the latter system facilitates predictions and the subsequent control through hitherto uninvestigated phenomena. Within physics Gallilei established astronomy on the deductive-scientific level. Later the Newtonian system constituted the definitive shift to the deductive-scientific level within physics. And as previously mentioned, chemistry also presents a good example of a science that has transcended the deco‑level and has been raised to the deductive‑scientific level. The theory relating to atomic structure, weights and valency (the ability to cohere) is precisely such a basic scientific element.

                             No sooner was the periodic table and its quantum mechanical interpretation established than it became possible not only to coordinate and systematise the available chemical knowledge, but also to understand, calculate and predict the outcome of hitherto untested combinations of chemical substances.

                             It is important to note that a deductive‑scientific theory need in no way be definitive; it cannot in fact ever acquire that status on account of the interconnection and mutual interaction of everything in the universe. The definitive explication of a single scientific area is only possible as the collective explication of the entire universe!

                             Newtonian physics presents a good example of the imprecise and temporary nature of even an “exact” deductive‑scientific theory. Newton’s deductive‑scientific theories were so successful that they were proclaimed the only and ultimate theories of physics - and that belief did in fact impede further development of physics during the ensuing century.

                             We know, however, that scientific development did not come to a halt, for nowadays such disciplines as mathematics, physics and chemistry, which were originally three separate disciplines, form one interconnected scientific structure - to which other scientific disciplines are gradually being linked.

 

In order to distinguish this theory of science from other theories which also utilise deductions, this approach ought to be called "the verified-deductive method". Other schools notably "Moderate empirism" and "Falsificationism" which utilise "the hypothetical deductive method" have cognitively never really left the fundamental inductive approach of the neo positivists. Although they theoretically abandoned already established knowledge and inductions as the sole origin of scientific theories, they continued to see inductions and deductions as having the same logical structure and being "symmetrical", and thus tied into a circular reasoning. Furthermore in the practical applications they tend to focus on the expression of a theory as the establishing criteria for the theory and not on the confirmation of the theory. Last but not least those schools which maintain "the hypothetical deductive method" as an indispensable condition have hitherto had to dismiss the scientific achievements which cannot meet these conditions, and render them unscientific or pseudoscientific.

Although the name "verified-deductive science" would be the best way to express the difference between this theory and those theories which utilizes "the hypothetical deductive method" the name is too long for practical use, and I will therefore maintain the name "deductive-science" deliberately dismissing "hypothetical" in order to set it apart from the former schools.

 

 

The consequence of a stratified theory of science

 The traditional division of science into the two main categories, natural science and social science, which in itself reflects purely historical and organizational relations between scientific disciplines, has camouflaged the fact that all scientific disciplines are in reality on different levels of scientific development.

                             The consequence of a stratified theory of science is that all scientific disciplines, whether belonging historically to the natural sciences or to the social sciences, are in fact part of the same scientific framework, despite their different developmental levels. The quite obvious differences in "scientificness" between the disciplines are not anything permanent; all scientific disciplines will in principle be able to undergo the same type of dynamic development.

                             Outside the physical/chemical complex, Johan Gregor Mendel`s theory of heredity provides a good illustration of the fact that a deductive‑scientific theory may well be developed in isolation. Even though the Mendelian laws of heredity were originally only concerned with a limited botanical field, they eventually constituted a basic deductive‑scientific element. From this basic element it became possible to predict the genetic variations that would evolve from the cross‑fertilisation of plants or animals with an accuracy that was satisfactory at the time.

 Carl von Linné established botany on the systematizing-scientific level 1735, 259 years ago, Charles Darwin raised botany as well as zoology to the deco-scientific level 1859, 135 years ago, and already 7 years later in 1866 did Mendel`s pioneering work enable him to raise a restricted field of botany onto the higher deductive‑scientific level.

                             The deductive-scientific method will in fact first be effectively utilized on partial fields of otherwise deco-scientifically developed disciplines, but it is when a discipline as a whole is founded on deductive-scientific elements, that the discipline as such has transcended the deco-scientific level and has reached the deductive-scientific level. Once the deductive‑scientific level has been reached within a partial disciplinary field, it is in principle possible to transform (unwind) the entire discipline concerned. And when the entire discipline has reached the deductive‑scientific level, a partial disciplinary field where discrepancies occur can be investigated in order to pinpoint even more fundamental structural elements. The new and more fundamental theoretical elements thus derived will then appear as more generalized descriptions of the scientific field in question. Thereafter the original deductive‑scientific element can be regarded as a particular, simplified aspect of such a new and more fundamental deductive‑scientific theory.

                             Newton`s physics constitutes a good example of the above. As a deductive‑scientific theory it is still satisfactory for everyday use, but within modern science it is merely a particular and rather coarse aspect of the physics that is based on Einstein`s general theory of relativity.

                             In principle it is possible to explicate a deductive scientific theory in two different directions, one of which is to continue the investigation of the areas in which the theoretical model does not tally with the phenomena concerned, i.e. the areas where the theory is unsatisfactory. The other is to utilize or implement the deductive‑scientific theory in as many fields and for as many purposes as possible, and the majority of scientists are occupied with this latter sort of activity.

                             Often a new basic deductive‑scientific element will not become generally accepted until a new generation of scientists takes the lead. (Kuhn) When this occurs, the initial tendency will be to abstract from the weaker aspects of the theory and to concentrate instead on utilizing its possibilities. But the more the theory is utilized, the more its weak aspects are revealed, and the need for further research into the basic deductive‑scientific elements will become all the more apparent.

 

 

 

Categorial transitions

 The term "natural science" has almost become synonymous with the term "exact science" (which in reality implies deductive-science), whereas the term "social science" has become a general receptacle for almost everything else, and this has greatly contributed towards maintaining the traditional division between the natural and the social sciences.

                             As already mentioned, a gradual transfer of disciplines from the social to the natural sciences has taken place as some disciplines have become linked to the deductively developed mathematical, physical and chemical scientific complex.

                             With the help of the conceptual clarification provided by the categorization into systematizing-, deco- and deductive‑scientific levels it is possible to determine to what extent individual disciplines within even the natural sciences are truly and consistently on the deductive‑scientific level of development.

                             If we take biology, for example, we find that despite Mendel`s deductive‑scientific botanical breakthrough, biology was still confined to the deco‑level at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mendel`s brilliant work had been overlooked and disregarded by his contemporaries and was rediscovered about forty years later, when the development of biology as such had reached a level that enabled many scientists to discern the pattern of this discipline's underlying deductive‑scientific structure. Although Mendel's deductive-scientific break-through came only 7 years after Darwin had established biology on the deco-scientific level, it thus took 47 years before biology as such became elevated to the deductive-scientific level.

                             As the result of the microbiological breakthrough in the latter half of the 20th century, biology has now become firmly established on the deductive‑scientific level, and present development within this scientific field points to a merger of biology and chemistry by way of biochemistry.

                             It is beyond the scope of this book to try to map out the deductively developed elements in all scientific disciplines. I have chosen biology as an example of a science that has now reached the deductive-scientific level. Medical science, however, serves as an example of a science that may well have reached the deductive level in some of its activities - and also thereby has become linked to the joint mathematical, physical and chemical structure - whereas other of its activities are still to be found on the deco‑level, and at a fairly primitive stage at that. It is naturally due to its extreme complexity and wide field of activity that the medical science embraces so different levels of scientific development.

                             Although a great many scientific disciplines have only reached the systematizing-scientific level, it is quite possible that some of these disciplines already embrace deductively developed elements that have not yet been recognized as such. This, as mentioned, was the case with Mendel´s laws of inheritance, which had to spend 47 years in oblivion before they were rediscovered, understood and recognized.

 

 

The preconditions for this deductive‑scientific theory of science

 As a consequence of the division of the scientific field into systematizing-, deco- and deductive‑scientific levels, these categories should also apply to the field of theory of science, and consequently also to this specific theory of science. If this is a theory on the systematizing-scientific level all that is required of it is the establishment of systematic and strict principles of investigation within its field. If on the other hand this theory is a theory on the deco-scientific level it must formulate a hypothesis within theory of science, which can be used as a starting point for the description, co-ordination and systematization of the entire scientific spectrum. And if this theory transcends the deco‑level it must eventually be capable of making predictions which can be corroborated through observations within its field of investigation.

                             As a systematizing-scientific element within this theory of science can be seen the claim that all sciences ought to be strictly systematized, analyzed and judged using the same criteria. As a deco-scientific element can be seen the claim that three distinctly different developmental levels exist within science, and that the individual disciplines have to be described, co-ordinated and systematized in order to establish to which of those levels they hitherto have been developed. As a deductive-scientific claim, based on the understanding of the sciences as historically developing phenomena, can be seen the prediction that other sciences than those hitherto recognized as deductive-scientific can acquire that status. Furthermore the second and third part of this book actually undertakes such a deductive-scientific task within the science of history.

                             What this theory of science posits is that hitherto unrecognized basic deductive‑scientific elements are to be found in sciences other than those used in establishing the theory itself. It would be much too extensive, however, to carry out such a process of verification at this stage, especially if one is obliged to exclude disciplines that are to some extent already associated with the combined mathematical and physical/chemical complex. So at this stage I must confine myself to state, that I have knowledge of some reasonably well‑developed deductive‑scientific elements in three markedly deco-scientific social sciences, i.e. psychology [2], history and economics, the two latter being dealt with in parts II and III of this book. In the chapter "An alternative view of the science of economics" I will forward a hitherto overlooked deductive scientific element. All of part III of this book "The Future" is dealing with future historical development. If and when these two hitherto untested theoretical structures are confirmed, this theory of science has too been confirmed as a deductive-scientific structure.
  (And as this treatise was published 30 years ago, several of the predictions have become reality, confirming the theory.).

 

As previously mentioned, a theory that has been established on the deductive-scientific level can be evolved in two directions, a quantitative one and a qualitative one, the first of which is to apply it to as many fields as possible, i.e. to make practical use of it. Since we are concerned here with a theory of science, this implies that in all scientific disciplines we have to determine which of their respective structures are in fact deductively developed, and which of them are still on the systematizing-scientific or deco-scientific level. The other direction, the qualitative, consists of investigating the basic elements of the theory, i.e. its foundation, a necessary stage in the further substantiation of the theory. This process aims not least to reveal the weaknesses of the theory, so that it will eventually become possible to uncover new and even more fundamental basic elements.

 

The two fundamental elements of this theory of science consist of the two basic components of the deductive‑scientific process, i.e. human consciousness and the empirical world, the latter being used merely to verify the achievements of consciousness. Consequently, if we are to deepen our understanding of the processes involved in the development of this theory of science, it is necessary to focus on the nature of human consciousness.

 

 

The foundation of the intellect

 The human brain consists of two hemispheres, a left and a right, connected by an extremely thick band of nerve fibers - the corpus callosum.

                             The results of the past five decades of research have corroborated the fact that the two cerebral hemispheres are to a certain extent specialized. Whereas analytical, logical and linear thinking is the special function of the left hemisphere, the whole of the right hemisphere and parts of the left are normally devoted to perceiving things as a whole, i.e. to processing vast quantities of data simultaneously as one interacting totality. The results of this latter type of processing are thereafter expressed as pictures, intuitions, hunches and feelings.

                             The interesting thing about this research is that it has enabled us to acquire a deeper and more detailed understanding as to how the human brain employs two radically different methods of data‑processing.

 

Another approach to an understanding of the intellect is psychological. It is estimated that only about 10% of a person`s total psychological capacity is accessible in conscious form, whereas the remaining 90% is to be found in unconscious form, normally beyond the control of the individual`s will.

                             These different approaches to an understanding of the foundation of the intellect - via neuropsychology and psychology - are not contradictory, but simply illuminate the problem from different angles.

                             If we combine these two statements, we may conclude that only about 10% of the total psychological capacity is accessible in conscious form, and that the brain/psyche functions in two radically different ways.

 

A third approach has its origin in certain systems within oriental philosophy/psychology, and although they are not commonly known in our culture I consider them essential if we are to achieve a breakthrough as regards an understanding of man`s intellectual make‑up.  This approach focuses on different levels of cognition and consciousness, which I shall attempt to clarify as follows.

                             The oriental philosophical traditions in question operate with seven different levels of consciousness. Although I personally find all of these levels of consciousness conceptually plausible, only the first three levels have any relevance here.

                             The first of these levels of consciousness is the crude level on which we regard everything as either/or, right or wrong, good or bad, etc. On the second level we regard everything as both/and, both good and bad, both right and wrong, etc., while on the third we are able to regard things as totalities: things simply are.

                             The following example regarding the sun may serve to illustrate what I mean by these three categories or levels of consciousness:

                             Under normal circumstances most of us are able to experience and accept the sun as a phenomenon that is - the sun is the sun. This is the third‑level view, and comprises everything we know, feel and experience as the sun.

                             Under slightly strained circumstances, e.g. when sitting in the garden on a hot summer`s day, we may experience the sun as too hot and somewhat unpleasant, though at the same time we remember all the cool days when we felt the sun to be warm and pleasant. On this level we have repressed our consciousness of the sun just being the sun, and have descended to the second level on which we appreciate that it is both/and - both pleasant and unpleasant, both good and bad. We are now at a level on which we split things up, although our consciousness still encompasses both polarities.

                             Under extremely strained circumstances, e.g. if we are outside in the desert under a baking sun for the third day in succession without any water, our consciousness is forced down onto the first level - the sun is evil, bad and killing - and we can only encompass this one‑sided conception. Similarly, if we were outside in a severe frost just before dawn without any clothes on, we would feel the arrival of the sun as an undivided blessing - as something singularly good and life‑giving!

                             According to our psychological situation, we slide up and down these levels of consciousness. But it is no accident that I have chosen the sun as an example; in reality it is only the most general phenomena that provide people as a whole with a means of intercommunication on the third level of consciousness. In fact the individuals capability of utilizing these different levels of consciousness vary widely with circumstances and individual psychological maturity.

                             Communication between several individuals is more frequently possible on the second level, on which the participants are able to maintain the consciousness of a both/and. But only a modicum of "extra strain" is needed before communication slides down onto the first level and the parties adopt either/or standpoints. If it were possible to reduce the strain, however, the parties would once again be able to communicate on the second both/and level, and might even reach the third level on which they were able to agree that the phenomenon simply is.

                             Another characteristic feature of these levels of consciousness is that, in a given field, a person on the first level of consciousness - one who is only able to see one side of a given phenomenon or problem - may believe that he or she is really on the third level. In other words, a person on the first level may be unable to understand that he or she is not in possession of the whole truth! Conversely, given a specific problem, a person on the third level of consciousness will be in a position to understand its division both into a second‑level both/and problem and into dual first‑level either/or problems!

                             If we now combine the above conception of the levels of cognition/consciousness with the previously mentioned neuropsychological and psychological standpoints we begin to realize that the logical mode of functioning is not merely a function of the left cerebral hemisphere, but is also to be understood as the simplest mode our psyche has at its disposal. And its very simplicity is precisely its strength, because by utilizing an either/or - 0 or 1, good or bad, right or wrong - the object of communication becomes unequivocal and accessible to everyone, and therefore universally communicable.

                             The fact that this logical mode of functioning takes place on the simplest level of consciousness is also its weakness, however, because reality becomes dramatically constricted as compared with the indivisible totality.

                             It is essential to bear in mind that although pure first‑level communication enables us to express ourselves unequivocally and precisely, a means of communication that is based on series of either/or, 0 or 1, such judgements provides no basis for putting anything into perspective, for skipping any stages, or adding new elements.

 

In exercising our cognitive powers we do however not merely draw on our (max. 10%) logical and conscious brain capacity, but to a far greater extent on our (90%) subconscious brain functions. The greatest part of our cognitive processes is in the form of subconscious processes that are able to register totality. But in order to handle empirical observations with precision or to communicate unequivocally with other people, we return to the basic either/or, 0 or 1, first‑level type of communication.

What we can conclude is that natural science is not the highest form of cognition as it is based on presumed unequivocability. It is rather the most basic form of cognition and thereby the universal form of communication. The very strength of science is that it is not limited by linguistic or cultural differences. The whole world can smoothly understand each other and work together through natural science!  

 

 

The cognitive process

 Remembering our starting‑point - that the universe consists of an "indivisible whole" - we can now establish that, as human beings, we are not merely capable of tackling single aspects of the "indivisible whole" - of moving laboriously, logically but unimaginatively up and down through an infinite chain of unequivocal logical deductions or reductions. Thanks to our subconscious brain functions, which enable us to perceive wholeness, we are capable of raising our consciousness to the third or higher levels where we can establish connection to wider areas of the "indivisible whole" and thereby tackle problems and structures of great complexity. Contact with these complex problems and structures does not of course take place at random, but is, on the contrary, the result of a process in which we more or less consciously formulate what we are seeking or need on the one hand, and subconsciously "correlate" this with our enormous wholeness‑perceiving brain capacity on the other. When, ultimately, the result of this subconscious processing rises to the cognitive surface in the form of pictures, intuitions, hunches and feelings, it is up to our consciousness to maintain these impulses from the unconscious, and up to our conscious thought functions to assess, elaborate, sort and communicate them.

                             In reality the unconscious expresses itself incredibly precisely, so what presents a problem is the limited ability of our consciousness to recognize, maintain, comprehend and formulate the impulses and answers arising from the subconscious rather than the quality of the messages received. In other words, it is no good approaching "the cleverest man in the world" if you can only ask him primitive questions, which he furthermore answers in a language you have difficulties understanding!

                             Man`s use of the first level of consciousness satisfies his need for unequivocality - an unequivocality that is to a marked extent an abstraction from and a simplification of the complex interacting reality.  In practice, however, it has proved extremely useful as regards explaining intellectual problems. Moreover, since the unequivocal, though intrinsically unimaginative first level of consciousness is in principle accessible to everyone and thus immediately and precisely communicable, it is also extremely useful in science.

                             On the other hand, there is no doubt that the holistic mode of perception is in greater accordance with the conception of reality as an "indivisible whole". But since communication based on a holistic mode of perception is greatly dependent on individual experiences and forms of expression, i.e. for most people involves a high degree of subjectivity, it is not very suitable for general comunication and for scientific work.

 

Scientific communication on the deco‑level is a random mixture of communication on all three levels of consciousness. Thus a scientific theory on this level is subject to a high degree of subjectivity, and the extent to which it appeals to current ideological, cultural and political movements may well be crucial for its success.

                             On the deductive‑scientific level the basic elements of a given theory are identified and communicated on the unequivocal first level of consciousness. It is then possible to construct unequivocal theoretical models which can be collated with empirical observations, while subsequent communication on the second and third levels of consciousness will aim towards developing a greater understanding of the theoretical elements formulated on the first level. But the success of a theory on the deductive-scientific level might too be greatly influenced by subjective factors, as e.g. was the case with Mendel`s theory of heredity.

                             This seems a suitable point to note that it is not the intention in this book to consider other aspects of the epistemological and sociological problems in which every theory of science is enveloped. Such aspects as the sociological reflections presented, for example, by T.S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1961) may be highly relevant, but they are subservient to the stratified basic structure of the theory of science described here.

 If the reader is primarily interested in the social sciences, it could be advisable to omit the following sections, which are chiefly devoted to the natural sciences, and instead continue with the section entitled "Positivism, hermeneutics and falsificationism" on p.44.

The limit of deductive "scientificness"

 This approach to a theory of science implies that everything in the "indivisible whole" can be apprehended and processed on different levels of consciousness. Consequently, although the "indivisible whole" cannot be fully apprehended on the three levels of consciousness employed here, but seemingly only on the highest level of consciousness (and by extremely few individuals throughout the history of mankind), the number of subjects or isolated fields that can be subjected to logical and deductive first‑level processing is in principle unlimited. In practice, however, there are rather narrow limits to our capability of using this consistent, unequivocal logical procedure.

                             Concerned, as science is, with isolated elements of the "indivisible whole", it is in fact illusory to believe in unequivocal scientific truths - and thereby in unequivocal basic scientific elements! But it has been found expedient in practice to identify predominating basic elements – “laws of nature” - and to abstract from all those other connections with the "indivisible whole" which we have not yet recognized or fully understood.

                             However, in searching for ever greater precision and insight in scientific disciplines, the limit of the use of consistent and unequivocal, logical procedure is reached at a relatively early stage. Because of the extreme complexity of the phenomena, the continued unequivocal practice would demand vast resources, whether it concerns the detailed investigation of relatively uncomplicated phenomena, or rougher, broader and more general investigations. In such situations it would therefore become necessary to leave the deductive level and continue work on the deco‑level. During the ensuing descriptive and coordinating phase it would then be possible, for example, to employ statistical data processing, thus making it easier to identify and accept new and more general basic deductive-scientific elements. It would thereafter be possible to resume unequivocal first‑level communication when new and more general deductive‑scientific elements are found, without appreciably disrupting the research or the cognitive continuity.

                             Thus in reality, even in the case of deductively developed scientific disciplines, development takes place by leaps, whereby we occasionally leave the deductive level. Only if it proves necessary and the resources permit do we carry out a consistent first‑level correlation between the new, generalized basic elements and the older, more primitive theoretical elements.

                             Thus in practice even within the “exact” natural sciences we frequently accept communication on the second and third levels, and a consistent first‑level correlation between the new basic elements and the old may not take place until many years after the new, more general basic elements have become generally accepted. This was e.g. the case with the correlation between the Newtonian physics and the physics based on Einstein`s theory of relativity.

                             When dealing with scientific disciplines which borders on to the deductive-scientific level, the challenge is to work with those aspects of the science in question which might be elevated to the deductive-scientific level. The second part of this book actually deals with the science history in that way, but at this stage metrology can be used as an example of what I mean.

                            Due to our understanding of astronomic phenomena, air flow, heat exchange etc. it is not only possible to predict that a new year follows this and that summer is followed by fall, but it is also, on the basis of complex theoretical models, possible to predict variations in major weather patterns. The complexity of the earth's weather systems however makes it, at a fairly early stage, impossible to use a singularly deductive-scientific approach in metrology, and the basic deductive-scientific understanding is then supplemented with deco-scientific assumptions and statistically based models leading to not fully understood patterns, and at last - before we through the media receive the weather forecast for the next five days, the meteorologist supplements and fine tunes the forecast with the help of his personal experience and intuition.

                             Thus a science can very well be established deductive-scientifically on one level, but due to the complexity of the involved factors, deco-scientific elements or systematizing-scientific elements may be utilized on other levels, and some scientists might even take to pre scientific explanations.

 

 Logical unequivocality is not a quality of the empirical world but a level of human consciousness

 Scientific activity consists to a considerable extent of creating sets of rules that can be used to describe, coordinate and systematize empirical observation, or of revealing seemingly unequivocal structures that can be used in the deductive‑scientific process. But just as this activity has contributed towards a deeper understanding of our surroundings it has also helped us to realize that even deductively developed sciences are based on structures of limited validity.

                             Although the very essence of science is to investigate the unknown, the problems concerned with the transference of individual cognition, to groups of other individuals (communication within the scientific community) has led to a drastic constriction of the cognitive field. Thus, the ability to formulate a problem on the lowest, unequivocal either/or level is regarded as the optimal form of cognition. The outcome of this view of science and its relation to the unknown is that often elements that cannot be explained or described within the given theoretical framework are dispensed with as irrelevant and disturbing.

                             This manner of disregarding so‑called irrelevancies is so widespread and accepted that in established sciences the problem of the theories limited validity is not particularly apparent. In less established scientific fields, such as psychology, this problem is more conspicuous, and in 1951 C.G.Jung described the problem under the title "Naturerklärung und Psyche" (Synchronicity, Routlegde & Kegan Paul, 1977).

                             However, with the advent of the new fractal geometry and chaos theory this entire problem is attracting greater attention and scientific respectability.

                             Thus we are faced with the theoretical problem that while on the one hand we strive for logical unequivocality, which we regard to be more real and scientific than other forms of cognition, we have at the same time to accept that by and large logical unequivocality is a fiction!

 

Although everything in the universe is interacting, the development of the natural sciences has on the other hand shown us, that it is possible to uncover (ever more) fundamental elements  “natural laws” which enables us to understand and effectively manipulate whole fields of  the empirical world. In order not to lose perspective and drown in information it is therefore expedient to maintain a Cartesian standpoint as the ultimate approach to science.

 

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[1]  The term social sciences will be used throughout as a common denominator for the social sciences and the arts.

[2]  Kirsten Bergfjord ...

 

The status of modern physics within this theory of science

 In modern physics it is Einstein's four‑dimensional, relativistic conception of reality that nowadays represents the deductive‑scientific frontier.

                             The criterion for judging whether a scientific theory is deductive‑scientific or not is whether it has a grasp of such fundamental aspects of reality as to enable us to elaborate precise predictions within the experimental field of the discipline concerned. The degree of precision being determined through investigation of the corresponding aspects of the empirical world.

                             Here the waters divide, for whereas both classic mechanics and relativistic physics satisfy this criterion each on their own level, this is however  not the case with quantum mechanics.

                             The explanatory model for quantum mechanics is especially interesting in this connection, because it provides an example of how it is perfectly possible to obtain significant scientific results without the science in question having been established on the deductive-scientific level.

                             The traditional explanatory model for quantum mechanics as manifested in the so‑called "Copenhagen model" is characterized by its inherent dualities - dualities it has proved impossible to resolve on the given premises, i.e. to express on the unequivocal first level of consciousness. Despite the facts that quantum mechanics has (only) been formulated on the dualistic second level of consciousness, and that it is (at present) impossible to formulate precise deductive‑scientific predictions as distinct from highly qualified guesswork within its field, this branch of science has nevertheless succeeded in establishing itself to an overwhelming degree and has achieved magnificent results.  As described earlier on it is perfectly possible within such a cognitively incomplete structure as e.g. quantum mechanics to develop isolated "islands" of deductive-scientific cognition  which is capable of predicting events within its limited field. It is never the less to stretch such isolated cognition too far to use it as legitimation for the cognitive soundness of the whole quantum mechanical conceptual structure.

                             One of the consequences of the incomplete cognitive structure of quantum mechanics (the Copenhagen model/ the standard model) is that the investigation of the sub‑atomic field provides results that cannot be explained within the theory's own framework. It thus becomes necessary to append "internal properties" to each of the sub‑atomic particles that comes to light, i.e. ad hoc explanations that are not mutually connected. To me the question is not whether the dualities described by the Copenhagen quantum mechanical model really exist or not. For when the problems are regarded from a three‑dimensional point of view they obviously do exist, but it is highly probable that not only do there exist further dimensions than the three and four generally accepted dimensions, but that it will eventually be possible to resolve the Copenhagen model's duality within a higher dimensional context - a context in which the fifth and even higher dimensions acquire real content, and are not merely symbolic mathematical values devoid of cognitive content as is the case with e.g. The super string theories. The present super string theories claim to have expressed a mathematical theory which “nearly” unites the quantum mechanical field with Einsteins theories. This is done by operating with 10 or more dimensions, but dimentions that just are mathematical equations. To introduce such extra “dimensions” are the same as introducing extra unknown and uncontrollable elements devoid of meaning.

 It is worth remembering that neither Albert Einstein nor Erwin Schrödinger ever accepted the Copenhagen Model as more than a preliminary approach.

 

“A navigational chart is one thing; sailing the ship is quite a different matter”. Just as three times three times three only acquires meaning as "something spatial" when we couple this arithmetical operation with our capacity for perceiving and understanding things spatially, four‑, five‑ or multidimensionality only acquire meaning when it becomes cognitively possible to accept these realities.

 Paradoxically, yet understandably, the greatest obstacle towards a further development of the quantum mechanical cognitive field has been the practical success of the Copenhagen model. Why should we replace anything that already functions with something that might not be immediately useful!

                             Despite its imperfections, the Newtonian world view once reigned scientifically supreme, thus impeding further development of physics for a very long time, precisely because it was so applicable in practice. Not until the end of last century did a generalized expansion of the cognitive field definitively rupture the Newtonian world view. Whereas, in the case of the Newtonian world view, the expansion of the cognitive field was in principle linear, the situation is more complicated as regards quantum mechanics, because this has (only) been established on the dualistic level of consciousness and cannot therefore be regarded as a true deco-scientific, let alone a deductive‑scientific structure, as was the case with Newtonian physics. (David Bohm tried wholeheartedly though without success, to express the inherent duality of the Copenhagen model as separate deco-scientific theoretical structures.)

 It is characteristic of the present situation as regards cognition in the natural sciences that it has been found necessary to operate with more than the four generally accepted dimensions. Cognitively we mostly stick to the three dimensions, however, and try to force the calculated four-dimensional reality into a three‑dimensional framework of understanding in which we continue to see time as an independent, regular progressive constant in nature.

                             A four‑dimensional intellect would necessarily regard a five‑dimensional reality to be just as radically different as a four‑dimensional reality is regarded by a three‑dimensional intellect or a three‑dimensional reality by a two‑dimensional intellect. To us a fifth dimension must necessarily seem incredibly odd and alien, just as the fourth dimension, time, would have appeared unacceptably odd and alien as a dimension to scientists of previous centuries.

                             However obvious this may seem, in practice we only accept the possibility of the four familiar dimensions and their inherent understandable phenomena. This attitude seems even more grotesque when we find that the advanced natural sciences, including cosmology, are compelled to accept the fact that what we recognize as the physical universe constitutes only about 1% of its matter. According to modern Big Bang cosmology, approximately 90 - 95% of the matter of the universe consists of dark matter -a concept which, like the 17^th century Phlogiston within chemistry, is a cognitive receptacle for unknown phenomena observed to affect the physical universe, as the presence of dark matter can only be determined indirectly. At the present stage of scientific knowledge and cognition, to us it would be equally plausible whether this 95% dark matter should consist of hitherto unregistered elements in our 4 dimentional reality or of elements in a multidimensional context!

 An established science is characterized by its ability to investigate phenomena on the basis of specific, generally accepted criteria, but if we wish to expand our basic cognition, we must incorporate new elements, which in this case are likely to involve a transgression of the four‑dimensional conception of reality, and to do that we have to be willing to open our eyes to a lot of phenomena we have hitherto neglected. To come to terms with a real multidimensional reality constitutes a great challenge, but what we can do until this challenge can be met, is at the least to take seriously those ”non-causal” phenomena whose manifestations are raised far above the level of statistical chance. There are countless examples of such seemingly ”non-causal” connections for those who venture to investigate them scientifically - as described, for example, in C.G. Jung`s previously mentioned work, Synchronicity. The phenomenal world of quantum mechanics, where sub‑atomic particles suddenly pop up in or vanish from our three‑dimensional reality, and where scientists mainly operate with sets of statistical rules, presents in fact the most striking and thoroughly documented example of the problem described above. 

A thought experiment - a straight forward understanding of the fundamental particle-physics phenomena 

Our three‑dimensional reality may be compared to a room. A room which by us is experienced as   completely closed - nothing exists outside the room!

Contrary to our understanding our room have in reality openings into other rooms, into other dimensions, but we who are inside the room are not aware of openings, let alone of other rooms, other dimensions. Even though we are not aware of the openings into other rooms, other dimensions, we who are inside this three-dimensional room can nevertheless register that things suddenly turn up in the room that were not previously present, and also that things that have been registered there suddenly vanish. We can furthermore calculate the statistical probabilities for things turning up or vanishing, and we can also register "non‑locality", i.e. that certain of our actions are connected  ”non-causally” with other events in the room!

 Imagine a ball or something else in the room being hit and jump out of one of the (for us) unknown openings in the room (out of our three-dimensional perception of reality). Outside our room it  interact with something and as a consequence of this interaction it influences something else in our room (by way of an opening) and that phenomenon will by us be perceived as “non-locality”!

Such a causal explanation incorporating hitherto unknown real dimensions can thus explain emerging or vanishing particles as well as the phenomena of “non-locality” and “entanglement”! 

 The seemingly strange behaviour of subatomic particles becomes uncomplicated and easy to grasp as soon as we recognise the existence of other real and important dimensions.

Within the social sciences like phenomena are known as "meaningful coincidences

Billions wasted.

The facilitation of increasingly powerful subatomic colliders can be likened with a man using a sledge hammer in the pursuit of knowledge. It is obvious to us that a sledge hammer is not the best instrument to increase the understanding of delicate matters, but to atomic scientists that seems not to be so obvious.

 It would be much better to take a step back and contemplate how all those delicate non-causal phenomena might actually fit together in a real multidimentional framework, instead of smashing up ever more transient subparticles.

In my opinion the Copenhagen quantum mechanical model/the Standard model, which is the established and predominating explanatory model for the sub-atomic field, is a shining example of a conception of reality that prevents us from appreciating the existence of a constant exchange between "our room and the other rooms", between our four dimensions and other real dimensions.

 Our conception of empirical phenomena and their most formal and abstract description, the language of mathematics, can be formulated on the basis of the dimensional approach as follows:

                             It is possible to describe a limited number of empirical phenomena deductive‑scientifically on the basis of a two‑dimensional flat model, and to understand a broader spectrum of empirical phenomena deductive‑scientifically on the basis of three‑dimensional spatial models. It is also possible to understand a still broader spectrum of empirical phenomena on the basis of four‑dimensional, space‑time models, and in the future it will be possible to understand a still broader spectrum of empirical phenomena deductive‑scientifically on the basis of a five‑dimensional conception of reality, and so on.

As I have previously said, abstract calculations are not sufficient; we would also have to be able to accept the entirely different nature of a higher dimensionality and especially to be able to grasp its cognitive content and significance. That should however not be impossible since all of us already are in contact with a much wider part of the indivisible whole by way of our 90 % wholeness perceiving subconscious brain functions.

Classic physics operates with three dimensions, where time as well as gravity are regarded as constants in nature. Relativistic physics operates with four dimensions, where the space‑time continuity is regarded as an "indivisible whole" and gravity is a function of the curving of the space-time continuum.

The speed of light is still perceived as an "unbreakable" constant of nature, although our technical level has reached a stage where it is obvious that some phenomena are breaking the speed of light. As an explanation of this is not available within the existing framework of understanding it is just ignored, just like a multitude of other phenomena!

The speed of light and the other natural constants necessary to make our present understanding coherent, might represent bridges to new real dimensions. One thing is sure and that is that as long as we have to operate with elements which are not relativistic interchangeable with Einstein's four dimensions we are not really on the way to a Grand Unified Theory.

The astonishing results within sub-atomic physics has in actual fact led to a situation where the Cartesian world view (the deductive-scientific approach) has been given up and chaos and unpredictability has been accepted as inherent qualities of the fundamental reality.

 Instead of linking new areas to the cognitive fields of Newton’s and Einstein’s theories, the comprehension of these areas are being dragged down on a lower cognitive level in the vain hope of establishing a Grand Unified Theory prematurely. Today's scientists have experimentally been able to unite the electromagnetic force with the weak nuclear force bringing those forces into a state of an “electroweak” force, and claim to be on the verge of a Grand Unified Theory of everything, but however admirable all this laborious brainwork is, from the viewpoint of this theory of science it is nevertheless like a Tower of Babel built on the loos sands of the inherent duality of the Copenhagen model!

Only the future and the scientists who eventually deliver the necessary cognitive and scientific breakthrough can tell which one of the natural forces will lead us to accepting a real fifth dimension of reality, followed by a sixth....! Thus the unification of the entire natural scientific field continues to be quite some way off.

                              Seen in a multidimensional perspective the "Big Bang" theory can be viewed as the way in which we manage to understand the creation of the material universe on the basis of our three and four‑dimensional conceptions of reality. In a multidimensional perspective the Big Bang model resembles a mode where we think we hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony as it is meant to be but are in fact only hearing the percussion instruments. The full orchestrated Symphony - the indivisible totality - is out of reach to us. Furthermore the Big Bang theory, which is based on a gravitational approach, might be wrong all together. It might be replaced by another cosmological model, e.g. the Plasma Universe based on an electromagnetic approach or some other future theoretical structure.

 

 

Deco-scientific geometry.

 

Whereas classic geometry satisfies the criteria for a deductive science, this is not the case with irregular-geometry. It may be possible in the field of irregular-geometry to find descriptive and co-ordinating characteristics enabling us to identify and categorize phenomena, but it is not possible to make predictions regarding concrete and hitherto untested aspects of irregular geometry. Thus from the point of view of this theory of science the irregular-geometrical models may be seen as an intermediary deco-scientific stage on its way to becoming a higher-level deductive-scientific understanding of the phenomena in question.

                             The irregular-geometrical field has hitherto been conceived of as representing a specific aspect of fundamental reality, and nowadays the attention of the scientific community is to a large degree directed towards uncovering irregular-geometrical/fractal structures in the empirical world as a whole.

 

As far as I can see, it will not at this stage prove possible to determine whether the primary organization of the interacting universe is in the nature of a multidimensional Cartesian system or whether it has an entirely different structure - e.g. a multidimensional irregular geometrical system with repetitive patterns which can be expressed as deductive-scientific cognition.

                             As natural science do not constitute the highest form of cognition, but the most universal form of communication the deductive-scientific formulated laws will in my opinion continue to be the “safe ground” on which we can continue to expand science and thereby our consensus reality.

 

Positivism Hermeneutics and Falsificationism.

 

This theory of science is to be seen as a respectful continuation of the pioneer August Comte (1798-1857) efforts to establish a rational foundation and systematization of all sciences, and as this theory is formulated on the background of more than a century of positivist efforts, it naturally also owes something to positivism. The most fundamental difference between this theory of science and positivism is to be found in the views on the origin of cognition. Positivists choose only to accept phenomena, which are directly observable and understandable (at the present) and consequently limit themselves to a very shallow understanding of cognition. Positivism thus ends up maintaining that new scientific breakthroughs are the linear product of already established knowledge/observations, - that is however not the case. Compared with what actually takes place within the (deductively developed) natural sciences, the positivist approach is in fact to turn the whole problem upside down. The logical consequence of the positivist reasoning is that deductions are tied into a circular reasoning process, as they depend upon "true" scientific assertions, which again are the result of inductions from already established knowledge/observations. In the first place scientific assertions are not the sole and linear result of inductions from already established knowledge/observations. Scientific assertions are thus not in any way "true". At most they can through testing be confirmed as being in reasonable accordance with observed phenomena!

                             This theory maintains that cognition/creative thinking/scientific assertions originate from a combination of already reaped knowledge and unconscious wholeness-perceiving brain activity, which can emerge to the surface of consciousness at any level of complexity and do not originate from unbroken chains of inductions. Inductions and deductions are thus not "symmetrical" and scientific deductions are consequently not tied up into any form of circular reasoning.

                             Furthermore this theory of science is not in agreement with the positivists fundamental aim of establishing unequivocal scientific truth, an aim which already David Hume (1711-76) invalidated. It is commendable, though, that the positivists themselves, through their struggle once again reached the conclusion that establishing unequivocal confirmations of scientific assertions was not possible.

                             Due to the present day situation where theories of science are derailed from the basic aim of providing a coherent and logical framework encompassing all scientific achievements it is appropriate to take a second look at August Comte´s 150 years old and seemingly obscure theory of science categories and derivatives thereof.

 

August Comte divided human comprehension into three categories:

1) The "theological" level where natural phenomenon is explained as arbitrary interventions by Gods or spirits.

2) The "metaphysical" where natural phenomenon are explained as resulting from unknown "forces", "qualities", "powers", "priorities".

3) The "positive" where natural phenomenon is understood to be the result of processes describable through natural scientific laws.

                             Although Comte recognized that science in the past had made use of the two first stages, he claimed that all scientific activities, in his time would reach the third and final stage of development!

                             After having developed my own theoretical structure, I have learnt that according to Milton Friedman in his famous paper, "The Methodology of positive Economics", also J.N.Keynes expressed similar but slightly different scientific categories. In Keynes/Friedman's words:

1) an art.....(,) a system of rules for the attainment of a given end",

2) a normative or regulative science.....(,) a body of systematised knowledge discussing criteria of what ought to be...;

3) a positive science.....(,) a body of systematized knowledge concerning what is;

                             August Comet’s categories were the result of the immediate and consequently superficial observation of various scientific disciplines approach to their subjects, consequently those categories do not express the underlying systematic procedures that are being used on the three scientific levels. As a result August Comet’s scientific categories have regrettably tended to confuse more than to clarify the dynamics of scientific development.

                             August Comet’s observation that the sciences develop through three distinctly different stages was correct, but in order to be understandable and of any use, those three categories have to express their respective methodological characteristics. Consequently I, as stated earlier, chose to call them:

1) The systematizing-scientific level.

2) The deco-(descriptive and co-ordinating) scientific level.

3) The deductive-scientific level.

                             Whereas Comtes` three categories were viewed as developmental stages of the human intellect with only the third category being scientific, all the three stages as expressed through my categories are actually deployed within science today.

                             By starting out with the assertion that all scientific achievements would reach the last, the positive stage of intellectual development in his time, Comte as well as later the positivists missed the most important point. The point being that some, notably the natural sciences had reached this third phase of development, whereas all the other sciences still lingered on the first or the second level of development. By systematically ignoring the first and second level and prematurely attempting to treat all sciences as ready for the "positive level of intellectual development", it became impossible to distinguish the radical difference between sciences which had reached the deductive-scientific level and sciences which were based on systematising assumptions (the second level), or just encompassed rules for the systematic treatment of scientific findings within their field of research (the first level).

                             To condemn the first and second phases as unscientific and only of historical value was a grave misunderstanding as most of the worthwhile efforts the positivists and neo-positivists have made through the years, have in fact been concerned with phenomena which are actually within these first and second levels of intellectual and scientific understanding.

                             To understand the many different attempts which have been made through the last hundred years in order to establish a deeper understanding of the dynamics of science, it is important to note, that most of these attempts have depended on the very restricted psychological and neurological understanding available at the time. In perspective of today's neuropsychological and depth-psychological knowledge many of the past hundred years philosophical contributions to the theory of science seem oddly out of place, but are naturally interesting in the context of the history of science.

The modern branch of positivism "Logical Positivism" or "Neo-Positivism" was elaborated by the so-called "Wienna Circle" and "Berlin Society", whose major ambition was to establish a precise and common language for all sciences. This new school also missed the real characteristics of the deductive-scientific level of intellectual development, as, among other reasons, nearly all of the participants were deeply involved in the emerging quantum theoretical field, a field of natural science that was not and still is not developed to the deductive-scientific level. The fact that their own quantum mechanical field of science was not and still is not developed to “the positive” or deductive scientific level presumably lead them astray, just as Auguste Comte was let astray by his desire to prematurely raise sociology to “the positive level”.  

 The Neo-Positivist proposition: "Those statements are verifiable" / "from which we can infer predictions as to the observable behavior of physical objects". (Kolakowski p.215) were rightly rejected as it ascribes verifiability to any statement. The proposition was nevertheless on the right track, but lacked one further condition namely the confirmation of the viability of the prediction through the investigation of hitherto uninvestigated aspects of the empirical world. When this extra confirmation condition is included the possibility of verification is actually restricted to those sciences we (hitherto without really knowing why) have considered the highest developed. Within the theory of this treatise the proposition therefore can be phrased: "A deductive-scientific element has been established when theoretical predictions of hitherto uninvestigated phenomena have been satisfactorily confirmed through comparison with the empirical world". In the Neo-Positivist proposition the condition for verifiability is the expression of a theoretical statement, whereas the condition in this proposition is the confirmation of the statement through investigation.

As mentioned above it was highly regarded scientists who contributed to the development of neo-positivism.  Therefore it is very remarkable that they did not succeed in breaking out of said cognitive dead end as they surely have known the famous anecdote from 1890, of how August Kekulé recognized the hexagonal ring structure of benzene. “One evening when he sat relaxed in front of the fireplace he saw dancing atoms in front of him. The dancing atoms gathered in a chain, and suddenly the chain joined together to form a ring”. This is a very obvious example of scientific understanding that comes from the subconscious and emerges to the surface of consciousness in the form of an image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kekul%C3%A9

It may also be added that Russia's most famous scientist, Dmitry Mendeleev, who after many difficulties formulated the Periodic Table in 1869, was given the impulse to solve the problems that had hitherto hindered a rational design, after taking a day off and relax from work.

Furthermore Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), while playing tennis, was given the impulse to bombard atoms with neutrons, leading to the practical exploitation of nuclear fission.                        

 In his famous paper "The Methodology of Positive Economics" from 1953, Milton Friedman expresses his view like this: "The ultimate goal of a positive science is the development of a "theory" or "hypothesis" that yields valid and meaningful (i.e., not truistic) predictions about phenomena not yet observed. (page 7  II. Positive Economics) In the paper Friedman as other neo-positivists displays a lack of understanding as to the fundamental difference between the development or expression of a theoretical statement and the much rarer possibility of confirmation through investigation. That might again be due to the fact that such confirmations have not hitherto been possible within the science of economics that was his personal field of science.

Falsificationism that was created by Carl Popper in the 1930s has to be understood as a historic reaction to positivism. Seen in the perspective of the theory of science put forward here Falsificationism, as a basic theory of science, does not fulfil the cognitive requirements. Historic evidence reveal that Falsification is not the method through which new scientific disciplines have been established. When e.g. the Newtonian world-view was established it dominated for centuries. Although possibilities of falsification were readily available (through the theory's inability to cope with such vast scientific areas as chemistry and electromagnetism), Newton's theories were nevertheless seen as the ultimate scientific understanding and consequently not rejected. Only when a more fundamental alternative emerged, in the form of Einstein's relativistic physics, were the Newtonian theories dethroned. The same applies to the relativistic world-view which still is incapable of satisfactorily dealing with vast areaes within its field.                      

Seen from this theory's cognitive standpoint Falsificationism unsuccessfully tries to bridge the gap between the (deductive-scientifically developed) natural sciences and the (deco-scientifically developed) social sciences. If the demand for consequent falsification is maintained, as in the so-called "Simple Falsificationism" or "Popper (n)" school, the conditions for using the hypothetical deductive method can be maintained, but then only the already established deductive-scientific elements of science are encompassed. If the falsification criteria is just seen as a theoretical aim, as in the so called "Sophisticated Falsificationism" based on "situation analysis" or "Popper (s)" school, all scientific achievements can be encompassed, but the hypothetical deductive method has then been abandoned, and with that the only possibility to systematically test theories against empirical phenomena. The so called "Sophisticated Falsificationism" must therefore in this context be seen as a methodological regression, if the aim of a theory of science is to maintain as close as possible a connection between theory and the empirical world.

                             Although falsificationism as a fundamental theory of science must be rejected, the falsification criteria can be seen as the second stage of the deductive-scientific process, namely as the quest to further develop already established deductive-scientific theories, which have been developed and researched to the point where discrepancies between the theory and new empirical observations become conspicuous. Furthermore, the Popperian "rationality principle" can be seen as a deco-scientific assumption. The "Popper (s)" or "Sophisticated Falsiofication" approach to social science can thus be subsumed within the deco-scientific framework of understanding.

Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is in my opinion not a basic theory of science but a science-sociological model. As a partial element of any theory of science Kuhn's science-sociological understanding of dominating paradigms ought to be taken into account, and therefore also in the case of a deductive-scientific theory and the further development of it.

On the one hand Positivism, Neo-Positivism and Simple Falsificationism have tried to force scientific fields that are only developed to the systematizing-scientific level or to the deco-scientific level into a form that is only functional for the deductively developed sciences. On the other hand in principle the Hermeneutic tradition regards all scientific achievements as equally valuable but the Hermeneutic tradition are unable to distinguish between different levels of scientific development. Sophisticated Falsificationism also tries to encompass all scientific achievements and becomes equally incapable of distinguishing qualitative differences. The Hermeneutic approach is in fact only fully appropriate for those sciences that are on the systematising-scientific level, and Sophisticated Falsificationism are as mentioned appropriate for further development on the deco-scientific level.

                             The Hermeneutic and the Positivist/Neo-Positivist approach can be said to be overlapping from opposite sides into the deco-scientific level, neither being able to distinguish the methodological shifts taking place when a scientific discipline develops from the systematizing scientific level to the deco-scientific level and further on to the deductive-scientific level.

The limited cognition of the above schools has led to the mentioned inconsistencies. To overcome those fundamental inconsistencies a host of more or less exotic philosophical capers have been tried. Instead of going into those more or less exotic details I find it sufficient to have pointed out the fundamental flaws, and to have established a consistent alternative.

 

 

The status of philosophy within this theory of science

Theory of science is regarded as the domain of philosophy. So it would be reasonable, when working with the former, to touch upon the philosophical aspect.

                             As it appears in the previous sections, this theory of science reflects on the one hand a materialistic point of view already familiar to most of us. The new basic element, which is incorporated in this theory, is a neuropsychological aspect that especially focuses on the sub-conscious character of creative thinking and the stratified structure of human consciousness.

From a philosophical point of view this is a theory in which the dual concepts, mind and matter/thought and being, are regarded as identical in their essence, as elements of the interacting universe.

                             The consequences of recognizing that human creative thinking originates from a sub-conscious form of brain activity are more radical in a philosophical context than might initially be supposed.

                             The problem I wish to illuminate has been summarized in a lecture given at the University of Aarhus in 1980 by the historian of ideas and depth psychologist Jes Bertelsen, in which he pointed out that the most striking feature in western, as opposed to oriental, philosophy is that no original philosophical thinkers have ever been in agreement - and this is best explained by describing the context within which western philosophy operates. Jes Bertelsen summed up philosophy as the relation between thought and being. And the three main categories into which the generally accepted philosophical systems may be divided are those in which thought is subordinate to being (e.g. Aristotle, Hume), those in which being is subordinate to thought (e.g. Plato, Kant) and those in which thought and being are two parallel or essentially identical concepts. These latter may either be two attributes of the same reality (e.g. Spinoza) or separate, dialectically related dimensions (Hegel).

                             Jes Bertelsen pointed out that irrespective of whether a system belongs to one category or the other the problem will always be the same: we reflect on it, and reflection is in fact thought. In all such systems it is thus a question of "thought" thought, "thought" being, or of the "thought" relation between thought and being. The confinement of this entire problem to the domain of thought becomes even more apparent when we compare it with the scientific procedure. While on the one hand philosophy confines itself to pure thought, on the other hand the (deductive‑scientific) practice in the natural sciences enables us to collate thought with being or reality. No matter how much philosophers reflect on being - or on thought and being - they will never be able to establish a connection between the two of them. (It is not possible to connect being and thought in the natural sciences either; but by predicting a course of events that can later be collated with being it is thereby possible to determine discrepancies between thought being and observed being).

                             With reference to philosophical systems in other cultures (that more or less specifically encompass the unconscious aspects of brain activity), Jes Bertelsen regards the extremely one‑sided approach to the existential totality in western culture as due to its extreme extroversion. It is characteristic of all western philosophers (apart from Eckhart and Steiner, who are not generally regarded as genuine philosophers) that they have resigned themselves to the fact that we all think. Cognition is thereby restricted to the contents of thought and is not concerned with the internal structure of thought itself.

With Logical Empiricism, which has striven to formulate systematic rules for the language of philosophy, philosophy can be said to be firmly established on the systematizing-scientific level. The establishment of a branch of science on the deco-scientific level demands a theory of science capable of describing, co-ordinating and systematising its total corpus of knowledge. And the categorisation of the main philosophical theories according to their conception of the relation between thought and being - between cognition and the interacting totality as done by Jes Bertelsen above, constitutes a deco-scientific basic element, however elementary.

                             The above mentioned lecture made me realise that philosophy is still on an early deco-scientific level. Every major philosophical system continues to be constructed on the basis of assumptions that are unique for the system concerned, and in order to encompass increasingly wider aspects of reality such systems are unfolded - in the shape of a pyramid or cone turned upside down - from the fundamental starting‑point upwards towards increasingly more unfolded and detailed elaboration’s. Each and every major philosophical system is based on unique assumptions, and thus they are impossible to subsume within one theoretical system. However, other thinkers whose theories are based on different presuppositions may nevertheless find it inspiring to assimilate the intellectual feats of their predecessors.

Philosophy is concerned with different aspects of thought and being. But, as Jes Bertelsen points out, western philosophy has largely refrained from investigating thought itself and confined itself to reflecting on thought. The chief reason why philosophy as a scientific discipline has landed in this blind alley (where a major part of its domain (thought) is allowed to fend for itself) is that it has only recently divested itself of psychology, which had previously been an integrated part of philosophy. And the task of psychology is, amongst other things, to investigate the preconditions of thought.

                             Psychology has made considerable progress in investigating man's conscious and unconscious mental functions, including the internal structure of thought. But it also suffers from the fact that it comprises many separate schools which have not yet been organized within a single frame of reference. However, the development of psychology during the last couple of decades is encouraging. The rudiments of such a common frame of reference have already made their appearance, and there is reasonable hope that these efforts will succeed in the not too distant future.

                             In the above‑mentioned lecture Jes Bertelsen intimated that cognitive progress lay within the confines of psychology rather than those of philosophy. I not only share this point of view but have also taken the consequence and based this theory of science on established natural scientific and psychological standpoints. Since psychological knowledge also borders onto metaphysics, it is not a question of eliminating the metaphysical aspect altogether, but of shifting the cognitive boundary from where philosophy today is confined to the immediate manifestations of thought to the domain of depth psychology - to the latter`s essentially broader and deeper understanding of the human psyche and to its experimental investigation of the internal structure of thought. Ideally, psychology too will eventually seek to describe as broad aspects of its cognition as possible on the unequivocal, either/or, first level of consciousness.

                             Psychology is a relatively new scientific discipline, and up till now first priority has been given to its practical application and development, while the need to integrate its various schools within a common theoretical framework with a common language has not been felt as acute. Even though it cannot yet be theoretically determined as to which of the psychological schools will come to function as a deco-scientific starting‑point for the psychological discipline as a whole, in my opinion the Jungian/Bertelsen depth psychology is an obvious candidate for this position. This school of psychology not only takes its point of departure in the deepest and most fundamental layers of the psyche but also encompasses the foundation for a coherent and logical theory based on the stratification of consciousness. This theory would enable us to describe, coordinate and systematize the cognitive content of all the other psychological schools as well. To use the Jungian/Bertelsen school as the starting point for a deco-scientific co-ordination of psychology does not imply that this school is superior to the other schools. The other schools might very well have better tools in the practical therapeutical and scientific work. What distinguishes the Jungian/Bertelsen school from the others, is its theoretical elements capable of structuring cognition, which the other psychological schools hopefully will fertilize with their insight and practical experience in the future establishment of a single deco-scientific psychological structure.

                             Just as Jes Bertelsen has indicated that the western philosophical tradition has largely failed to investigate the internal structure of thought, and has pointed out that any further understanding of the nature of thought can best be obtained by way of depth psychology, I too feel that the main currents of philosophy have placed themselves in a blind alley and that the theoretical understanding of the interaction between man and the empirical world must necessarily encompass a fundamental and up to date psychological understanding of man. Furthermore, I find it obvious that this latter must be founded on an understanding of the conscious and sub-conscious mental processes of the individual, and from there be expanded to comprise all the other psychological, sociological, societal and scientific aspects.

                             Consequently, even though it was not my original point of departure, Jungian/Bertelsen depth psychology may be used as the cognitive basis of this theory of science.

At this point some readers may feel that this theory lacks an ethical standpoint. Others may be sceptic as to what advantage deductive‑scientific cognition would be in the social sciences, especially if we consider how the increase in deductive‑scientific potential in the natural sciences has upset the global balance as regards resources, ecology and population.

                             If we view man/Homo Sapiens as static, presumably something of a similar nature would take place were the social sciences to become deductive‑scientifically developed. But as the following historical part of the book will show, in point of fact man/Homo Sapiens is a dynamic being capable of development and maturation both individually and collectively in society. The global imbalances might be lessened if we obtain better social scientific instruments.

                             The Jungian/Bertelsen depth psychology constitutes the theoretical basis for the above standpoint, and also contains its ethical foundation. However, a deeper understanding of depth‑psychological cognition requires not only a grasp of the theoretical structure but presupposes that the reader has undergone a process of human maturation during which he has directly experienced the viability of theoretical statements far beyond the boundary of what at present is linearly and logically cognizable.

Science today

In my opinion advanced natural science as manifested by the relativistic and quantum mechanical physics of the 2000s is now in a situation where fields and phenomena have been definitively established on the deductive‑scientific level, but where natural science as a totality has only been developed on the deco‑level. Various theories continue to compete as to their ability to provide a complete understanding of all the phenomena of modern physics, but no such synthesis has yet been forthcoming, on the contrary, cracks within the established world view are becoming apparent. Thus even within this extremely advanced scientific field it will be necessary to determine what portion of its theoretical elements has been established on the deductive‑scientific or on the deco-scientific level.

                             It is obvious, however, that it is within what we have hitherto termed the social sciences that this theory will make the greatest impact, because it will enable us to break through the cognitive barrier that has hindered their further dynamic development. It is to be hoped that future development within the social sciences will be marked by a systematic search for deductive‑scientific elements capable of providing the far greater degree of rationality and usefulness characteristic of the deductive‑scientific level.

                             Within mathematics, physics and chemistry we have seen how efficient and powerful a deductive‑scientific framework of understanding can be as man´s instrument for influencing his conditions of existence.

                             Within the natural sciences it is not possible to alter the laws of nature, but we can use our understanding of those laws in order to relate more efficiently and precisely to the phenomena concerned. If we take the science of history as a (future) example, it will not be possible to alter its underlying laws either, so history will continue to possess its own dynamics irrespective of whether we understand it or not. However, even a coarse deductive‑scientific understanding of history may enable us not only to bring our new rational insight to bear on the present but also to understand and make allowances for developmental elements and tendencies in society before they otherwise becomes apparant.

                             No one can guarantee that the human race will not exterminate itself through an ecological breakdown or a nuclear holocaust, but if we were to acquire just as efficient historical, economic and psychological instruments as, for example, the mathematical, physical and chemical "instruments" we possess today, the chances of a constructive stabilization of our society and our globe would be greatly increased.

History

The developement of history as a science.

History has been communicated in the form of myths, sagas and storytelling ever since the birth of civilization, but only within the past 150 years has history become a science. Up till now the science of history has passed through three different developmental stages: When history was established at the universities as a scientific discipline, it was generalized comprehensive historical descriptions that were in focus. At the end of the 19th century positivism was the dominant philosophy within the sciences, and thus the critical analysis of source material became the focal point within the science of history. Underlying this view was the belief in an ever-progressive historical development - a belief that was nurtured by the growth of industrial society and the success of the natural sciences. After the First World War a new view gradually came to the fore, a view wich was based on the realization that societal development and scientific advancement were not always beneficial to mankind. Consequently after the Second World War history gradually became dominated by a sociological approach which specially focused on economic and social aspects.

             Thus, from its start as a scientific discipline the science of history has developed from generalised comprehensive descriptions, which were not always well-founded, into investigative and critical analysis, and further on to more specialised and critical studies which have gradually ramified to form an ever-wider spectrum of specialised subdivisions.

             Since space and time is still the only basic and universal instrument of systemization within the science of history this subdivision and specialization has produced the present situation, where the specialized work of historians is based on widely different basic assumptions containing more or less personal ad hoc explanations of the phenomenon in question. As strict rules of scientific investigation are the only universal conditions of recearch within the science of history, it can be stated that the science history is still only developed to the systematizing scientific level.

                The national and international historical developments ought to be of major importance to policy makers as well as ordinary citizens, but due to the lack of qualitative development of the science of history, it is almost impossible to make use of that vast amount of  scientific material in order to get a better understanding of present and future societal developments.

             Now that the science of history has developed a sound  recearch methodology and collected a vast amount of scientific data, the time is ripe to advance a global view based on distinct and precisely expressed basic scientific assumptions.

             T.S.Kuhn stated that the established scientists tend to hamper change, as change might disrupt the power equilibrium within a scientific society. That is obviously the case within the science of history, and that is even more regrettable as the science history is over ripe for such a methodological development and change.  A change wich would reinstate the science of history in the central societal role that it deserves.

             The allocation of funds to the different sciences mirror the benefit the politicians believe society can reap from those sciences. At present the by far greatest amount of recourses goes to the natural sciences, but when history and other social sciences are raised unto the deco-scientific and deductive-scientific levels, it will be obvious to everybody that a reallocation of funds towards these sciences will be of utmost importance.

A universal historical theory

The method I shall utilize in the following is parallel to the method used within established, deductively‑developed scientific disciplines like physics and chemistry.

                             Having first isolated a basic scientific element, this latter is used to formulate a basic theoretical structure.  Furthermore elements of this deco-scientific theory can be developed, unfolding a deductive-scientific structure which can be used to predict concrete yet hitherto uninvestigated courses of events within the scientific field concerned, after which the theoretical model may be collated with empirical observations.

                             In this particular case - a theory of history - I intend to use a basic deco-scientific element - the concept of optimization - in order to formulate a basic theoretical structure which is further elaborated into a stylized sequence consisting of three main historical categories.

                             As the science of history is only developed to the systematizing-scientific level, it will be necessary to make some deco-scientific exemplifications of the new concepts by relating them to already established scientific knowledge, before going on to deductive-scientific predictions. The exemplifications should also make it easier for the reader to accept the new approach and new patterns of thought.

                             Thus, following the section on the stylised historical sequences I shall attempt to relate to a few concrete historical elements of fundamental importance.

To fulfill the conditions of a deco-scientific theory then (only!) remains that the theory becomes accepted by the scientific comunity, but as this specific theory also has the potential to be further developed into a deductiv-scientific theory, the final and most important stage of this theory of history is to construct models of concrete yet hitherto uninvestigated historical elements. On collating these new elements with the empirical observations it will then be possible to decide whether there is a sufficient degree of coincidence to enable us to establish the theory as a deductive‑scientific theory.

                             Since it is beyond my resources or my professional possibilities to carry out a scientific investigation of a hitherto unresearched historical epoch or society, I have chosen a different approach to the problem of verification - that of deducting a model of the future development of our own society on the basis of this theory.

                             Should this sketch of the productive structure of our future society be found to coincide satisfactorily with the future when that presents itself, this theory has by then been confirmed as a deductive-scientific theory.

The predictions of the major structural societal changes, which I present in the third part of this book, must not be expected to be realised and hopefully confirmed until after my death -which presumably lies less than thirty years hence. Nevertheless enough of the minor predictions about our present society, put forward solely by me during the 27 years which have passed since I started working on this project, has come true making me confident about the outcome of the major predictions too.

                             As it is always more fun to have ones work tested and hopefully confirmed while still alive, I would naturally be grateful if investigations of historical material, and predictions along the lines stipulated above and in the following chapters were to be undertaken before I, due to age, lose the ability to enjoy the results.

History as a science on the initial-scientific level.

The science of history is the science of the development of human societies in space and time.

                             Hitherto the science of history has taken the form of a pre‑deco-scientific structure in which the scientific work produced, has solely been judged on its ability to utilise strict investigative criteria. It is still up to each and every individual historian to freely interpret the results of his research utilising any ad hoc explanations he may choose (provided he does not thereby offend the established scientific community!). In this way historical elements which are essentially identical, although they originate from different geographical areas or different centuries, each become the object of ad hoc descriptions whose basic common features cannot as a rule be recognised and compared. Even when such common features can be recognised, it is not "scientifically respectable" to make comparison of phenomena divided by anything but minute divisions of time, space or culture.

The descriptions of the Middle Eastern and Egyptian societies of early antiquity provide an illustration of the above‑mentioned problem. It is remarkable how radically the descriptions of the culture and history of Egypt differ from those of the contemporary Middle Eastern cultures, despite the fact that the cultures of both Egypt and the Middle East were all based on agriculture and urbanisation along the great rivers. Whereas the historical framework of understanding for the Middle Eastern cultures is to some extent based on economic and domestic circumstances, for the Egyptian cultures it has largely been based on descriptions of dynasties.

                             The cognitive elements underlying the descriptions of these two obviously parallel cultural areas are so unlike, that one should almost think they were radically different historical phenomena - even though they are both to be found on somewhat parallel societal levels of development and in strikingly similar geographical areas.

                             The differences in the descriptions of the two areas do not in fact originate in the concrete historical circumstances but in the historiography itself. Whereas the historiography of ancient Egypt has largely been based on the decipherment of monumental inscriptions on buildings and works of art, that of the corresponding Middle Eastern cultures was largely based on source material consisting of enormous quantities of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing.

                             People in ancient Egypt used to write on papyrus for "everyday use" and on stone for "ceremonial use", and the fact that most of these papyrus documents - and with them the documentation for the basic socio‑economic structure - have since been lost, has largely contributed to the striking differences between the historical description and conception of ancient Egypt and that of the corresponding Middle Eastern cultures. The enormous number of available tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing describing even everyday life in society facilitates a more complete historiography of the Middle Eastern cultures of antiquity.

                             Naturally, as historians gradually obtain access to new information, not least with regard to the Egyptian societies, these ad hoc descriptions are constantly revised. Amongst other things it has now become possible to unwind the papyrus documents once used for wrapping mummies. These papyri often consist of discarded documents of an everyday nature that can help to illuminate the dynamics and social interaction to be found in more concrete and down‑to‑earth aspects of that society.

Apart from time as a systematising tool the science of history has only developed investigative tools thus leaving the science of history "stranded" on the systematizing-scientific level!

History as a deco science

If the science of history is to be raised from its present systematizing-scientific level to the deco-scientific level and even further onto the deductive‑scientific level, the first problem that presents itself is wheather history evolve or just repeat itself.

When history is seen in the usual perspective it is impossible to determine weather history is evolving or just repeating itself, as there always will be some societies which are evolving and others which are degenerating. In order to solve the problem we therefore have to raise above the normal historic perspective and  take a look at the over all development of the human race. In that perspective the progressive evolvement of history is positively discernible.

When looking at the general development of the human societies two factors stand out. One of them is the continual multiplication and geographical spreading of the human race, to such an extent that nowadays the human race is to be found almost all over the globe. But although this geographical spreading and numerical increase is rather unusual in comparison with that of other living creatures, it does not in itself - as a biological feature - constitute a means of distinguishing the human race from the remaining multitude of living creatures on earth.

                             The other factor is that the human race has not only developed biologically, geographically and quantitatively, but also qualitatively, i.e. the structure of human society tends to evolve from the primitive into the ever more complex and sophisticated. Although all other living creatures may be capable of unfolding both numerically and geographically, their biological and social cycle invariably displays a rounded‑off, repetitive pattern.

                             The historical development of the social structures from the primitive towards the ever more complex is, on the contrary, a non‑rounded, progressive process quite specific to man, and it is precisely this process that history as a scientific discipline deals with.

                             The fact that historical development ranges from primitive societal structures towards the ever more complex indicates that there must be a fundamental normative driving force underlying this progressive historical development.

It requires no special talent for observation to conclude that it is the size and structure of our brain that separates the human race from all other living creatures, including our immediate biological relatives, the other primates. However, our knowledge of the structure and properties of the brain has not revealed a "history‑creating element", but has merely demonstrated that this cerebral development provides us with better chances of survival than those of other living creatures.  If the "driving force" behind the history‑creating process does not lie in our brain itself, it must presumably be something we share with other living creatures - where the property concerned does not reveal itself as history‑creating until combined with man's special cerebral powers.

                             In so far as this history‑creating "driving force" is an impulse or factor we share with other living creatures we will have to seek it on a more fundamental level. In other words, we must focus our attention on what is peculiar to living organisms as opposed to the multitude of other organic and inorganic compounds on earth.

Life and entropy

Crucial to a distinction between the inorganic compounds and living organisms is the concept of entropy. This concept, which deals with the transformation of energy, is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It was the Frenchman Sadi Carnot who, in 1824, first became aware of the basic problems connected with the concept of entropy, and these were finally formulated in 1865 by the German scientist Rudolf Clausius. It was not until 1944, however, that the Austrian nuclear physicist Erwin Schrödinger gave a lecture in which he dealt with the connection between the concept of entropy and the basic properties of life - a topic that has since been elaborated by the Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine and others.

                             Erwin Schrödinger's reflections on the special nature of life were the outcome of his recognition that, whereas the second law of thermodynamics describes the irrevocable and continual disintegration of the inorganic structures, life manifests itself as the building‑up of extremely complex organic structures. Living organisms bring this about by utilizing high‑ranking energy of short wavelength - primarily solar energy - to form complex organic structures. In this way life manages to isolate, temporarily halt, and reverse the universal bondage to entropy.

As far as we know, the building‑up of complex biochemical molecules takes place spontaneously in outer space, and under favourable conditions chemical reactions of this nature have presumably also taken place spontaneously on earth during previous periods. The hiatus between such organic compounds and what we understand as living organisms is great, however, and the speculations regarding the origin of life are numerous.

Speculations as to whether life has arisen spontaneously here on earth or has come from outer space in the form of vira or suchlike, or whether it is "God" who has invested the dead organic compounds with life, is not important in this context. What is important here is that all life is the bearer of physical and chemical conditions that may once have constituted the earth`s normal environment, but which no longer do so. It is essential to bear this in mind, because it means that life as it is found on earth today is dependent for its existence on some specific and fundamental properties.

                             Since life on earth consists exclusively of forms that cannot arise spontaneously in our present physical and chemical environment, and since all known forms of life have a limited life span, it is essential for living organisms that they can reproduce themselves. Since life is the bearer of internal conditions that differ from the environment on earth, the ability to regulate the flow of energy to and from the organism`s own internal system is also vital to every living organism.         Thus it is by regulating their exchange of energy with the environment, i.e. the metabolic exchange with their surroundings, that living organisms have solved the problem of how to exist on the earth today under conditions differing radically from the ideal state in which life spontaneously arose.

One method of maintaining the internal equilibrium, which is employed especially by microorganisms, consists in opening up for the reception of high‑ranking energy - provided the latter is present in the right form and in sufficient quantities and it is at the same time possible to get rid of the surplus energy and waste materials. If these conditions are not fulfilled the system/microorganism stops interacting with its surroundings and the maintenance of life continues temporarily as an almost closed system.

                             The other strategy, or method of maintaining life, presupposes that the organisms concerned have become capable of a more advanced and sophisticated  form of regulation. For example, plants can rotate their leaves in order to maximise the inflow of sunshine or regulate evaporation and thus increase their range of activity, and animals are even better able to seek out the optimum conditions for their continued existence. Thus if plants and animals are to be able to exist in competition with one another and with the less complex and rapidly reproducing microbes, to seek out the best possible conditions becomes not only desirable but absolutely necessary. This means that, in order to survive, any higher form of life that primarily makes use of this second and more advanced method of metabolic exchange with its surroundings must possess a mechanism that steers them towards an optimization of their life conditions in every situation. Without such a mechanism they would not be able to survive.

                             As far as animals and man are concerned, this basic requisite for maintaining higher forms of life has hitherto been regarded as consisting of a great variety of drives, but it is only possible to understand man's dynamic historical development if we grasp the fundamental necessity of the urge for optimization. Thus the optimization urge can be used as a deco-scientific element.

                             The presence of an optimization urge implies that in every given situation higher organisms seek to determine optimum patterns of action and to act accordingly. We must bear in mind, however, that not only individual but collective evaluations as to what is optimum in a given situation may also result in catastrophical misjudgments, irrespective of whether we are concerned with human beings or animals.

The impact of the optimization urge

The chief difference between man and the other primates lies, as previously mentioned, in the evolution and differentiation of the human brain.

                             Apart from man, all other living creatures on earth live their lives, be it as individuals or species, near equilibrium with their environment, and they can only deploy their optimization urge in order to survive or reproduce themselves within the ecological cycle of which they form a part. Thus changes in the ecological cycle prior to those brought about by man were chiefly due either to mutations or to climatic and geological changes.

                             In contrast to this, man - whose increased brain capacity has made possible the development of language, abstract and conscious thought, and the use of tools - has developed his special talent for organization. Not only is he capable, like other animals, of regulating and reproducing himself individually or as a species, but as the result of the optimization urge coupled with his special physiological make‑up, he has got far beyond the necessary physiological level of reproduction.

                             It is important to realize that the optimization urge together with the capacity for reproduction must be regarded as the two most fundamental properties of all higher forms of life, and that the former is so fundamental that it affects all conditions of life. But this does not necessarily mean that it will always be realized purposefully, because what may well be short‑term optimization for the individual may be injurious to the group and therefore also injurious to the individual in the long run. Thus the concept of optimization contains no built‑in guarantee that development will always be progressive. It is nevertheless a fundamental and constantly operative dynamic force, which manifests itself in a more or less purposeful manner under variable conditions.

                             Even though the attempts of individuals, groups or nations to optimise their life conditions are far from always progressive from a historical point of view (e.g. the Germans thought they were optimising their life conditions by starting the Second World War), we can nevertheless say that by and large history moves from the simple and primitive towards ever more complex and sophisticated social structures. Thus the optimisation urge may be regarded as a constructive historical driving‑force and developmental factor, i.e. as a basic deco-scientific or perhaps even a deductive‑scientific element within the science of history.

On the previous pages I have argued biologically for the existence of an urge for optimisation profoundly affecting history. Although I consider this argumentation more fundamental, I could just as well have based my argumentation on "the phyllogenetic development of man", an argumentation developed by the Berliner school of psychology in the beginning of the nineteenseventies, or I could have based my argumentation on “an immanent psychic energy” as C.G.Jung did with his "Libido concept" in the early thirties, or I could even have gone back to the beginning of last century and used Sigmund Freuds concept of an "Eros instinct".

Having now established a deco-scientific criteria, the optimation urge, we can proceed to evolving a theory based on this criteria. After having done that it will, in the third part of the book, be possible to employ the earleier mentioned deductive-scientific procedure thus hopefully establishing the theory on the deductive-scientific level.

The main historical categories

Human society, as mentioned, has evolved from extremely primitive structures into the familiar complex structures of the modern industrialized world. And since the most important factor in this evolution is man's ever more advanced metabolic exchange with his environment, it seems purposeful to define the historical categories as follows, according to the nature of the metabolic exchange: i.e. hunting communities, agrarian communities, and trading communities.

                             It is evident that history is a gradual process, and the transition from one historical category to another may be just as imaginary and abstract as latitudes and longitudes within geography. But just as it is extremely practical to divide up the world by means of latitudes and longitudes, it is also practical to divide historical phenomena into specific categories, and to subdivide each of the above‑mentioned main categories into two separate parts as follows.

                             To take the hunting category, for example: At a point when a given community is no longer maintaining itself solely by gathering its food but is gradually acquiring the necessary tools for hunting larger animals, its resources - i.e. animals - will be plentiful. But when this hunting community has existed for a shorter or longer period all according to local conditions, the constant increase in population will finally necessitate killing more animals than is locally possible with the techniques and tools available, and a sort of crisis will occur. The ways out of such a crisis are obvious: either the hunting area can be extended, or parts of the community can move to new pastures, or the hunting tools and methods can be improved so as to provide a better utilization of the stock of animals. However, as history has shown the improvement of hunting tools and methods is an extremely difficult and lengthy process.

                             Obviously, as long as it is still possible to find new hunting areas the hunting community`s need to optimize will chiefly manifest itself as a gradual spreading‑out of the growing population. But if the adjoining areas are controlled by other hunting communities or the geographical situation prevents any further expansion, a new type of crisis will arise. When the opportunities for expansion dry up, the urge for optimization will no longer obtain its maximum outlet through metabolic exchange with nature, and individual attempts to optimize will turn inwards towards the societal structure itself. Each individual will focus on obtaining the best position within the group or the community, and the social structure will become increasingly hierarchical.

                             With a slight adaptation of George Orwell's famous sentence from "Animal Farm", we might say that in the first phase of a given production category, during which the optimization urge has acquired a free outlet by way of the metabolic exchange with nature, everyone is equal: everyone can contribute, each with his specialized function, on equal terms. But in the second phase of a given category, when the optimization urge cannot acquire a free outlet by way of metabolic exchange with nature, the individual urge for optimization is increasingly channelled into a metabolic exchange within society, some people become more equal than others!

                             The first phase of a historical category may fittingly be termed the expansive phase, while the second phase, in which increasing monopolization of the production resources occurs, may fittingly be termed the monopolistic phase.

The three main categories as a stylized sequence

The next step is to sketch the three main historical categories as a continuous and stylized sequence. A stylized description of this type will naturally include elements and phenomena other than the concept of optimization and the main categories with their subdivisions. Later I shall try to show how these separate elements and phenomena fit together like a jigsaw puzzle when the concept of optimization is used as a general cognitive element.

                             It is also important to bear in mind that the stylized sequence in question consists of "pure" phenomena, i.e. the communities stipulated are developed on given levels without any opportunity to interact with communities on other levels. Broadly speaking, communities remaining unaffected by other developmental levels have not existed for thousands of years. As far back as our records go, communities have existed simultaneously on different categorial levels and have presumably been able to influence one another to some extent. It is worth remembering though that the problem of isolating scientific phenomena in a pure form, unaffected by other phenomena, is one of  most important challenges within all sciences.

The hunting category.

I shall take as starting‑point a settlement whose population is to be found on the simplest level of existence we know of today - the hunting/gathering level. Unlike the hunting/gathering cultures of today, which survive in relatively barren and infertile regions, this settlement is to be found in a fertile area where it is relatively simple to produce the necessities of life and where the population is increasing rapidly in the manner humans do in the absence of any restrictions. There is no shortage of vital necessities and the population is not very concentrated, so mortality within the group is also limited. Since the population growth naturally results in a gradually more intensive use of the food sources a shortage of vital necessities soon presents itself, and at some point or other a group consisting of people who would rather risk unknown dangers outside the original area than suffer its internal pressures separates off, thus temporarily relieving the original group. This procedure repeats itself many times until the possibilities for migration have been fully exploited within the geographical area concerned.

                             Let us assume that our group is living in an area the expansion of which is limited by mountains and the open sea. There will come a point when the group covers the entire territory at its disposal, thus rendering the continued exponential growth of the hunting community impossible.

                             Since any further expansion of our hunting community now becomes impossible the preconditions for its social structure become radically changed, while at the same time the population continues to grow without any essential increase in the possibilities for hunting.

                             The transition from the hunting community´s first expansive phase, with its ready access to the necessary production resources, to the second or monopolistic phase, in which the optimization urge cannot any longer be satisfied by the metabolic exchange with nature, results in marked changes in the social structure.

                             The lack of foodstuffs drastically increases the importance of hunting in comparison with other societal functions, and any attempt to improve the conditions of life by appropriating the territories of other hunting communities by force likewise increases the importance of hunters and warriors in comparison with other members of society. Hunters, and especially their leaders, can thereby optimize their personal life conditions by acquiring special privileges.

                             Since the external conditions do not essentially change, societal stratification becomes ever more marked and inflexible, and because this development takes place gradually throughout many generations the new generations are brought up to accept the conditions as they are.

                             Our settlement´s privileged "upper class" - the chief and the witch doctor, who control the group's resources - have no personal incentive to try to change the inflexible social structure. The poorest and most underprivileged part of the population has every good reason to wish to change the social structure, but since it lacks any physical or social reserves of strength this group is in no way able to establish an alternative to the existing order. Its dissatisfaction and frustration merely results in periodical revolts against those in power, and in the appointment of new leaders, who, since they are merely fulfilling a social function dictated by the material conditions of the tribe, gradually take over the positions and privileges of the old leaders. The tribe´s "middle group", however, is on the one hand under sufficient pressure to wish for changes and, on the other hand, in possession of sufficient personal reserves of strength to attempt to change and optimize its living conditions. As long as there are no structural changes in the community´s material foundation, the middle group´s attempt to optimize will be directed towards the appropriation of social privileges. In order to counter this, the community gradually develops extremely strict rules and norms which help to maintain its members within narrow social limits, e.g. heredetery social functions, and divergence from this is punished both psychologically and physically. As long as the vital resources were plentiful, the motivation for developing and accepting new hunting tools and methods, or new procedures as such, was extremely limited. During the hunting category´s second phase, in which the optimization urge is generally focused on the societal metabolic exchange, which gradually becomes more and more rigid, the members of the middle group naturally spend some of their excess energy in trying to optimising their conditions by way of improved working procedures. At some point or other the conditions in our model society are such that the attempts of the middle group to improve their conditions are crowned with success - when it becomes possible, for example, to increase the supply of foodstuffs considerably by deliberately cultivating edible plants.

The agrarian category

It should be borne in mind that in the hunting category´s monopolistic phase everything to do with the established social structure is dictated by strict hierarchical rules. In contrast to these restrictive practices the new type of metabolic exchange with nature initiated by the systematic cultivation of edible plants represents a free and unrestricted supplement. In fact the revolution from the hunting category to the agrarian category enables the entire community to subsist on a much smaller geographical area than it had hitherto been possible.

                             It goes without saying that the interests, privileges, norms and rules of the hunting community are bound to clash with the new agrarian interests. The transition from one main category to the other - from the hunting to the agrarian category - may be either slow and gradual or violent and sudden, depending on the extent to which the old rulers oppose any changes in the community.

Just as in the case of latitudes and longitudes within geography, for scientific reasons it would be expedient to pinpoint the transition from one main historical category to another. I.e. the transition from one main category to the succeeding one is demarcated by the point at which the societal superstructure ceases to administer the norms, rules and privileges of the old category and is restructured in order to administer the interests of the new category.

                             In any given community the norms and rules, ways of thinking and attitudes reflect conditions in society, and these in their turn reflect the way in which the metabolic exchange with nature takes place, i.e. the type and developmental level of the productive force. With any given productive force and its subdivisions, specific forms of social consciousness and specific social structures are associated.

With the advent of agrarian production a community changes its attitudes and its ways of thinking, even though the superstructural rules and beliefs of the old hunting community may still apply for some time. At some point, however, those cultivating the soil acquire such importance that their social needs and attitudes break through the rigid structure of the old community. This may either take the form of a peaceful and gradual restructuring of the old community´s laws and rules, or of a revolution, whereby the old superstructure with its laws, norms and rulers is suddenly replaced by the new attitudes and less rigid legislative structure of the new productive force.

                             The rules as regards the old productive force had been very strict, because this productive force was to be found precisely in the second and more rigid monopolistic phase of the main historical category concerned. As regards the new productive force only a very loose legislative structure is needed because the resources required for the new productive force - i.e. arable land - is readily available during the first phase of the new agrarian category.

                             Our ex‑hunting model community can now subsist on a relatively small part of the original hunting area, and so its members are fully able to optimize their living conditions through the metabolic exchange with nature. Should a crisis arise as the result of population growth and the consequent need of more food than the cultivated soil can provide, it is possible either to cultivate more land or for some families to move farther out into the original hunting area to found new production families - and new agrarian communities.

                             Apart from the fact that a pure hunting society will be structured as a tribe, whereas a agrarian society primarily will be structured around a production family unit, the agrarian category thereafter repeats the developmental pattern of the hunting category, and when all arable land has finally been taken into use an essentially new type of social crisis arises because it is no longer possible to optimize the living conditions through further expanding the agrarian metabolic exchange with nature.

                             Attempts may naturally be made to appropriate arable land from the neighbouring communities by forceful means, and it becomes necessary to maintain an armed group to defend the community against attacks from without.

                             At this stage of development of the agrarian society the optimization urge will chiefly manifests itself in the attempts of various production families to appropriate more agricultural land. Eventually, as some landowners or production families become much bigger than others, it becomes practical for such landowners - who also have more men on their farms - to take upon themselves (asked or unasked) the maintenance of an armed force in order to defend the entire community against attacks from without.

                             Gradually, as the monopolistic phase of the agrarian category becomes more and more advanced, more and more rules are required for regulating society. During the course of generations the topmost level in society, consisting of the big production families, become feudal lords, who dominate the other production families and gradually optimize their own living conditions at the expense of the community as a whole.

                             At the topmost level the community then consists of a dominating feudal upper class, which has no wish to change the existing conditions, and a bottommost landless class, which has every possible reason for wishing to change the structure of society but finds it difficult enough to sustain life and retain the modicum of social prestige it possesses. Attempts to revolt naturally crop up from time to time, but since the conditions in society are dictated by its rigid form of production these revolts merely gives a brief relief whereafter new feudal leaders gradually will acquire the same positions as the old ones. If a new leader fails to live up to a community´s needs and expectations there is always either another one available, or else a neighbouring feudal lord who is prepared to optimize his own living conditions by taking over power.

                             Between the topmost and bottommost layers in society there is a middle group, which not only feels sufficiently pressurized and restricted to wish for changes in society but also has the necessary surplus energy to make attempts to bring these about. So long as the production conditions remain the same the middle group´s attempt to optimize its conditions consists in improving its own social position. But since the laws, rules and norms become stricter from generation to generation not even this group has any real chance of effectively optimizing its living conditions.

The trading category

Even in the very earliest phase of the hunting community the germ of the next main category had existed - in the form of gathering wild plants and their seeds. At that time the precondition for any further development of this food source was lacking, however. Not only because there was sufficient game to be had but also because such a development would have presupposed a more permanent abode.

                             Similarly, although here too the conditions for its development were lacking, the germ of the third main category was already to be found in the agrarian category, and consisted of the surplus production not only of foodstuffs but also of tools and clothing, etc. Within the agrarian category these were produced for the production families' own use, and any possible surplus was either stored or used on a subsidiary level, i.e. for purposes inferior to what they were originally determined. For example, a surplus of corn intended for bread‑making could be used for feeding domestic animals.

                             If such surplus products are to acquire a different type of importance, this requires not only stable social conditions in order to enable members of the community to travel outside their own area without too great a risk but also roads, or at any rate paths, linking the various areas. Finally, there is a need for gathering places where members of different production families can meet and exchange surplus products.

                             For a very long time surplus products were exchanged in the form of utility values. I.e. the exchange would take place only in so far as each of the two parties specifically needed the other party´s products. The exchange of utility values is extremely tedious and demands a lot of energy, because it may naturally take some time to find a suitable person to barter with.

                             However, live animals such as cattle, which stay fresh and are in constant demand, make stable bartering goods. So in time cattle acquired a different role than other goods - a role that was later taken over by metals, especially copper, silver and gold.

                             With the establishment of the abstract concept of exchange value the path was paved for an entirely new type of production force based on the deliberate overproduction of utility values, which thus acquired the status of exchange values or goods.

                             Thus, the establishment of the new main historical category demands the fulfilment of a number of conditions. Firstly, the agrarian category must have reached the monopolistic phase, for otherwise both the individual and the societal expansion drives would continue to consist of agricultural expansion over greater and greater areas. Secondly, sufficient stability must be established during this monopolistic phase to permit regular intercourse between groups of production families. Thirdly, a means of communication, i.e. paths or roads, must be established and, finally, a market for the exchange of utility values. Not until all these conditions have been fulfilled can a trading community gradually establish itself according to a mutual agreement based on customs, where cattle or metals represent a universal value with which all other material values can be compared and priced.

                             Once this societal agreement has been entered into it becomes possible to produce goods intended for sale rather than for direct consumption. People then go to market and exchange their goods for cattle, metals or money, retaining these until they find the goods they need, which are also directly exchangeable with "money".

                              It can be hard for those of us who are living in the trading category´s monopolistic phase to imagine how difficult people during the agrarian category must have found the transition to the production of goods proper.

                             As is also the case today, during the monopolistic phase of the agrarian category the consciousness of the individual was geared to the norms, laws and rules that had evolved during the course of generations as the result of material conditions. The children were brought up to regard these laws, rules and norms as universal truths, and as long as individuals only moved within the sphere of agrarian society this helped to ensure as peaceable a coexistence as possible.

                             The agrarian category´s, laws, rules and norms regulated everything concerned with agrarian production and social interaction, but this did not include the production of exchange values or goods.

                             So long as exchange values were produced as a by‑product in agrarian production families they simply supplemented these families' resources. Naturally, those members of the production families who came to specialize in the production of exchange values continued to have a specific social role in the agrarian production‑family structure as well as in the feudal system, although as far as they were concerned this was no longer dictated by  material necessity.

                             As we experience today, when agrarian families move from lesser‑developed cultures to our purely trading‑categorial cultures, this transplantation incurs great difficulties. Immigrants, and especially second‑generation immigrants, suffer both physical and psychological conflicts resulting from the tension between the original agrarian culture with its economic and social obligations to the extended agrarian family clan, and the new trading‑categorial culture with its nucleus familly structure and obligations to the national state. It was no easy decision for people in earlier times to break with the production family and set themselves up as craftsmen or merchants either. But in the monopolistic phase of the agrarian category, breaking away and intergrating themselves as craftsmen or merchant (nuclear) families in a town producing exchange values, nevertheless provided better (more optimizing) conditions for people than staying in their original production families.

                             Whereas the agrarian community in its monopolistic phase is curbed by the lack of possibilities for expansion, with the advent of trade -the new type of metabolic exchange enables far more people to subsist on the same area. Moreover, the increasing skilfullness and specialization of craftsmen provide better tools for cultivating the land and thus also a greater agricultural yield.

                             An old type of production force does not cease to exist immediately a new main production force comes into being, but the dynamics and predominance of the latter restructures society in such a way as to fulfil its own needs. The old production forces, both hunting and agrarian, continue to exist, but are now materially, socially, psychologically and legally subject to the new main production force. The new trading production force improves both hunting weapons and agricultural implements, making them more efficient, but together with game and agricultural products these are now regarded as goods, and subject as such to the trading category´s laws, rules and norms - which differ greatly from those within the hunting or agrarian categories.

                             As was the case with the previous main categories, the establishment of the trading category provides renewed possibilities for expansion, and thereby the basis for an increase in the population. So long as this type of production force has a plentiful supply of resources - and these consist of most basic organic and inorganic materials - it can develop unrestrained, and individuals can satisfy their optimization urge through this type of metabolic exchange with nature.

                             But when all the basic materials have been taken into use and made subject to the community´s laws and regulations as regards property‑ownership, and it is no longer possible to further optimize the living conditions through the metabolic exchange with "nature", a new crisis occurs. Whereafter the - urban - community gradually undergoes marked social changes.

                             Gradually, as the trading category´s monopolistic phase evolves, the individual urge to optimize tends to cement the stratification of society. Rules and regulations become stricter and much more intricate, and occupy a prevalent place in the trading‑categorial community. Children are brought up to regard its laws, rules and norms as incontestable truths, and as long as the individuals live entirely within the framework of the trading category these norms help to ensure that social interaction is as frictionless as possible.

                             The democratic system of government may help to smooth out social disparities so that it is not so much individual wealth which constitutes the disparity, but increasing monopolisation takes place notwithstanding, and giant corporations, pension funds and public authorities come to own the major part of the society's productive potential, curbing the individuals possibilities for optimisation. Even though most of the citizens become wage earners, society becomes stratified, the economic and/or intellectual upper class having no wish to change the existing conditions. Those in society who are worst off become extremely dissatisfied with their conditions, but find it difficult enough to cope with their immediate situation and so have no possibility of changing society. Increasing cuts will occur in the social sector and that will naturally lead to general protests, and other politicians are chosen to govern society. However, since the production basis in this purely trading categorical model society provides no possibility for renewed expansion, the new politicians largely come to fulfil the same functions as their predecessors. Between the privileged topmost and the underprivileged bottommost layers of society there is a group that is, on the one hand, under sufficiently pressure to desire a change and, on the other, bent on finding new ways of optimizing their own living conditions.

                             At one point or other the necessary conditions are present for this middle group to develop a new productive force, the germ of which is already to be found in society - i.e. the fourth historical category that has not yet been developed!

 (More about this in the third part of the book.)

The interaction between different categorical structures

Just as fundamental theoretical elements within physics and chemestry are first expressed as idealised abstractions, i.e. cleansed of "disturbing factors", I have in the previous section attempted to unfold the fundamental historical categories in their simplest and purest form. Thus I have sought to describe the three historical categories hitherto unfolded solely as a linear course.

                             The periods in human history that have been documented, and which can therefore be reconstructed in a reasonably coherent manner, are nevertheless all to be found at such advanced historical stages that communities already have existed side by side with others on different categorial levels. Such communities have naturally influenced and interacted with one another, and such interaction has resulted in mixed categorical phenomena. The aim in the following is therefore to focus on some elements that may help to illuminate the consequences of such categorical interaction.

As a further development of the monopolistic agrarian phase in which feudal lords had subjugated the remaining members of the agrarian community, a feudal lord could optimize his conditions of life by appropriating still more arable land. He could, for example, subjugate other agrarian production families, whereby these families and their land would be "transferred" from the domain of other feudal lords, or the "transference" could take place as the result of intermarriage. Alternatively, one feudal lord might offer another his protection and help, thus gradually annexing his land, or - as the outcome of a war - the winner might take over the loser's territory.

                             The process whereby one feudal lord optimizes his living conditions at the expense of others leads to a stratification among the feudal lords themselves.

                             The growth of market towns took place within monopolist agrarian society under jurisdiction of local feudal lords, who found the new production structure to be to their advantage. Not only did trade create the necessity of a road network the local feudal lord could use in order to enforce his rights, but a market town also provided him with the possibility of exchanging the products of the soil the production families had for centuries been supporting him with as the result of his increasingly exerted pressure.

                             The feudal lord naturally made the most of his opportunity to exert pressure on the merchants, either continually or intermittently. But since neither merchants nor craftsmen were materially or economically dependent on the individual feudal lord, it did not pay the latter to exert too much pressure on them lest they should quietly disappear from the town during the night and settle down somewhere else.

                             On a bigger scale, armed conflicts might arise between large groups of feudal lords, and a leader, or king, was chosen from among them in order to coordinate their efforts. At this stage of development the royal power was solely associated with the specific war concerned, and the king was simply the foremost among equals and entirely dependent on the support of the other feudal lords.

                             In strengthening the Crown - chiefly by helping to finance a standing army, and by placing fortified towns under royal protection and at the army´s disposal - the citizens in the towns acquired orderly and stable conditions in their markets, which might very well encompass the territories of several feudal lords. Since they were under royal protection, the towns were at the same time free of arbitrary economic pressure on the part of local feudal lords.

                             The dynamics during the monopolist phase of the agrarian category led to ever greater concentration as regards the ownership of the agrarian production force (arable land), and feudal lords who were previously equal became gradually divided into big and small. And since it was to the latter´s advantage to support the Crown, because the king was able to offer protection against possible attacks by mightier neighbours, the feudal lords were unable to reach agreement among themselves as regards any radical curbing of the royal power. Gradually, as social integration continued, and thereby the need for a supreme government also in time of peace, the Crown became a permanent institution in monopolist agrarian society.

                             Urban areas with their trade and craftsmanship had hitherto arisen like islands in the surrounding monopolistic agrarian territories and had been subject to the latter´s social and psychological norms. But gradually the power and importance of the towns increased, since - with the growth of craftsmanship and trade - they were no longer subject to the monopolistic agrarian society´s restrictions as regards resources.

                             Although the trade with agricultural crops and other products only constituted a minute part of the total economy, it now acquired greater importance, because the agrarian economy in itself was a closed economic circle. Not subject to the distribution rules of monopolist agrarian society, even a tiny surplus deriving from trade could radically alter the socio‑economic balance in society. As we know, even a tiny force can move a great mass if it encounter no resistance.

                             In monopolist agrarian society the ownership of the resources necessary for the agrarian production force, i.e. arable land, tended to become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, with a corresponding concentration of power among the feudal lords (including the church). On the other hand the new urban development, which was chiefly based on trade and craftsmanship, tended to encourage the establishment of this productive force´s characteristic form of government and division of power, i.e. oligarchy and early forms of democracy. In such early phases the latter was realized in the form of joint rule by the leading citizens.

                             The essentially different governmental, social and economic interests of towns on the one hand and the surrounding monopolist agrarian society on the other were united under the Crown. At first feudal and elective, but the Crown gradually acquired more and more importance, developing via the more stable hereditary monarchy into the absolute monarchy, which latter signifies the level of societal development on which monopolist agrarian and trade‑based production forces are in equilibrium. Thereafter the balance tilted in favour of the trading-categorial production forces and the Crown developed into the constitutional monarchy or was abolished altogether.

                             Gradually, as the urban structures with their trade and craftsmanship gained the economic and social upper hand, the power of the king was restricted in favour of the trade‑based productive force´s democratic forms of government in various stages of development.

                             Monopolistic agrarian production was centred around families of serfs who, according to time‑honoured tradition, were obliged to supply their feudal lords with goods and services, usually to such an extent that production families were constantly living at subsistence level. This form of production encouraged the feudal lords to incorporate bigger areas and more production families under their control. But since the contribution of the production families was fixed and time‑honoured - it may well have become steadily greater during the course of generations, but was not directly dependent on varying yields - the feudal lords had neither sufficient resources nor motives to switch to intensive cultivation methods that might improve the yield. Not until those citizens who had accumulated capital as the result of the lucrative though more uncertain conditions associated with the production and trading of goods came to invest their capital in land in order to safeguard their economic gains and improve their social standing did rational and intensive cultivation methods such as artificial irrigation arise.

                             The investment in new methods of cultivation was motivated by the expectation that such investment would nevertheless give a reasonable yield or profit. Since the feudal system was based on traditional agreements according to which the production families benefited from an eventual production surplus, those families were replaced by teams of slaves or day labourers. Any eventual surplus could then go uncurtailed to the new landowner who had invested in better cultivation methods.

Thus the historical societies that developed new intensive cultivation methods, or cultivated crops with a period of growth that extended over several years before giving any yield, had reached the level in which goods were produced for sale on the market.

Whereas further expansion had been impossible during the monopolistic phase of the agrarian category, the change in the societal superstructure and the growth of craftsmanship and trade made it possible, for example, to construct irrigation systems and make new tracts of land fertile and productive.

Regressive revolutions

Only on the most abstract and general level history can be seen as a constantly progressive developmental process. On the concrete level, fluctuations in the relative strength of societal elements which are on different categorial levels often cause setbacks. When that happens the structural, psychological and superstructural elements of the previous categorial epoch are strengthened and may even gain the upper hand, i.e. give rise to a regressive revolution.

                             The following imaginary example may help to concretize what I mean:

                             Let us imagine two towns, the developmental level of which is such that they are ruled by a king whose power is partially curbed by the exchange value‑producing citizens of this urban culture. Development has therefore superseded the phase of absolute monarchy. Each of these towns is closely connected with their monopolistic, agriculturally developed home markets, but as regards trade with distant markets our two towns are in competition with one another. At some point or other this competition prevents the towns from expanding any further, and they go to war with each other, the victor either curbing the losing town’s possibilities for trade or annihilating it altogether. It seems that annihilating the competitor should give a greater advantage than just curbing its export possibilities, but that might not be the case. If the other town is annihilated the victorious town incorporates the other town’s monopolistic agrarian domains, having replaced its feudal lords with new ones.

                             From a trading point of view the victorious town has curbed or entirely eliminated its competitor with one blow, but it will take years before it is wholly able to fulfil the goods production and trading demands that arises as the result of its competitor’s annihilation. On the other hand, the monopolistic agrarian‑developed domains will suddenly be doubled, and although all the feudal lords may be loyal to the victorious king, the monopolistic agricultural societal elements has suddenly been doubled in comparison with the exchange value‑producing societal elements, even though such a victory means long‑term possibilities for renewed expansion of trade.

                             As a consequence of this shift in the relative strength of the monopolistic agrarian and the exchange value‑producing elements, the society's structural, psychological and superstructural elements will tend to regress and lead to a strengthening of the Crown at the expense of the merchants. In some cases it may actually cause a regressive revolution, in which the legislation and the societal norms, etc. are restructured in order once again to satisfy the needs of monopolistic agrarian society at the expense of the exchange value‑producing structures.

                             If the competing town had just had its export curbed, the victorious town would have been able to develop its market forces and maintained its societal superstructure that gradually could develop further towards democracy.

                             Regressive shifts in the equilibrium between exchangevalue‑producing elements and monopolistic agrarian societal elements may also appear, for example, if the town's export markets are closed by distant competing merchants. Should the income derived from trade be decreased, the monopolistic agrarian societal elements will assume a relatively strengthened position in society.

Theory of science reflections.

Before applying this theory to concrete historical elements there are still some theoretical standpoints I wish to touch upon.

                             Seen in the light of our present knowledge the deductively developed Newtonian physics was concerned with relatively crude and pragmatic phenomena. The Newtonian theories were able to clarify connections between various immediately observable phenomena but were unable to clarify all the physical phenomena it was possible to observe at the time, let alone the background for these connections.      Precisely the same applies to the structure of the theory of history elaborated here. Just as the Newtonian laws enabled us to raise physics onto the deductive‑scientific level, this theory enables us to raise the science of history from the systematizing-scientific level to the deco-scientific and presumably further unto the deductive‑scientific level. Nevertheless at present this theory only deals with the most basic historical phenomena.

Furthermore I find it necessary to touch upon some specific phenomena or problems, including the reason why man's societal, cultural and historical development is closely connected with and dependent on the material level of development in society.

It is today an acknowledged psychological fact that if any person is placed in a sound and light proof tank with water of body temperature so that body sensations and also outside sensational input is effectively eliminated, it will only take some few hours before that person gets out of touch with reality and starts to hallucinate. (J.C.Lilly, "Mental effects of reduction of ordinary levels of physical stimuli on intact, healthy persons", Psychiatrical recerch report No. 5. 1956.) In sensitivity training it is likewise easy to demonstrate how group pressure exerted unto a single person quickly alters that person's sense of reality and raises or lowers his self esteem in accordance with the deliberate intentions of the group. The cognitive consequence of these facts are that human individuals perception of reality is in fact very fleeting and subject to - often unperceived - changes in accordance with the fluctuations and changes of society.  Without the constantly renewed contact with "concencus reality", our mental make up quickly undergoes radical changes.

In spite of the above mentioned conditions the individuals are nevertheless within themselves able to move freely within an extremely broad emotional, intellectual and cognitive spectrum. Not until individuals need to communicate their experience, knowledge and self understanding to others might problems  with "consensus reality" arise.

                             Our cognition, which originates in a wholeness‑perceiving type of brain‑processing, is expressed as pictures, feelings, hunches and intuitions, and these subjective manifestations have to be translated into a form understandable by other individuals.

                             Thus, if we are to pass on knowledge to others we need a common frame of reference. And as natural science too has discovered, our basic frame of reference consists of the material reality by whose help we can, amongst other things, communicate the products of our culture and intellect.

                             Assuming that two communicating individuals come from entirely different cultures and categorial levels, i.e. their common experience is very limited, only extremely basic cognition can pass precisely and effortlessly from one individual to the other. If we take two individuals from societies on the same categorial level they will have had sufficient experience and societal conditions in common to be able to communicate on a more sophisticated level.

                             As previously mentioned, it is primarily the most general phenomena which can be communicated on the third wholeness‑perceiving level of consciousness, and the more limited the individual contact with the same phenomena, the less possibilities there are of collective cognition.

                             Even in a specific society, whose members all have the same material and productive basis as starting‑point, the position of the separate individuals within the social structure varies greatly, and therefore the social and psychological differences between groups of individuals may hamper smooth and relaxed communication.

                             Because the collective consciousness and the type of social interaction are closely related to the material basis and develop concurrently with it, it is chiefly the above‑mentioned factors that make it impossible to omit any categorial stage of historical developments.

                             When history evolves it is consequently not a change in latent human qualities (human will) that initiates this development, but a change in the interaction of the members of society; and this change is only possible by changed material conditions. Thus it is by and large the material conditions which determines the societal developmental possibilities.

                             It is naturally with reservations that I insist that societal development is solely determined by the material basis, for this view is only applicable on the macro‑historical level. On the more concrete historical level man´s cognitive leaps and self‑willed initiatives are also of great importance. In situations where there are equal though varied possibilities for development (like in the case where the competing town could either be curbed or annihilated), historical development greatly depends on which of these possibilities is chosen. In our present developmental situation, for example, it may be important whether or not we choose to give priority to the massive development of human resources, because in future a given society´s possibilities will depend on the education and creativity of its human resources for the optimal exploitation of its capacity for developing advanced technology and ideas. Just as a shipping firm that fails to order new ships until the freight‑market boom has already reached its peak will not have the full advantage of the upswing, the developmental posibilities will simply give us a wide berth and others will experience the upswing we might otherwise have had.

                             Thus the determinative importance of the material basis should be viewed on the concrete historical level as a potentially active underlying function, to which the events in the 1980's bear witness. As compared with the previous decade this decade was one of slight socio‑economic stagnation, but, however slight, the downturn nevertheless had radical psychological, societal/superstructural consequences.

Another problem I find it necessary to touch upon is concerned with the general perspective of this work.

                             Obviously the various cultures and historical epochs manifest themselves in a great many ways, but this theory nevertheless maintains that it is in principle possible to uncover the underlying categorial features common to all these variations.

                             The scientific uncovering and confirmation of these common features would naturally require the close co‑operation of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, art  historians and others. And were all these common categorial features, forms of consciousness, religious and moral norms, legislative and political attitudes, artistic forms of expression and other superstructural manifestations to be mapped out, it would be possible on the basis of this theory to construct a far more precise picture of the historical societies investigated than hitherto possible.

Whether the often fragmentary source material we have at our disposal originates from the socio‑economic basis or consists of superstructural elements, we would in future be able to undertake scientific extrapolations of other non‑documented societal elements on the basis of general common features. We should thus be able to obtain a far greater degree of scientific consistency than is possible today by way of individual, personally inspired ad hoc descriptions and explanations, and the elements extrapolated could then be substantiated or invalidated as new source material is brought to light. 

It is obvious that individuals such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon or Hitler, or happenings like natural catastrophes, epidemics, migrations or epoch‑making technological breakthroughs can have a dramatic effect on the course of history. But this theory maintains that such individuals or events only have a lasting effect in so far as they act in accordance with the societal basis. For example, the kingdom of Alexander the Great regressed to a lower organisational level as soon as he died, but since the Hellenistic cultural area possessed the necessary expansive power and basic potential for trade, the Hellenistic culture came to dominate the entire eastern Mediterranean with a lasting effect. On the other hand its organisation was not sufficiently developed to maintain a unified greater Hellenistic kingdom.

Another aspect we should bear in mind is of a methodological nature. When considering concrete historical epochs it is first necessary to identify and investigate the categorial elements that can subsequently form the basis of a fundamental systematization of the source material. Not until this has been done is it possible to examine the more unusual influences to which a given society has been exposed.

                             Such a procedure is parallel to the method employed within the natural sciences.

 Concrete historical elements

Even though the science of history is still to be found on the systematizing-scientific level, it is sufficiently developed and has sufficient breadth to be regarded as over‑mature for this level. Thus it is solely the cognitive barriers that have prevented the science of history from occupying a central scientific and societal position. Once firmly established on the deco-scientific level and hopefully developed to the deductive‑scientific level, the science of history could become a potent societal instrument. For example, it could contribute dynamically towards understanding the different developmental stages of nations and facilitate the de‑ideologizing and the optimization of both societal and international interaction.

                             In unfolding this universal theory of history I have been concerned mainly with the macro‑historical development of one cultural and geographical area, and have taken special pains to ensure that the phenomena encountered could be encompassed by this theory.

                             As previously mentioned the deductive-scientific "proof" of this theory lies in the prognosis of the future in the last part of the book. The present section is therefore only intended as a modest commentary to individual historical elements and passages.

                             A complete macro‑historical account based on this theory would necessitate the work of several historians throughout many years, and is therefore not possible in this context. Thus in the following I am obliged to presume that the reader has a reasonable knowledge of the macro‑historical elements concerned, and I will just comment on some of the critical factors and passages that nowadays make it difficult to conceive the historical elements in question as a dynamic whole.

The Middle East of antiquity

Chronologically, the first problem we encounter is the origin of the complicated irrigation systems in Middle Eastern cultures of early antiquity. These systems are commonly thought to have been established by the kings or priesthood who ruled the city states concerned. Such a conception is not consistent with this theory. The basic historical data available merely inform us that it is a question of city states with their irrigated agricultural areas, and that the communities from which the historical data derive were governed by a king or priests or the combination of both.

                             When incorporated in this theory these simple data will enable us to argue that we have here a city state, i.e. that the society concerned has developed marked elements of the trading categorial level. Since there are at the same time to be found advanced irrigation installations, parts of the surrounding areas must therefore have superseded the monopolistic agrarian level. During the monopolistic agrarian phase there would be no incentive for a qualitative improvement in the methods of cultivation, but merely for a quantitative feudal‑agrarian increase in landed possessions.

                             According to this theory, in the case of an exchange value‑producing urban structure with a dependency area that has partially transcended the monopolistic agrarian level, it is probable that these artificially irrigated agricultural areas have arisen precisely as the result of the development of this urban societal structure. With the growth of trade the merchants themselves have needed to invest their profit safely. Arable land constituted such a stable investment, but as long as monopolistic agrarian production was dependent on serfs - who had to hand over a certain fixed proportion of their annual produce, but also had the right to retain the rest of it to themselves - there was no incentive for the feudal lord or his successor, the city landowner, to improve or reorganize production.

                             In order to obtain as good a return on his investment in agriculture as on other forms of investment, the new owner had to replace the serf‑based production system by one based on day labourers or slaves. Only then was it feasible to improve cultivation methods. For example, he could co‑operate with other city dwellers in building great artificial irrigation systems, whereafter the surplus agricultural yield would belong to the owners who had made the investment.

                             One might think that as the result of this development the societal superstructure would have displayed marked democratic features. The historical periods of which we have knowledge do not display such features. On the contrary, the city with its agricultural dependency areas has been ruled by a king or the priesthood. Acording to this theory implying that the society concerned has undergone a regressive development, presumably caused by gradual salt pollution and consequent decline of the arable land or loss of parts of its markets or both. In order to prevent the entire structure (the city with its highly developed agrarian dependency area) from disorganizing, the natural regressive tendencies which gives more power to the king have also caused the king or priesthood to take over on behalf of the community the entire ownership and running of the complicated and vulnerable irrigation system, which might otherwise have fallen into disrepair - with unforeseeable consequences for the community as a whole.

                             There are other periods of history in which the Crown or the priesthood have initiated great building projects of a religious or a military nature, but to my knowledge there are no examples from well‑documented periods of the Crown or the priesthood having initiated entirely new forms of agrarian production. Moreover, it is interesting to note that there is some historical evidence, from the Middle Eastern societies of antiquity, of such irrigation installations actually having been privately owned.

                             The fact that urban cultures originally developed along the great rivers in the sub‑tropical belts is in keeping with the basic tenets of this theory. The small strips of fertile vegetation alongside the rivers imply that the monopolistic phase of the hunting category has set in early, while the continued population growth has led to periodical migrations to other areas, with greater residential stability for those who remained. The very fertile though narrow river banks provided optimum conditions of growth for the cultivation of agrarian crops. Not only did two crops per annum become possible but the river mud automatically nourished the soil. The narrow belts of fertile soil alongside the sub‑tropical rivers would also have the effect that the agrarian communities reached the monopolistic-agrarian stage sooner than otherwise. And since the rivers themselves were an excellent means of communication and transport even with primitive vessels a rapid transition to the trading category was also possible.

                             As sketched in the section describing the historical categories, this theory maintains that the development of urban cultures is always based on the production of goods and the associated economic transactions. The amount of money circulating in a society is not a suitable measure of the prevalence of economic transactions. The significance of the establishment of the exchange value phenomenon is that the possibility hereby lies open for a value assessment of the various products on the market. A product's market price was, as today, an abstraction that merely functioned as an intermediate account that made it possible to compare otherwise incompatible goods with one another. In practice there is no need for money to enter into the transaction at all. When all goods can be appraised on the market, and metals or money exist as general equivalents for the value of various goods, the clearing function arises spontaneously, i.e. the merchant can undertake the responsibility for the value‑exchange by means of "letters of credit". Such documents have always had the distinct advantage of not being bearer documents, thus only being redeemable by the person to whom they are made out, whereas money can be stolen and is potentially dangerous unless the societal infrastructure is sufficiently stable to protect the individual against thieves and robbers.

                             Thus this theory maintains that whether it be city states, or states in which cities constitute the dominating dynamic factor, such societies will always be related to the market, and that there is therefore no structural difference in the fundamental dynamics functioning in a city state founded on Stone Age technology or a modern nation state founded on machine‑power technology. What might differ is the degree of dependency on lower developed agrarian elements in the specific society.

                              Viewing the Middle Eastern cultures of early antiquity on the concrete historical level, we see the growth and prosperity, decline and fall of urban cultures followed by that of states and cultures, each with their specific characteristics and with more or less documented and differently explained causes for their growth and decline.

                             From a macro‑historical point of view, however, it is a continual, progressive developmental process. Starting with scattered city states, each surrounded by their monopolistic agrarian developed  dependency areas and vast tracts of empty space, these city states then gradually increased in number and conjoined to form structures covering greater areas, finally developing into states, until at the end of antiquity the Middle East formed one single power‑block.

                             Historical accounts reveal that during the entire process it was largely the rise of urban cultures that determined the historical development. But geographical factors also played a part, since the urban cultures were surrounded by areas of arable land which interacted with the urban cultures and thereby affected the urban superstructure. This was reflected, for example, in the type of government, which was characteristically either monarchial, in the hands of the priesthood, or of a divine king - which was a mixture of both.

A developmental shift

Without the possibility of being able to investigate and compare other historical periods than those described above it would probably have been difficult, if not impossible, to understand the internal dynamics of the historical categories.

                             In order to get a differentiated understanding of the historical process it is necessary to focus on structural changes. Within a macro‑historical context an important structural change took place from about 1000 B.C. Previously, expansion had primarily taken place over land, but from then onwards there was a gradual shift in the centre of gravity from the Middle East itself to the Mediterranean region as a whole.

It must be presumed that the creation of increasingly bigger states in the Middle East contributed towards making transport over land more stable and safe. Thus, when such a shift did take place around 1000 B.C., despite such constructive developmental tendencies, there must have been external causes. In my opinion the cause of this relatively sudden shift should be sought in a technological development.

For a city or a state to maintain its infrastructure it needs additional facilities like security, well‑maintained means of transport and a central administration, etc. in order to take care of its collective functions. These can only be financed in two ways - from production or from the transit of goods.

                             Transporting goods over vast stretches of land incurred the danger of robbery and violence, and in addition the extra cost of food, manpower and transport animals, as well as the duties, etc. imposed on entering the territory of a new city or province. These expenses greatly increased the cost of the goods, but on the other hand they helped to maintain the economy and infrastructure of the transit area concerned.

Changes in shipbuilding techniques

Archaeological evidence exists to the effect that maritime trade went on in the Mediterranean region at a very early stage in antiquity. In order to understand the above‑mentioned shift in the historical development around 1000 B.C. it is important to know something of the technical construction of the vessels used for maritime trade. There is much to indicate that the basic constructional method as far as shipbuilding in the Mediterranean region is concerned has remained the same right from early antiquity up to modern times. Even though there is no archaeological material to document the construction of seagoing ships as far back as 1000 B.C. there is reason to suppose that they were shell constructions even at that time. I.e. unlike later North European constructional principles based on longitudinal planks, the Mediterranean ships were constructed from short, thick and almost quadratic pieces of wood that were fishplated, dowled and mortised together. In order for such shell‑constructed vessels to be able to cope with rough seas they had to be strengthened with ribs that were lashed to the shell construction, and in addition the entire hull had to be kept pre‑stressed by enormous ropes running through the entire length of the vessel. It does not require must maritime knowledge to realize that in a salt water environment subjected to heat and sun, such constructional elements as lashings and ropes have been extremely vulnerable. They had constantly to be inspected and renewed, and were they not replaced in time the ship might literally fall apart in bad weather. Consequently transport by sea was a tremendously risky affair in those days, and incurred many losses.

                             Around 1000 B.C. the use of metals started to gain a footing in the region, and from then on presumably metal rivets were used for joining frame to shell in seagoing ships. This transition from lashing and tapping ships together to joining the frame and shell with metal rivets must have greatly improved the durability of the ships - an improvement that may very well have precipitated a tremendous expansion in maritime trade, as seagoing merchants thereby could circumvent a lot of the problems endured when travelling overland. The new maritime possibilities may thus have helped to shift the historical development.

Interpretive considerations

Since no significant discoveries of new source material from antiquity are likely to be made, the dominant issue is the interpretation of existing source material.

                             Though Rostovtzeff's synthesizing descriptions dominated the first half of this century he was later criticized and overruled by I.M. Finley, who took the stance that Rostovtzeff's syntheses had no substance in reality as far as the source material was concerned.

                             Through his fine intellect and extensive knowledge of details, Finley made an exceptional contribution to the description of economic and societal conditions in antiquity. Despite this his cognitive point of view and his systematics prohibit a more precise understanding of the economic and societal conditions in antiquity´s various societies and epochs.

                             It is important to keep the entire developmental progression of the historical sciences in mind, however, if we are to understand why Rostovtzeff expressed himself as he did and why Finley assumed a radically different point of view.

Finley's account in "The Ancient Economy" encompasses the entire history of antiquity in one work, systematically divided into such categories as "Master and Slave", "Landlords and Peasants", "Town and Country" and "The State and the Economy".  In each chapter references that specifically characterize an explicit historical epoch are rare. Finley's account therefore prohibits a direct understanding of each historical epoch's specific mixture of what I call agrarian‑categorial and trading‑categorial elements. For example, Finley makes no attempt to provide any reasonable explanation as to why the agrarian production of some societies or epochs was based on serfs, others on tenants, and still others on slaves, or why more than one of these forms were to be found simultaneously in a society. Thus Finley confuses agrarian‑categorial with trading‑categorial phenomena, and mainly differentiates between our modern economy and the (agrarian) economy of antiquity - a distinction that can only be understood as a reaction to Rostovtzeff's much too one‑sided emphasis on a pure trading‑economy perception of antiquity. Rostovtzeff and Finley went to opposite extremes, and a preferable approach to the "historical realities" would be to perceive antiquity's societies as being at different stages of mixed economic development, since they all comprised various forms of interplay between elements from both agrarian and trading categories.

                             A dynamic model for understanding antiquity's societies must necessarily rest on a deeper understanding of the integrated production forms of these societies. In order to achieve this deeper understanding, it is necessary, as in other scientific disciplines, to isolate the characteristics of the various production elements.

                             By assuming a conceptual framework which at the one extreme defines the agrarian category as a farm‑based, closed cycle of consumption in which any surplus production would only be used for secondary purposes or simply goes to waste. And which at the other extreme defines the trading category as a society based on the manufacturing of products specifically intended for sale in the marketplace, Finley's main objection vanishes into thin air. For the definitive line of demarcation is not between agrarian and artisan production or, as Finley suggests, between agrarian production and some form of (non‑existent) industrial production, but between the production of utility value (in a closed agrarian cycle of consumption) and the production of exchange value (in a market‑oriented cycle). Whether agricultural production is larger or smaller than artisan production is of less importance. What is decisive is the extent to which the products in question, whether of agricultural or artisan origin, enter into a closed cycle of consumption or are produced for sale in the marketplace. I must reiterate that since a pure agrarian‑categorial society is defined as a closed cycle of consumption, the presence of trade, even to a very modest extent, will be of great structural importance to the society.

                             Using this conceptual framework, it is possible to make a more exacting approach to the specific phenomena in antiquity. For instance, it is possible to provide reasonable and general explanations as to why cities emerged, to understand why serfs were replaced by tenants, slaves and day labourers, and - not least - why hegemony and kingdoms were replaced by oligarchical forms of government that in some specific cases progressed into early forms of democracy only to revert to oligarchies, monarchies, empires, etc. later on.

Greece

When the transport of goods switched from land to sea the areas that had previously been commercial transit areas suffered a loss of income, and this in its turn led to stagnation and political regression.

                             Whereas it had previously largely been land‑oriented cities and states with infrastructures reflecting the balance between the trading elements and their less‑developed dependency areas that prospered, during this period the developmental centre gradually shifted to areas nearer the coast. Maritime trade made the coastal city states less dependent on their local monopolistic agrarian dependency areas, and coastal city states developed and prospered even in areas where the arable land was relatively sparse and infertile.

                             The development during the following period is of special interest: maritime transport and trade gradually came to dominate, with the result that the trading category did unfold in hitherto unseen purity - quite in accordance with this theoretical model.

                             Greek city states that grew up in geographical areas with relatively infertile and restricted arable land - compared with the areas in the middle east - displayed, for example, short transitional periods between the relatively pure monopolistic agrarian and feudal structures and a societal organization containing marked trading categorial features. In some cases this mixed economic development gradually became more and more dominated by pure trading categorial features until their superstructures became predominately of this type. Maritime transport and trade led to a great expansion of the trade‑oriented productive force, and the agrarian dependency areas was quite quickly assimilated in the trade‑based economy. Thus the feudal system dependent on serfs in which production took place with a view to immediate consumption almost disappeared, and farming was oriented towards selling the crops on the market.

                             We must bear in mind that both free farmers and the old type of feudal nobility still remained as landowners also after the transition to goods‑production, but that the monopoly as regards the ownership of the land must necessarily have been broken, so that citizens too could invest in agricultural production. Such a development did actually also take place.

                             Since in the period described many of the Greek city states were oriented towards maritime trade in distant markets, the primary expansion strategy did not involve the annexation of neighbouring states as had been the case in the land‑oriented Middle East. On the contrary, both economic and population growth in the Greek city states led to the establishment of colonial cities not only in southern Italy but in the North Aegean and the Black Sea region. As long as this expansive development continued the Greek city states prospered politically, socially and artistically.

                             The establishment of colonial cities as independent political and economic units was a double‑edged sword, however, since they gradually came to acquire their own sphere of commercial interest. As a result of this development the cities in Greece itself gradually stagnated, and this brought about infrastructural alterations and the periodic reintroduction of "absolute power" in the form of tyrants.

                             The stagnation also involved art and culture, and fostered a tendency to refine already established artistic and cultural modes of expression at the expence of new creative expressions. During such periods as these imperialistic attacks on neighbouring states also started.

                             The historical development of the classical Greek world is extremely interesting because periods of economic progress were replaced by periods in which stagnation and wars alternated with renewed economic progress, and these economic fluctuations are clearly reflected in the self‑awareness as well as the infrastructural, political, social and artistic development of the city states in question.

Apart from macro‑political shifts of power between the Greeks on the one hand and the Persian Empire on the other, shifts of power also took place between the Greek city states themselves as the result of continued politico‑economic fluctuations in the area.

                             As a result of the economic recession experienced by the original Greek city states - due not only to the development of their own colonial cities and those of the Persians, Phoenicians but later also the expansion of Rome - trade, and thereby also the developmental centre, tended to move outside Greece itself.

                             Whereas several individual city states or federations of city states had reached a developmental level displaying marked democratic governmental features, the later Macedonian and Hellenistic states contained great monopolistic agrarian areas, and consequently the governmental form became essentially monarchial.

                             There exists considerable historical material from classical Greece, and there are many concrete historical events of great interest from this conceptual point of view. Especially striking, however, are those of Corinth and the Peleponnesian Federation -.including Sparta's dispute with Athens about the access to the Italian peninsula and control of the trade in the Western Mediterranean. The conflicts with the Persian Empire are very interesting, moreover, because they started as a struggle for the mastery of the Aegean and the access to the Black Sea, and developed throughout the following centuries into a fight for dominance in the entire Eastern Mediterranean. It was therefore of epoch‑making historical and cultural significance that it was the Greeks and not the Persians or Phoenicians who emerged as victors from these military confrontations.

                             The only serious objection I have received to the above conceptual framework has been the following: " If the Greek city states development towards trading categorial  democratic superstructures primarily depended on maritime trade the city state of Theben, which was completely landlocked, should never have developed!".  Faced with this objection I contemplated the problem, and remembering that considerable land rising had taken place since antiquity, I have found it quite plausible that the adjoining system of rivers and lakes at that time facilitated direct maritime access to the sea. It is outside my immediate possibilities to verify such geological and historical details, but should  it prove correct that spesific critique has then been overruled

Italy

The Greek colonial cities in southern Italy were established as the result of planned and economically supported projects. Thus it was possible right from the start for these cities to establish themselves directly on the coast, and then to erect solid defence works and muster a satisfactory defence force against the attacks of pirates. In view of the danger of such attacks, communities that grew up spontaneously were far more difficult to establish near the coast, and thus Rome, which grew up spontaneously, established itself inland. This land‑oriented development had a great bearing on Rome's expansionist strategies, and later on those of the Roman Empire as such, since the expansion led to a constant increase in agrarian categorial elements. Without such a land oriented expansion, Rome would have been subject to heavy competition and the same limitations of trade, as the Phoenicians and the Greek at that time experienced, and it would thus have been impossible to build a Roman Empire.

                             The history of Rome is extremely interesting in so far as it illuminates the interaction of the material basis and the societal superstructure.

At a fairly early stage Rome reached a developmental level that displayed clear trading-categorial features, such as an oligarchical form of government bordering on the democratic. During the period of military expansion on the Italian peninsula this superstructure was maintained as those Italian communities that were assimilated were largely to be found on a developmental level corresponding to that of Rome itself. Consequently their incorporation in Rome's economic and political superstructure did little to disturb the balance between the agrarian-categorial and the trading-categorial superstructual elements. Rome´s continued military expansion - with the plundering and appropriation of less developed provinces outside the Italian peninsula - greatly increased the revenue, but the incorporation of vast, less developed areas gradually undermined the trading-categorical "democratic" structures and led to the emergence of the Empire.

                             Even on the macro‑historical level the source material available from both classical Greece and the Roman Empire is so vast that an adequate deco-scientific analysis based on this theory would fill several books. However, since I am only touching on concrete historical conditions as a way of commenting on the most fundamental dynamic forces affecting transitions between historical epochs, I shall here only touch upon what I regard to be the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

                             The rise of the Roman Empire resulted in the establishment of a number of provinces and provincial towns. Concurrent with the growth of these provincial towns and the development of local trade, a gradual shift took place as the towns themselves became capable of producing the goods previously produced in Rome or despatched therefrom.

                             According to this theory it is a society's production basis that determines the superstructure, so it is important to bear in mind that Rome´s superstructural functions depended on the dynamic functioning of its economic basis. Gradually, as the provincial towns took over their local markets, the importance of the trading and goods-producing elements in Rome itself decreased in comparison with the importance of the state and the military.

                             As far as sea‑oriented Greece was concerned, the geographical shift of the economic centre led to social stagnation and to a political tendency to reintroduce oligarchy or even tyranny in the old city states. As far as Rome was concerned, the corresponding socio‑economic shift did not immediately lead to an economic recession, since the relative decrease in trade‑based elements was more than weighed up by economic gains through conquests and plunder. The change in the origin of the economic resources though had a great bearing on Rome´s governmental structure. It is naturally an open question whether a true federalization of the entire Roman Empire, including the incorporation of the provinces into the governmental and other superstructural elements, had been possible during the period preceding the Empire. Should this possibility have existed, it was at any rate forfeited (when Sulla defeated the popular party). A dichotomy thereby arose between the dynamic economic elements in the Roman Empire as a whole and military elements that were bent on retaining power as long as possible. Society gradually became governed by a purely military power, which became more and more unstable in order, 500 years later, finally to break up altogether.

The development of Europe

While the development of the Middle Eastern cultures of antiquity, with their mixture of trading- and agrarian-categorial elements, is parallel to that of many other historical periods, the development of classical Greece, which was dominated by maritime trade, must be viewed as atypical in relation to most other historical developmental periods. Whereas the development of and expansion of the Roman Empire overland in principle also corresponds to the development of many other historical societies.

                             From a macro‑historical point of view, the historical development of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire until the present day may also be seen as atypical.

                             Obviously, Europe's unusual macro‑historical development has its dynamic causes, and to account for this atypical course of events presents a great challenge. I do not pretend to have produced a fully satisfactory account as to how this course of events came about, though I have naturally had some ideas. But in order to facilitate my understanding I need to consider yet another theoretical element.

Population growth is a general historical phenomenon, and to procure employment and the basic necessities of life for steadily increasing populations has been and continues to be one of humanity's great challenges.

                             One of the consequences of population saturation is that the motivation and attention of society is chiefly directed towards utilizing the plentiful human resources. Under such conditions any new initiatives that set out to render human labour more efficient or superfluous, will be regarded as wasteful and destabilizing factors.

                             Fairly complex innovations generally appear concurrently with the increasing complexity of the social structure, and societies with a complex structure also tend to be overpopulated (in societies without birth control). Thus, wherever there was a basis for technical innovations there was at the same time a general tendency towards the simultaneous presence of societal mechanisms counteracting the effective use of such technical innovations.

The rise of the Roman Empire had brought with it a relatively high level of technology, and the above‑mentioned problem clearly applied also to the Roman Empire, which consisted not only of free citizens but of a large number of slaves. So any initiative that sought to render all these people superfluous constituted a threat to the stability of the Empire. Consequently labour saving innovations were some times rewarded but not effectuated except in sparcely populated areas.

                             Viewed in the light of this theory, the history of Europe from the fifth and sixth centuries onwards is of special interest, because it illustrates a gradual "regressive development". The fall of the Roman Empire meant the total falling apart of the trading-categorial infrastructure, whereafter Europe gradually reverted to a rather primitive agrarian-categorial developmental level.

                             The new development that slowly took place in Europe followed the typical pattern in which city states developed anew along the trading routes in otherwise agriculturally developed areas, and gradually played an increasingly important part in society.

                             Until the fourteenth century Europe´s development took place as might be expected, but from then on it radically changed. I consider there to be two factors determining this unusual course of events:

Not only was fourteenth‑century Europe ravaged by starvation, plagues and wars which reduced the population by thirty‑three per cent or more, but Europe had through the monestaries inherited a technological tradition from the Roman Empire - a tradition that had already been used on a small scale in previous centuries, but which now became an important developmental factor.

In order to understand the consequence of the decrease in population we need to focus our attention on the interaction between the use of manpower and machines. Human labour has the advantage over machines that it is paid for piecemeal while going on - by the day, the week or the month,- whereas a machine has to be paid for and depreciated at its full value. This can be a risky business, since it can take years before the investment plus depreciation gives a profit. As long as manpower is plentiful and cheap there is thus little or no incentive for introducing labour‑saving technical improvements. But the drastic reduction of the population in the fourteenth century brought about an unusual historical situation, in that there was an acute shortage of manpower and a rise in wages at the same time as a technological development based on old Roman technology was within reach. The high wages were not only an advantage for wage‑earners, but it also motivated or forced employers to minimize the more laborious functions by investing in technical improvements.

                             Until the fourteenth century the development of Europe was largely an ordinary development where agricultural elements interacted with more or less sporadic trading elements. But after the fourteenth century Europe acquired a massive new driving force. The growing technical development was so advantageous, that military power and commerce especially with the help of maritime trade within the run of two centuries enabled Europe to dominate world trade and became a vital factor in the development of the entire world.

It is therefore my opinion that if the unique reduction in population and the subsequent development had not taken place in fourteenth‑century Europe the level of European technology would not have differed essentially from that of other cultures. Europe would not in consequence have come to occupy a dominating position in world history, and global historical and technological development would merely have continued in its usual modest pace - without the striking leaps that became a reality.

There were in fact a trading categorical development in China around the same time, but as there were no population reduction and a central power existed, the emperor and his administration felt that maritime trade threatened their power and consequently forbade maritime trade, resulting in the decline that lasted untill the end of last century!

There are plenty of examples in European history of various forms of societal interaction between different categorial levels. As far as the trading category is concerned there are examples of city‑state structures, federations of city states as well as nation states at all developmental levels.

                             As I have already said, this is not the place for a full historical account, but it is worth noting that the initiation of such historical periods as the Middle Ages and the Renaissance vary widely in time in different parts of Europe, due to the difference in developmental pace in different regions. It is consequently not ideas and inspiration wich initiate these periods as many scholars tend to believe, but conversely the societal development which prepares the ground for the creation, import and utilization of new ideas. Furthermore it is worthwhile recalling that whereas a monarchy that is mostly dependent on the feudal nobility is largely based on the monopolist agrarian category, an absolute monarchy is at the point of equilibrium between the agrarian and the trading categories, while a constitutional monarchy that is mostly dependent on urban populations is largely based on the trading category.

                             Revolts and uprisings have taken place at all times, but a true revolution is the result of the instrumental development of a new history category in society. A true revolution is restructuring the societal superstructure in order to ensure that the interests of the new category are attended to instead of the interests of the old category.

An alternative view of fundamental economic elements.

Adam Smith and David Ricardo founded the system on which our understanding of present‑day economics rests. Its most essential element is of a somewhat moral and cognitive nature, and was expressed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (Vol. 1, Ch. 2) as follows: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest."  This together with the Darwinian thesis of “survival of the fittest” was then interpreted very concrete and brutal by thecontemporary capitalists, and led directly to the death of millions of poor people. Carl Marx countered this understanding by pointing out, that the surplus value do not “a priori” belong to either the employer, the employees or the state, and this was subsequently wrongly used to legitimise the acquisition of all the surplus value by the state.

The two attitudinal viewpoints to which Adam Smith's and Carl Marx’s postulation led - an ultra‑capitalist that centred around self‑interest and a socialist that centred around the collective - have given rise, historically speaking, to major wars and conflicts. In reality, however, these two viewpoints are not true antitheses. In order to arrive at an understanding of the correlation between these ostensibly opposed viewpoints and fuse them on a higher cognitive level, we must focus once more on man's psychological make‑up and on the levels of consciousness previously described in this book.

Down through history, when it was the agrarian‑categorial structures of consciousness that predominated, the focal point of society was the community. A person’s worth was not based on his or her individual being but on familial and group affiliations. Thus, according to the social consciousness in effect on that level the individual was rated according to how he or she belonged to a family and a community, self‑interest being regarded with suspicion and moral indignation. At that agrarian‑categorial level of development very few members of a given society evolve the psychological structure known as ego‑awareness which all individuals in our industrialized society are assumed to possess. On the contrary, the head of the agrarian production family or perhaps only the head of the village was/is often the only person to develop this form of independence and psychological maturity (the Big Man concept within the science history). From a societal point of view, in such societies we are dealing with a form of self‑knowledge in which the individual has only a very small volitional potential. Individual actions performed on this level are primarily based either on drives, or on norms dictated by their Super Ego. Norms enforced by parents on their progeny in order to equip them with optimal social adaptation.

Even though most individuals in our culture have developed an ego‑awareness, the average societal consciousness is primarily still at the most primitive black‑and‑white/either‑or level, which inevitably leads to a correspondingly primitive collective political awareness. As a result,  the concept  of self‑interest is interpreted very narrowly without taking societal considerations into account. When on the other hand the individual and later the societal consciousness is raised onto the second "both-and" dual level, it is understood that what in a narrow sense is good for the individual might or might not be good for the community. If consciousness is further raised onto the third level where we perceive in wholes, what is truly good for the community is also good for the individual, because it is understood that the individual as being a part of the social organism can only function optimally within that social framework. Furthermore, consciousness on the fourth level does not comprise self-interest as we know it, but is experienced as "love of one’s neighbour” and expressed through philanthropic actions. The interesting thing is that such a state of awareness can never the less also be seen as fulfilling self interest. E.g. upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize the Dalai Lama explained that such a philanthropic approach to life also broadly speaking  is a form of self‑interest, as on that level of consciousness it is obvious that the most direct way to true personal fulfilment goes through helping others, - an understanding which is experienced as the direct, flowing love between oneself and other human beings.

                             An unreflected comparison between the form of consciousness that predominates in the agrarian category (in which the individual, without the development of an individual ego‑awareness, fuses with the community) and the higher levels of consciousness could lead one to conclude that they are one and the same phenomenon. I hope, however, that the above explanation has made it sufficiently clear that this is not so. In the agrarian category it is for the majority of people a question of involuntariness in relation to human nature and the collective whole, while subsequent to the development of ego‑awareness it encompasses the freedom to act autonomously, and the higher the level of consciousness on which the individual is capable of functioning, the more social and altruistic his self‑interested actions will become in consequence. It is important to note that I am talking about maturity and levels of consciousness, which is something quite different from forced actions. One can for example by will try to do something good for society or other people and that might look as unselfish love, but if there consciously or subconsciously are a longing for something in return for those good deeds, one is certainly not functioning on the forth level of consciousness, although it might so appear! On the forth level of consciousness one experiences a longing to do something positive to others without any conditions or ulterior motives.

To return to Adam Smith's assertion and its historic and attitudinal consequences, we are now able to draw the conclusion that the ultra‑capitalist interpretation of Adam Smith's assertion is an expression of ego‑awareness at a very primitive level, and that the socialist viewpoint - manifested historically by communism or socialism - hitherto has been an expression of a pre‑ego‑aware, collective form of consciousness in which it is more a question of securing power for one's own group than of benefiting the community as a whole.

                             Thus, these ostensibly opposed viewpoints - the ultra‑capitalist and the socialist - turn out in reality to be primitive viewpoints expressed primarily by two different interest groups, capital‑owners and wage‑earners. Societies can be more or less psychological mature, and the higher the level of consciousness a given person or a given society functions on, the more self interest and societal interests will be fused!

As mentioned previously, a society's cognitive level is dependent on the average level of consciousness of its citizens. Regarding the most highly developed democracies it is evident that the collective awareness in those communities has been raised from the basic black‑and‑white level onto a level at which a great number of personal limitations are collectively accepted because the citizens can see that by benefiting the community they also obtain the best possibilities for themselves. The more mature a given population is the more the self interests intermingles with the societal interests. 

                             Adam Smith's contention regarding self‑interest may be regarded as the cognitive foundation of the science of economics. But since his assertion also can be subsumed under the concept of optimisation described earlier in this book, I consider it justifiable and appropriate in the science of economics to replace the concept of self‑interest with the wider and more precisely defined concept of optimisation.

The origin of long term growth

Having defined and understood the dynamic motivating power of society as the concept of optimisation, the next element to consider is Value. Adam Smith divided the concept of value into utility value and exchange value, but made no further attempt to elaborate a definition of utility value. He was wise in not doing so because even with our current understanding and conceptual apparatus, it is impossible to describe this concept satisfactorily. Although the neo-classical theory claims to have solved the problem, it is my opinion, that it will not be truly solved until a later stage of cognitive development. On the other hand, Adam Smith did in fact give a satisfactory description of the concept of exchange value in what has since been called the Labour Theory of Value: "The value of any commodity ... to the person who possesses it ... is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour therefore is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities." (The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 5.)

                             Moreover, in the Labour Theory of Value Adam Smith defined wages as the expenditure connected with establishing the labourer as an employee and sustaining his standard of living through employment. This definition was later elaborated by David Ricardo into "that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution" (Ricardo, p. 77) which later became known as the "Iron Law of Wages".

                             In other words, Adam Smith and David Ricardo concluded that in principle the labourer was paid what it cost to sustain his standard of living as a labourer, neither more nor less. One of the presuppositions for this was that the working class multiplied without any means of birth control, leading to a permanent over supply of workers and hence to a rag-proletariat. Birth control and the establishment of organisational and political instruments which e.g. in the Northern European countries interact around the division and social distribution of the surplus value, have locally invalidated David Ricardo’s "Iron Law of Wages" and show that it is wrong to presume that the surplus value a priori belongs to either the employers or to the employees.

                             David Ricardo was aware that wages often surpassed what was required for sustaining life: "It is when the market price of labour exceeds its natural price that the condition of the labourer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in his power to command a greater proportion of the necessaries and enjoyments of life, and therefore to rear a healthy and numerous family" (Ricardo, p. 95), and that this circumstance was related to the acquisition of capital and technology. However, both David Ricardo and Karl Marx were merely content to assert that this was the case.

In "Das Kapital" Marx elaborated a socio‑economic analysis based on the concept of surplus value. In Karl Marx’s analytical model the concept of extra surplus value was defined as the extra value derived as long as a manufacturer is technologically superior to his competitors. Though Marx briefly described the concept of extra surplus value, he did not delve any deeper into the interplay between surplus value and extra surplus value and was thus unable to predict that in the highly industrialized countries this interplay would result in extra surplus value gradually achieving greater socio‑economic significance than surplus value.

                             Marx's analysis, which focuses unilaterally on the unfolding of the concept of surplus value, led to the thesis about profit‑rate decline and consequently to a belief in an unavoidable collapse of capitalism. However, historical development has contradicted Marx's prophecy regarding the collapse of the capitalist system. The neo‑classical theory - which too predict a declining profit rate - has also been contradicted by the historical development and by scientific statistical material. Since this is the case, a constructive, dynamic element must exist which suspends the expected development as predicted by both theories!

Attempts, within the neo-classical theoretical framework, are currently being made to understand and explain this positive developmental effect by way of theories based on the causes of knowledge‑related growth (E.g. Paul Romer: Dynamic Competitive Equilibria with Externalities, Increasing Returns and Unbounded Growth", University of Chicago, 1983.). These new theories are based on the important observation that knowledge creates theoretically unforeseen growth. But their angle of approach renders them too superficial to establish a dynamic model of understanding.

                             If, however, we take as our starting‑point the concept of extra surplus value, it is possible to outline a theory that enables us to understand the factual dynamic progress of the capitalist system and thus the origin of long term growth.

The sustaining factor of the capitalist market economy is, as generally perceived, the continuous production of surplus value, because if the latter did not exist there would be no incentive to manufacture or deal with goods. How great a share of the surplus value the various "actors" (the employers, the employees and the state) in the trading‑categorial process should have is not predetermined, however, and it is here the political aspect comes into play.

                             The distribution of the surplus value can only move within narrow confines because the interplay within the trading‑categorial system is a dynamic process in which the interrelations of the various "players" may be compared with the interrelations in an eco‑system. If the oscillations are too sudden or too great, the system gets out of balance.

The dynamic interplay between the phenomena of surplus value and extra surplus value can be described as follows:

                             If it so happens that firms from a number of countries at the same technological level compete with one another, it is the cost of labour that determines the victor. Thus the accessibility of cheap labour is of decisive importance, and a reduction of wage expenditure per manufactured unit will result in a quick, concrete and conspicuous competitive advantage. Yet (as described in the chapter "The development of Europe") unlimited access to cheap unregulated labour removes a manufacturer's incentive to introduce new technology. New technology and machinery has to be paid for in advance without any guaranty of profitability, while labour is paid after it has been utilised. The obvious solution in a competitive situation is consequently to increase pressure on the labour force either through lower wages or longer working hours, and the easiest and cheapest way to solve a capacity problem is to employ more labourers, i.e. in additional shifts.

Keeping in mind that possible oscillations in the distribution (between employers, employees and the state) of the surplus product are narrowly confined, let us now turn from a country with an unregulated market to a country where the distribution of the surplus value is subject to a certain political- and labour‑market control. In such an economy the state and the labourers will have acquired a greater share of the surplus product, the wage levels and services provided by society then being higher than in competitor countries. The relatively higher wages  and shorter working hours (still within narrow limits which only permit a gradual change) force the manufacturers to reduce wage expenditure per manufactured unit by improving the production processes by way of innovation, and the resulting accumulation of extra surplus value compensates the manufacturer for the reduction of surplus value. What at first glance manifests itself as a (negative) competitive pressure on the manufactures, turns out to be a (positive) societal developmental element. In so far as the firms manages to stay competitive by way of innovation the society is not only gaining surplus value but is also gaining extra surplus value, thereby reaping a higher national total yield than the nations which competed on cheap labour!

                             Marx understood that the production of extra-surplus value could be of great importance to the individual manufacturer but judged it to be of only marginal importance to the economic system as such, as extra-surplus value only is generated in the short span of time the manufacturer in question is technological superior to his competitors. As soon as the competitors catches up, the extra-surplus value cease to exist. With the rather slow innovative speed of his time, Marx did not anticipate, that the extra-surplus value which during the relative short time it existed could make individual manufacturers rich, at the same time were the very developing factor of society. Furthermore Marx did not anticipate that the accumulation of extra-surplus value, which in the national states were confined to give an advantage to isolated manufacturers, in a global economy could be extended to give the same sort of advantage to whole national states or groups of national states! Which adequately explains why the old industrialised countries has prospered despite theoretical predictions of the contrary.

History has clearly shown that capital owners are interested in acquiring the greatest possible capital returns, and since their attempts to do so take place in stiff competition with others, the capital‑owners' perspective is for the most part reduced to the immediate competitive situation. Only rarely do capital owners agree to introduce limitations, and then only when their collective interests are threatened.

                             While the interests of capital owners and employers are reduced to the immediate generation of profit, the interests of the employees are much broader. The labour‑force acquisition of surplus value is not narrowly aimed at optimising the working capacity but at optimising life conditions as such, and although employers and capital owners tend to think that the surplus value of the employees are spent on luxury most of that surplus value in fact goes to raising the living conditions by way of better health, education etc.. The higher the resulting cultural and educational level of labourers in a given society, the more advanced the societal functions they are interested in helping to establish and finance. The presence of a highly educated labour force and the generation of knowledge are not factors a society suddenly establishes, as if out of thin air or as a good idea. (In the USA that has been tried for years without positive results.) The reason for that is as mentioned earlier due to the need for consensus based on the immediate reality. Man's very short lived perception of reality only facilitates collective decisions based on the immediate living conditions, if the needs and ideas move just a little further from the immediately experienced reality the citizens prefer to keep the money to themselves. Improved schools and other educational systems are thus the result of a development in which a parent/labourer population with higher wages and improved living conditions raises their children onto a higher level than their own and makes demands on society for improved educational and social conditions. When a society is not improving or is showing signs of degenerating, as is the case in the USA today, insight and good intentions do not make any significant impact, as long as the majority of the individual households prefer to pay less in tax and thus let the public educational system have low priority.

                             By exerting a certain economic pressure on employers both politically and organizationally, the general level of society improves both personally, socially and technologically. Such a country not only produces surplus value as their competitor countries but also produces an additional extra surplus value giving the society a higher long term growth and a higher over all-standard.

                             While the concepts of surplus value and extra surplus value facilitate a dynamic description of trading‑categorial societies as they actually have developed, the concept of extra surplus value also directly enables us to understand the coming, fourth historical production category since the above‑mentioned self‑intensifying process accelerates the creative process to the extent that extra surplus value gradually acquires greater economic importance in relation to surplus value.

                             Thus, even though easy access to plentiful cheap labour provides an immediate and concrete competitive advantage, in the long run it impedes  the development of a country.

                             In the light of this understanding it is obvious that the easy access to plentiful cheap labour in the USA causes the average American company technically to fall behind corresponding companies in Northern Europe. That this is the case has been confirmed by the most recent IMF World Economic Outlook (May 1995) where it is stated that the capital-labour ratio from 1970 until 1994 in Europe has risen from 100 to above 200, while in USA it has only risen from 100 to 140.

Although it at the moment (1/2-2000) is the general opinion that USA is the top economic performer, I will continue to maintain the above standpoint. USA has a negative savings rate and a huge balance of payment deficit.

 It is my (and also The Economists) opinion that the present economic situation in the USA is a bubble. The bubble is due to the fact that the stockmarket is overestimated. This overestimation is chiefly the result of baby boomers pension investments. There are more pension investments around than sound investment possibilities! The bursting of the bubble may take shorter or longer time, but it will eventually burst. If not before then when the baby boomers in 5 – 7 years time start to consume their pensions. The reason why capital has flowed into the USA for years and years despite the huge deficit and subsequent risk of devaluation of the dollar is that due to the low cost of labour and the low taxes the larger companies has shown a high short term profit. This combined with the great demand for shares from the pension funds has driven share prices to such heights that it has been too tempting for overseas investors to resist. The thought of the overseas investor capital eventually fleeing the USA is scary for the  world economy.

Unemployment in Northern Europe may be greater as wage levels are for political and organizational reasons maintained on a higher level than in the USA, and the generally high wage level forces North European companies to innovate themselves out of the immediately unfavourable competitive situation.

Currency revaluation is an even more potent instrument in achieving the same end. This explains why countries such as Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland  who, in the period from the second world war and up to around 1990 revalued their currencies in the same period managed to be top economic performers.

             The above understanding explains why USA firms (with rather free access to cheap labour) can be highly profitable at the same time as the employees just manage to keep their living standard and the society as such becomes relatively poorer. High profitability due to low wages and low taxes leads to less societal development and keeps society as such on a more primitive level than could otherwise be the case.

To try to judge the societal development on a lesser time scale than decades will in this context be rash, so although the present economical developments seem to contradict what I have stipulated above I will refrain from further comment.

 In order to  try to understand the present economic development in more detail many other factors than those long term factors described above would have to be taken into account.  It is my hope that the reader who after reading the book still wants a more detailed discussion of those factors will write to me.

The “new (internet) economy” which at present is changing the economic environment is in my opinion only the first step towards the radically different economic structure which I describe in the third part of this book, and which constitutes the deductive-scientific prediction that eventually in time might either confirm or falsify the deductive quality of

my history theory!

The present day and the linear future

The three history categorial levels hitherto dealt with are all represented in the world today. The challenge faced by the science of history, however, is not confined to a deco-scientific analysis and understanding of the past. A deco-scientific investigation of historical epochs and societies will make it possible to chart specific categorial elements in society, and this may also be used for charting the developmental stages of present societies.

                             Globally speaking, nation states can be divided into two groups, one of which consists of the so‑called industrialized countries, whose societal structures are entirely on the trading categorial level. As far as the other nations are concerned, their societal structures are a mixture of trading-categorial and agrarian-categorial elements.

                             In the developing countries the agrarian-categorial structure continues to dominate, though on various levels of development. Moreover, cities in the developing countries are also on the trading categorial level, and in order to understand such countries, we must remember that each single case presents a specific balance between the trading-categorial structure on the one hand and the fundamentally different agrarian-categorial structure on the other.

                             Since the established cognitive models do not make it clear to us that it is a mixture of trading-categorial and agrarian-categorial structures that is at stake, many developing countries wish to establish a one‑vote‑per‑citizen democracy immediately, without realizing that as far as Europe is concerned it has taken several hundred years to reach this level of democracy. It would therefore be naive to imagine that our type of democracy would function satisfactorilyt in countries that are still mainly on the agrarian-categorial level.

                             Even if the developing countries should desire democratic forms of government and also possess formal democratic constitutions, it is ultimately the material basis that determines the societal superstructures. Since the economies of the developing countries consist of a mixture of trading- and agrarian-categorial structures, these countries will unavoidably end up with de facto superstructures corresponding to the material basis, i.e. with a more or less despotic national leader. If, on the other hand, the impact of the trading-categorial structure on the developing country in question is gradually increasing, this will be reflected in the introduction of oligarchical forms of government to replace the despotic leader or dictator.

As in the natural sciences, where the theoretical structures described are practically never to be found in nature in their "pure" form, the historical categorial structures have presumably only once passed through the various stages in a "pure" form. However, quite sufficient historical material has been obtainable from e.g ancient Greece and Europe in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries  to enable us to sketch the development of the trading-categorial governmental structure. To put it briefly, the trading-categorial system of government has developed from that of an oligarchy via a council consisting of all owners of property and capital to that of a council consisting of all male citizens, finally developing into a system comprising all adult (male and female) citizens.

                             Thus democracy is not merely a superstructural element characterized by one‑vote‑per‑citizen, but consists of a dynamic process of governmental development.

                             In order to understand the superstructures of the nation states of today it is important to remember that not only are the developing countries at different levels of development, but the industrialized countries are also at different levels of development as regards the trading categorial structure.

When regarding the superstructures of the various developing countries, it is important to bear in mind that due to ideological reasons they are all officially “democracies”, but the factual political structures are at developmental stages as sketched above and in accordance with their individual developmental level. 

                             Even though a nation state has in fact reached the developmental stage where each citizen has one vote and the governmental structure has a firm and stable framework, its development may be far from complete. The system of government depends on the respective country´s material and infrastructural level as a whole, and thereby also on the cultural and educational level of the entire population.

                             In those democratic industrialized countries in which the educational and developmental level is generally low, the political system will largely favourize primitive politicians with crude political points of view. There will tend to be a great divergence between political standpoints and visions on the one hand and the political reality on the other. A democratic society is ideally ruled by its citizens, but the less educated and mature the citizens are, the greater the chance for political manipulation and lobbying, whereby political elements that are economically and pragmatically dependent on the society's economic rulers acquire the real power.

                             It is significant that the higher the educational and cultural level of the population as a whole, the less need there is in politics for charismatic father‑figures and primitive politicians.

                             One of the highest developed countries in the world is Sweden, in which class distinctions are nearly non-existent and the infrastructural and general developmental level of society is the highest that exists today. It is characteristic that a country like Sweden has one of the world's highest election polls, since the population, as opposed to that of most other countries, feels that it has a real influence on political processes and therefore feels personally responsible. It is also characteristic that Swedish politicians, including the political leaders, are remarkably colourless as regards personality. In other words, in countries with a generally high level of development the professional qualifications of politicians are the most important, and most of the population does not need charismatic political father‑figures with oversimplified standpoints.

                             To say that a country like Sweden is one of the most highly developed in the world today implies that the problems and challenges Sweden is faced with today will eventually become reality for all other countries as they reach the corresponding level of development. It is by no means certain that Sweden will continue to be one of the most highly developed countries, but so long as that is the case Sweden may to some extent be regarded as a societal pilot project from which most other industrialised countries can derive experience and inspiration.

                             The USA is not only the world's greatest economic power, but among trading‑categorially developed countries it has the world´s greatest divergence in living standards, the population ranging from those living at subsistence level to those living in the heights of luxury.

                             The consequence of this inequality in living standards is that manpower continues to be plentiful and cheap. The incentive for industrial innovation is dependent on the relative cost of manpower and new efficient labour‑saving machinery. With cheap labour at their disposal, it is possible for employers to maintain their share in the market for a greater period of time without introducing new production processes. Since the general developmental level of industrial production determines the level of the entire basis of society, and this in its turn determines the entire societal superstructure in all its complexity, the retention of an old, relatively primitive production apparatus (outside the decidedly export and import branches) slows down the development of the society's superstructure.

                             Even though the USA has some highly developed areas as regards advanced materials and technology, American democracy is far from being the most highly developed in the world. Since the categorial level is determined by the level of the entire societal mass, the USA's superstructure is determined by the fact that vast portions of its industry and population are to be found on a lower developmental level than is the case, for example, in the North European countries.

Countries with a socialist system of government are usually said to constitute a special politico‑economic category. According to this theory that is not the case.

                             To take Russia, for example, the revolution of 1917 may be said to have been a true revolution, also in this theoretical conceptual framework. But like similar earlier revolutions in other countries, such as England and France, the Russian revolution was in reality a revolutionary transition from the monopolist agrarian-(feudal)category towards the trading -category.

                             The revolution in England came as early as 1688 and the "Triennial act of 1694" established the principle of regular parliamentary sessions, but it was a very limited proportion of the population who had the right to vote and voting was not secret. First in 1918 after 224 years had elapsed England got what we today understand as democracy. By then all male citizens over 21 and females over 30 years of age got the right to vote by secret ballot.

                             The French revolutionary transition started with the 1789 revolution, but it cannot be said to have been completed until 1871, when the parliamentary system definitively gained the upper hand. Therefore the revolutionary transitional phase in France in reality lasted 82 years. Similarly, in the USSR the revolutionary transition from the agrarian to the trading category was initiated in 1917, but since a genuine democratic superstructure has not - after 85 years – compleately got the upper hand, the revolutionary transitional phase has not yet been completed. Thus the trading category is not yet firmly established in the former Soviet republics.

                             If we take the consequence of this materialistic approach, it would be illogical to believe that the relatively long transitional phase in the USSR was specifically the result of communist political and ideological structures. The former USSR´s 85‑year long transitional phase should rather be traced to the fact that in 1917 it was mainly the towns in the European part of the USSR that were sufficiently mature to carry through the revolution. The remainder of the former USSR was, and still is, to be found on the agrarian-categorial level, and whether the agrarian‑categorial production force is controlled and dominated by a feudal nobility or by party- or state-officials has had little bearing on society. It is obvious that the communist ideological structure has greatly contributed to the fact that the same dictatorial elite has been able to remain in power during the entire period. It is also evident that the planned economic control of society has delayed and impeded the development of the former USSR´s societal infrastructure, but it has to be kept in mind how much human suffering the industrial revolution in e.g. Western Europe caused too.

                             Societal differences in the former USSR republics are extremely great: the Baltic republics are ready for our type of democracy on a rather crude level though, the other European (former USSR) republics may possibly be ripe for democracy within a reasonably short span of years, while the remaining southern and Asiatic republics are still largely to be found on the agrarian-categorial level and must therefore be regarded as lost for our type of democracy for a foreseeable future. (Since I formed the above statement more than 12 years ago much has happened in Eastern Europe and the then USSR, and the viability of the statement becomes increasingly clearer. Today it is evident that most of the former USSR republics functions as de facto dictatorships.)

Ideological time lag

There is yet another theoretical element which needs to be touched upon if we are to understand political, economic and sociological structures such as those of e.g. present‑day Japan and the other fast developing new economies.

                             As mentioned, it is largely the material basis that determines a society's psychological structure. For example, the attitudinal and psychological structures of a feudal/agrarian-categorial society differ radically from those of a trading-categorial society.

                             During the transitional phase between two categorial structures there will be a certain psychological time lag. On the establishment of a new categorial structure the society concerned will not all at once be dominated by new psychological or other superstructural elements - on the contrary, such new structures will gain ground only gradually. Both as individuals and as members of society, the generations that have lived under the old categorial structure will naturally pass on their attitudes, and since the new generations will be nearly as much influenced by the attitudes of older generations as by the new societal reality, it will take several generations before such an ideological time lag has completely disappeared.

                             Although Japan´s industrial development started at the end of last century, it was not until after the end of the Second World War that a true democratic constitution became forced upon Japan by the USA. Psychologically speaking, the Japanese population was not ripe for this superstructural shift, and it is characteristic of the historical period concerned that the actual system of government between the Second World War and the present day was of a transitional nature. Although formally speaking a representative democracy, it has until recently in reality been a single‑party system in which the power was mainly held by a social elite within both the administration and political and business circles, which together control society and distribute the economic resources. Despite a formal democratic constitution it will presumably be some time before the governmental structure assumes a form directly comparable with the governmental systems known to us in the west. Thus we may question whether Japan's political leaders do in fact possess the power to govern society or whether that power, to a greater extend than is the case in the western societies, is shared with the administration and the economic elite.

                             Naturally, for a society that is still in the transitional phase between two categorial structures the ideological time lag does not only apply to political life but is reflected in all aspects of society. Thus in a transitional phase lasting several generations attitudes and social patterns from feudal/agrarian society, such as the lower status of women or the high esteem of seniority, will continue to have a bearing in the trading categorial society. In the case of Japan, where education is geared to conformity and established values right from kindergarten, and where tradition plays a central cultural role, the transformation to a true democracy will presumably take a long time. 

All kinds of explanations have been put forward as to why countries like Japan and Western Germany for a long period of time after the second world war managed to maintain a markedly higher rate of growth than other industrialized countries. Such an exceptional rate of growth undoubtedly has several causes, but the most important causes tend to be excluded from the debate. What has distinguished the Japanese and German populations from those of other industrial countries is not specifically human or cultural qualities, but the simple facts that not only have the Japanese and the Germans prefered to buy their own country´s products but their governments have set out to provide a lower standard of living than would have been economically possible. These two factors enabled Germany and Japan to accumulate a considerable amount of capital, the surplus value being retained within the domestic economy instead of being transferred to other countries.

                             International trade agreements ideally prevent industrialized countries from maintaining restrictions favouring their own products, but when the individual consumers themselves choose to buy their country´s own products it is fully legal.

International relations

In capitalism´s infancy, when superstructures regulating the societal metabolic exchange in nation states had not yet been established, capitalism was inhuman; primitive and avaricious societal elements were able to dominate and assert themselves at the expense of society as a whole.

                             Gradually, as society introduced laws and regulations that took the trading-catgeorial society´s dynamics into account, at the same time moderating undesirable aspects of capitalism, the optimization urge expressed itself in more advanced forms which provided for a better utilization of the society´s resources.

                             If we turn to international co‑operation between nation states, we find that on a supranational level the world is still mainly dominated by such primitive factors as power and economic manipulation.

                             Despite the Gatt trading agreements and the subsequent establishment of the WTO, the rather primitive conditions that continue to dominate the international scene are naturally an immediate advantage for the few strong or brutal nations. But in the long run widespread primitivism impedes the growth and dynamic development of all nations also the strong ones.

                             The two most important factors underlying the harmonious development of the trading-category on a national level have been a better understanding of the dynamic elements in society and the establishment of democratic laws and regulations for the purpose of optimizing the whole without impeding development. We must recall that in a European context the democratic one‑vote‑per‑citizen system did not arise like Phoenix from the ashes, but as the result of a gradual process. The vote was, as mentioned, given first to owners of land, then to owners of land or capital, then to established citizens, then to all male citizens and finally to all adult (male and female) citizens. It is important to bear in mind that underlying this development were concrete dynamic factors in society that ensured as smooth a development as possible. Characteristically, in countries such as France where the intermediate developmental stages were deliberately omitted as a result of the revolution, the social equilibrium became violently disrupted, a dictatorial emperor came to power resulting in devastating wars, and societal development was consequently delayed.

                             If we turn again to international relations we find that the nations of the world are all at widely different levels of development and have vastly different sizes and international positions.

                             So long as no truly basic knowledge about societal and international dynamics exists, strong, ruthless and primitive forces will continue to assert themselves and to dominate international development.

                             The first step towards raising the international metabolic exchange onto a more advanced level - for the benefit of all - must be to understand and accept the elements and factors involved and recognize the actual international balance of power, and to ensure - just as democracy on a national level started with the franchise of the landowners, - that these power factors are reflected in the international governmental organs.

                             As long as we cling, on the one hand, to the illusion that all nation states are equal, while registering, on the other, the massive manipulation and misuse of power that is more or less concealed under cover of political phrases, primitive conditions will continue to predominate - to the advantage of the few and the detriment of the many.

                             By analyzing national structures on the basis of the theoretical principles stipulated here, it will be possible to establish a rational starting‑point for the establishment of concrete supranational governmental structures.

                             If it becomes recognized that it is not possible to omit any developmental stage as far as societal dynamics are concerned, but that a more precise utilization of resources would make it possible to increase the rate of development, the present waste of resources will be avoided.

                             On the national trading‑categorial level some of the superstructural features, such as the tax systems, are designed in such a way as to level out the social extremes - curbing the most privileged and guiding and supporting the least privileged - so that social development as a whole is optimized.

                             A highly developed international trading‑categorial system must likewise contain rational regulating mechanisms to ensure a more equal distribution of the global surplus product. This is effected partly through regulative taxation and partly by the consistent restriction of any transactions that might interfere with fair competition, such as import restrictions or export subsidies camouflaged as aid to developing countries or political or military support.

                             By assessing and graduating the international, economic and commercial importance of nation states it would become possible to establish true international "democracy" - not a one‑vote‑per‑citizen type of democracy (or rather, a one‑vote‑per‑nation- United Nations type of democracy), but a more primitive though genuine and functioning trading‑categorial system of government that reflected the factual international relations. In other words, according to an analysis of the developmental levels and international commercial importance of the various societies each nation would be given the number of votes that reflected its true international position.

                             Iit is better for nation states to acquire what may in many cases be the modest though real importance to which they are entitled according to their developmental level and international commercial position, rather than to live on the one hand with the illusion of freedom, equality and sovereignty and, on the other, with a reality consisting of oppression and manipulation on the part of the strong nations. With such a system the small nations could band together in such a way that they would get a real saying in international matters.

                             It is obvious that orderly democratic conditions in a country is to the benefit of all, even to the wealthy and strong. The wealthy and strong may not become quite so wealthy and strong quite as quickly as they otherwise might have, but they would acquire instead a security, stability and harmony they might not otherwise have the possibility to acquire.  It is better to cure than to mend, or to put it bluntly, it is better to use the recourses to build up and develop society than to have to use those recourses on security systems.

                             We are faced with precisely the same problem as regards international relations. The question is whether we wish the primitive international conditions to continue, or whether those who are nowadays the biggest and strongest would be willing to exchange some of their power and wealth for global stability and security. A levelling out and a better use of the available resources would also make it possible for the world as a whole to develop faster and more dynamically.

Categorial leap

Even though the above‑described view of the future development of international relations becomes more rational and easier to grasp on the basis of this theory of history, it would be possible to arrive at more or less the same conclusions without the theoretical understanding contained in this book, because the previous section has merely set out to sketch a linear development and unfolding of already visible tendencies.

                             One of the weaknesses, however, as regards the methods of surveying and investigating the future hitherto developed is that they base their starting‑point in the present day and the immediate past, i.e. they tend to project the present into eternity.

                             It goes without saying that future development will be a product of present‑day factors, but which of these factors will come to determine the future?

                             If we view the development of mankind from a macro‑historical point of view, however, it is obvious that there have existed radically different types of societies during the course of history, and it has been impossible for people living in one type of society to imagine what the next, hitherto undeveloped, type of society would be like. Just as it would be impossible, for example, for a burn‑beating tribe in the Amazon jungle that has had no contact with other types of society to imagine modern urban society. With the methods available today futurologists can only envisage a continuation of the already existing types of society, and would be unable to envisage a type of society that differs just as radically from our present society as a burn‑beating society differs from modern urban society.

                             During the course of history, however, there have been three radical developmental leaps, and there will naturally also be such radical developmental leaps in the future.

                             To enable us to take stock of such future radical developmental leaps, however, it is insufficient to take our point of departure in the present day or the immediate past; it is necessary, as this book attempts, to understand history as a whole with rational scientific instruments and in that way determine which basic factors create a new historical category.

                                                          The Future

The fourth main historical category

I concluded the schematic account of the three hitherto unfolded main historical categories on p. 76 with the following sentence:

                             "At one point or other the necessary conditions are present for this middle group to develop a new productive force, the germ of which is already to be found in society ‑ i.e. the fourth historical category that has not yet been developed."

                             In order to establish the deductive-scientific nature of the theory which has been described in the two first parts of this book, it is necessary  to use that theoretical framework to stipulate the dynamic mechanism of the fourth historical category that has not yet been developed! Should that stipulation/prediction as described below in future be confirmed, then the deductive-scientific nature of this whole theory of science structure will have been successfully established.

The historical preconditions

Historical development has seen the unfolding of three main categories ‑ the hunting, the agrarian and the trading categories.

                             The main objects of historical research consists of epochs from which written sources are to be found, and since written language must initially have been established under the influence of the trading-category this amounts to saying that the science of history mainly deals with that part of societal development in which all three main categories have existed side by side, interacting with one another.

                             If, during the part of history that encompasses written source material and which extends over many thousands of years, only those three main historical categories have developed, it might be tempting to conclude that no new main productive forces or categories will develop in the future either, a view which at present is dominating within the science of history.

                             The pattern in previous historical periods has shown, however, that no new development takes place until not only the existing possibilities for development are almost exhausted but that the instrumental developments for a new categorial leap has to materialize as well.

                             It is first with the new instrumental possibilities which gradually have developed through the unfolding of the mechanized industrial societies that the preconditions for a forth historical category is starting  to emerge.

Human society’s metabolic exchange with nature has undergone a development which started with the use of immediately accessible natural products in almost unprocessed form under the hunting category, and passed via the use of immediately accessible natural products in cultivated and refined form under the agrarian category to the use and refinement of the material resources of the entire globe under our present trading category.

                             This historical developmental process describes a course which started as a balanced relationship between nature and man, who simply entered into the ecological cycle on equal terms with the rest of organic nature. The equilibrium was broken when man started to dominate the fauna under the hunting category, and was further disrupted when man started to dominate organic nature under the agrarian category, while under our present trading category human societies have - for better or worse - come to dominate the entire planet.

                             Thus, development has gradually shifted from a balanced relationship between man and nature to a situation in which nature has gradually become subject to man and has slowly faded into the background in mans societal metabolic exchange. The developmental growth potential, and thus the social challenge, has gradually shifted from man and nature to a situation in which the relationship between man and man now dominates. One could also say that as the trading-categorial development has entered the monopolistic phase the optimization urge has shifted focus from the interplay with nature to the societal interplay.

                             In future, therefore, the challenge and the potential for growth lies not so much in man's metabolic exchange with nature (the physical aspects of life) as in the refinement, systematization and coordination of the societal parameters.

History is the science of the development and interaction of human societies in time and space. The two main elements in this process are, on the one hand, the planet Earth/Nature ‑ the human growth medium ‑ and, on the other, man himself. Even though the Earth/Nature is quite obviously a basic factor that puts its stamp on human societies, the progressive historical course - from primitive societal structures to ever more complex ones - is nevertheless brought about by factors within man himself. It is human qualities that develop by way of historical categories into different systematized survival and growth strategies ‑ for individuals and societies alike. Thus it is in man himself we should seek the germ of the new productive force that will come to form the basis of an entirely new fourth main historical category, and in order to determine the basis for the unfolding of a fourth main category we must leave the societal level and concentrate our investigation on the make‑up of man's individual potential.

The historical categories signify a development towards steadily increasing societal complexity, and this development is based on the individuals ability to develop, both physically, intellectually and psychologically. Just as the development of the individual passes through different psychological stages through childhood, adolescents and hopefully onwards through life to further maturity and insight, groups of individuals or societies also pass through different developmental stages, where it is the average developmental level of the citizens that determine the developmental level of the society.

                             As stated earlier man has made use of all his faculties throughout history, but it is specific qualities that have been dominating in each of the historical categories. In order not to oversimplify the qualities that has dominated in the three hitherto unfolded categories, I will turn the problem around and state that the distinct human quality that has always been utilized but not rewarded according to its importance to society is creativity and intellectual excellence.

                             Creativity, intellectual and artistic excellence has existed both in the agrarian-categorial society and in our present trading-categorial society, but this excellence has neither been fully understood nor been economically appreciated compared with the respective dominating groups, the hunters, the landowners under the agrarian-category and the businessmen in our present society. It is the above-mentioned groups that have held the power and acquired the wealth in their respective categories. The creative, the intellectuals and the artistic individuals have only acquired wealth and power if they beside those qualities also masterede the human qualities of the dominating historical.category of their time. Today the creative, the intellectual and the artistic only acquier wealth and power if they also posses business talent. 

                            

It is important to bear in mind that the development of the new fourth main historical category does not necessitate the emergence of any entirely new and hitherto undiscovered human qualities. On the contrary, it is a question of the emergence of new instrumental possibilities which cause already existing individual human qualities to flourish in such a way that they can develop into a new main societal element that will dynamically outdistance the present main productive force. Thus a new productive force depends on the further development of the existing material basis and has its origin in hitherto undervalued human qualities.

                             Societal exchange under the trading-category, and thus in our present society, takes place structurally as an exchange between individuals with material goods as the intermediary, therefore the businessmen are the highest valued group in society. The producer and the consumer interact by way of the commodity in which both are interested, and this social relationship pervades our individual and social consciousness to the extent that almost everything in our society is regarded as goods.

                             Essential for the development of the trading-category has been the establishment of communication systems ‑ transport by road, sea or air ‑ and it has been necessary to make these increasingly efficient.

                             Just as paths and roads were created under the agrarian category in order to exploit its productive force more efficiently, which led to the establishment of markets and later to the establishment of city states and nation states - i.e. to the establishment of the trading-category, electronic data processing has been created with a more efficient exploitation of the present trading‑categorial production in view. And, just like paths and roads under the agrarian category, the electronic information channels today constitute the coming new main productive force´s "roads", and electronic data processing its "means of transport".

                             As mentioned at the end of the chapter “An alternative view on some economic aspects.” Page 114, “the “new (internet) economy” is only the first step towards the radically different economic structure” of the forth historical category.  As many individuals, firms and also whole countries have painfully realized through the economic downturn of 2001, the “new (internet) economy” is not an end in itself but it is instead the precondition for developing the forth historical category with its completely different exchange structure, economic structure, political structure and societal structure. 

The idea category

The new productive force is a human quality that is already socially established, but which has hitherto lacked the instrumental conditions for its exponential unfolding as a productive force.

                             The human quality, which can be developed into a new main productive force on the basis of electronic data processing, is man's ability for intellectual achievements - true creative thinking, which I shall henceforth term ideas.

                             The dynamic exchange of ideas in society ‑ the creation, refinement, systematization and coordination of the physical and social parameters ‑ is the human quality that on this developmental level contains the exponential growth potential which is the precondition for the breakthrough of an entirely new main historical category.

                             To put things in their proper perspective we must remember that the establishment of an entirely new ‑ fourth ‑ main historical category will be an event of such radical significance that nothing comparably impressive has happened since the establishment of the first city states thousands of years ago.

                             Ideas have always been totally subordinate to the other main productive forces. Just as articles of everyday use have been exchanged under both hunting and agrarian categories, ideas have been exchanged in both hunting and agrarian as well as trading communities. But just as the exchange of articles of everyday use which took place under the hunting and agrarian categories was an exchange of use-values without a formal systematic and dynamic exchange structure, the exchange of ideas still takes place without any formal systematic and dynamic exchange structure.

 It was not until the establishment of markets and of conversion factors/money that the production of goods became a reality and developed into the societal growth factor that has functioned dynamically throughout the years from the city states of early antiquity until our own industrial societies. Similarly, ideas have continued to be subject to the laws of the trading category, and so the exchange of ideas has not incorporated a systematic assessment of values. Direct value assessment of ideas is not possible under the present legal conditions. For an idea to be evaluated as an exchange value it has today to be converted into material goods or services, because under the present trading category these are the societal elements to which laws, rules, norms and exchange forms are related.

                             Under the hunting and the agrarian categories ‑ i.e. before markets came into being ‑ articles of everyday use were produced for consumption, and should there be any surplus its utilization would be extremely inefficient and largely dependent on chance. Likewise, under the hunting and agrarian categories as well as under the present trading category ideas were produced for direct consumption - perhaps as commissioned work or in return for wages, and in cases in which ideas could not immediately be used by their originator or converted into material objects which could thereafter be sold, ideas constituted a kind of surplus production for which the originator received very little ‑ possibly only the honour. Today as before the idea originators profit will largely depend on chance: if, for example, a firm "pinches" an idea and transforms it into goods or services the firm will not legally owe the originator anything in reasonable proportion to the true value of the idea and can therefore take almost all of the profit.

                             Not until markets came into being and the production of goods became organized did material objects present an exponential growth potential, only then were the manufacturers motivated to make full use of their special talents and skills as manufacturers of goods.

                             In our society ideas constitute a similar embryonic growth potential.

The fact that the individual possibilities for development and optimization within the existing main productive force are impeded by the increasing monopolization is not sufficient for a society to be able to develop a new productive force, for such an increasing monopolization has taken place many times before throughout history. If the instrumental possibilities for a categorial shift are not present a society will gradually stagnate, and the economic centre of gravity will shift to another place - another city state ‑ another nation ‑ another continent. Apart from societal stagnation a categorial shift depends on the presence of the instrumental possibilities for such a shift. As regards a shift from the present trading category to a new category, the possibilities are now emerging for the first time in history.

In order for the trading category to establish itself a true revolution was necessary, a revolution in which the old social superstructure was discarded in favour of a new one which comprised new laws and regulations, a new ethical code and new forms of exchange designed to take care of the interests of the new productive force. Such a revolution can take place violently and inexpediently, as was the case with the French Revolution in 1789 and the Russian Revolution in 1917, or as a mostly quiet and peaceful transition, such as was the case in e.g. Denmark.

                             Thus, if the coming idea category is to be developed and unfolded optimally, it is not sufficient to establish a market for ideas and a generally accepted conversion factor. As long as this market only exists within the monopolist phase of the trading category the new idea‑productive force will be impeded by the laws, regulations and ethics of the old productive force, in precisely the same way as trade was impeded in the monopolist phase of the agrarian category when the community´s laws, regulations and ethics were under the domain of the nobility.

                             However, there is a much greater chance of a peaceful revolution from the trading to the idea-category taking place in the future than there was at the time of the transition from the agrarian to the trading-category, because now the science of history will be able to take into consideration the fact that following the immediate crisis, a dynamic social revolution of this type will inevitably bring with it fantastic new possibilities based on the expansion of the new productive force. Just as the nobility enjoyed the benefit of trade at the end of the monopolistic agrarian category, monopolist capital will enjoy the benefit of a global market for ideas; and just as the nobility has gradually disappeared, in the long run monopolist capital will also disappear and new structures will arise in its place.

The establishment of the idea-category

When we project existing social trends into the future, which is nowadays the general tendency within futurology, we obtain a picture of the future in which ideas and know‑how are simply regarded as new types of goods on a par with the existing material goods. Ideas and know‑how are expected to be subject to monopolist capital, and thus the tendency towards increasing centralization and monopolization in society is expected to continue. Such expectations are for that matter correct so long as the exchange of ideas and know‑how takes place within the framework of the trading-category, in which the societal superstructure is designed in order to optimize the exchange of goods. The point is, however, that in future the development and communication of ideas and know‑how by way of the new electronic communication systems will become an element capable of radically changing the social structure. The new social structure will differ as much from our present social structure as the monopolist‑agrarian (feudal) social structure differs from our present trading-categorial(capitalist) structure.

                             When a genuine market for the exchange of ideas is established, together with a conversion system for assessing the value of such ideas, these new societal elements will have such an impact that the socio‑political pressure on the superstructure, laws, regulations and ethics, etc. of the established system will gradually increase until a superstructural revolution takes place.

                             Not until the societal superstructure has been revolutionized and restructured in order to satisfy the idea-categorial needs has society entered the first phase of the idea-category. It is worth remembering that the first phase of a historical category is characterized by the abundance of the resources necessary for its production force and enables fantastic new expansions to take place.

                             Every production force has its origin in human qualities, and since it is man - the individual - who gets the ideas, the basic element involved in building up the idea category will be the individual´s right to be paid for his or her ideas according to their real value.

                             Just as the ownership of material objects constitutes the legislative foundation upon which the trading-category rests, the right to the value of innovative ideas constitutes the foundation upon which the idea-category will come to rest.

                             As has been the case with the 3 already unfolded historical production methods, the first phase of the idea-category in which the resources necessary for this production force are plentiful the individual will have optimal possibilities for personal optimization by creating new ideas - as in the first phase of the hunting category during which dissatisfied hunters could simply move to new hunting areas, or in the first phase of the agrarian category during which farmers could move and cultivate new arable land, or in the first phase of the trading category during which craftsmen could move to where their craftsmanship was in demand and would be appreciated as technically advanced. Likewise, during the first phase of the idea-category the individual will be able to use his creative resources in all areas in society where both material and social changes and improvements can be utilized.

                             It is not as if material production will cease at that time, quite the contrary. But just as agricultural production expanded when the trading-category was established and agriculture became subject to the market mechanisms, in future the production of goods will enjoy the benefit of the structure and resources of the idea-category. Thus the present level of material production will in future appear inefficient and primitive, and production will take place on quite different societal premises than those we know of today.

While the trading-category was only in the embryonic stage it was just as common and socially acceptable to rob or steal the goods as to buy them. With remembrance of e.g. the Homeric period in Greece or the Viking period in Northern Europe. On a trading expedition anyone who was able to procure the desired use‑values without giving anything in exchange became a greater hero at home than if he had had to deliver something in return. Today the appropriation of ideas is unfortunately to be found on a somewhat similar primitive level.

For the trading-category to be able to establish itself and unfold its growth potential not only social stability but the recognition of private ownership was necessary - and not just its recognition but society's consistent support of this right through legislation and executive (police and military) power.

                             Nowadays the possibility for the legal and societal protection of ideas is very small. Patent and copyright legislation may well exist, but neither of these provides the possibility for the legal and societal protection of ideas.

                             The patent laws, which still apply only within the nation state concerned, afford protection for material inventions or manufacturing processes only. The patents issued are based on an estimate of the discovery's innovative quality and degree of inventiveness, and such national estimates can vary considerably. Moreover, every country has vastly different attitudes as regards the criteria for patentability. Already a need for change has emerged especially within the field of EDB software, and such software can to a certain extend be patented (in the USA) but the right to such patents are not the ideas but the expression of software as a sort of non physical machine!

Nowadays the compliance with and respect for patent rights are greatly dependent on who possesses the greatest economic resources, and among patent legislation experts the view is widespread that a patent is often chiefly of value as a construction guide for competitors.

                             Copyright is safeguarded by international conventions which ensure that it is respected by a great number of nations, but this right is merely the right to a work - e.g., a book, a work of art, a piece of music or a treatise, and the ideas contained therein enjoy no copyright protection.

                             Thus the existing legislation as regards patents and copyright offers no protection at all as regards ideas.

                             Clearly, on the basis of the above the possibility for a real unfolding of the idea-category is extremely poor as long as it continues to take place under the legislative and societal conditions of the trading category.

                             The outstanding feature of the trading-categorial market is that it effectively balances the producers' interests against the consumers' interests. That is not possible with ideas under the present conditions. The reason for this is that the market-exchange of physical goods reflects the immediate value of the goods in question, whereas a market for the exchange of ideas and know-how necessarily must reflect the future value resulting from the exploitation of the idea or know-how.

                             As long as the exchange of ideas takes place under the conditions of the trading-category only big and economically strong firms or individuals are capable of enforcing their rights. But as soon as the idea-category's superstructure is established following a categorial revolution, separate individuals will be able to attain the legislative and societal protection of their ideas. And since it is individuals who get the ideas, during this first phase of the idea category the centre of gravity will be shifted from the big firms to the creative individuals.

                             The first phase of any historical category, in which the resources necessary for the productive force concerned are plentiful, is characterised by social expansion and prosperity - and the first phase of the idea category will be no exception. Thus, as soon as the new idea category has become established there are prospects of an extremely prosperous and optimistic historical epoch to follow.

When, in its infancy, the trading category was unfolding, there were many dangers involved in going to market to exchange goods. If it was possible to attack others and deprive them of their goods it was quite acceptable. Law and order and social stability were thus a precondition for the successful establishment and unfolding of the trading category.

                             The future idea‑categorial structure will provide fantastic opportunities for societal growth, but this structure will at the same time be so refined and vulnerable that its establishment will depend on society becoming far more stable and homogenous than is the case today, even in the most highly developed nation states.

                             Thus we must assume that the idea-category will only be able to function smoothly when all citizens in society have attained roughly the same access to the material and societal resources. As will be seen that was precisely what large sections of the populations at the beginning of the industrial revolution dreamt of as a future posibility, but in this context it is predicted on a quite different basis than hitherto within the utopian ideologies.

                             A levelling of the living conditions of all citizens is not the same as equality, however, for the dynamic inequality between human beings has merely been elevated to a higher level. Whereas inequality was previously reflected in the survival or death of the individual, and later by his or her position in a feudal hierarchy, nowadays it is reflected in the individual´s material standard of living. Under the idea category inequality will be reflected in the degree of personal freedom and the creativity with which the individual is able to influence society and his own life.

The technical make‑up of the idea-category

Systematization of data

The first condition that has to be fulfilled before we can speak of a true market for ideas is to be able to distinguish between knowledge that is already established and new knowledge or ideas.

                             Nowadays an enormous quantity of data is accumulated, but it is significant for our present low information‑technological level that these data become only superficially catalogued and systematized. If we are to be able to use all the data which is already accumulated as a starting‑point for evaluating the innovative status of ideas, a much more thorough analysis of the existing data is necessary.

                             Hitherto the information registered and catalogued has normally been divided primitively into themes, possibly with a short description of the thematic subdivisions. In future, however, it would be useful if both old and new information were thoroughly analyzed according to firm criteria, so that the catalogues and files indicate which standpoints and ideas the respective works contain.

                             A thorough analysis of already existing data would in itself be an invaluable contribution towards making efficient use of already established knowledge. But it would also make it possible to establish a formalized, systematic evaluation of the innovative status of new ideas.

                             Today it is naturally only possible to protect extremely concrete inventions, for only on that level is it at all possible or reasonable to assess to what extent an invention really contributes towards new knowledge or merely makes use of established knowledge, i.e. whether the originator does in fact contribute anything original.

                             When a fair quantity of the total information has been analyzed, systematized and filed, it will be possible to determine whether an idea contains genuine new knowledge in a given field. If this is so it will be registered as coming from the originator concerned, and according to how useful the new knowledge is for society the originator will be given a bonus proportional to the actual value of the idea.

                             Nowadays patents have a certain ‑ limited ‑ period of validity, but on the other hand the patent‑holder has full control over the use of the patented invention during the period concerned. This form of patent legislation has unfortunate side‑effects. The full control of a patented invention can, amongst other things, have the grotesque consequences that the invention is bought up by a firm, that then shelves it until the patent expires in order to protect its own less efficient production. Such patent legislation not only prevents the immediate use of the invention concerned but also delays the possibility of developing it further. Moreover, because the period of validity of a patent is limited its commercial use is a race against time - a fact that tends to favour big and financially strong firms.

                             When a market for ideas has been established it would be of most use for society if the originator owned the ideas for the period of his or her lifetime plus a specific number of years, as is nowadays the case with copyright legislation, and that anyone wishing to use or elaborate on the ideas should be allowed by law to do so, but should also pay the originator a duty. In an idea‑categorial society citizens would be obliged to register the use of an idea, so that the originator can receive a royalty directly proportional to its value or use.

                             When we consider what enormous human resources would be needed today in order to effect a thorough charting of the existing quantity of knowledge it seems unlikely that it would be possible to complete such a task in the near future. However, with the development of computers the instrumental conditions will soon be present and machines will be able to take over much of the work concerned. Development also tends in the direction of the electronic registration of all societal activities, whereby all the conditions for an electronic assessment of the importance and use of new ideas will be present, and a proper payment of the originator for the use of the idea will become a realistic possibility.

The elaboration of an idea‑exchanging system

We must remember that when an idea‑exchanging system is established, it will ultimately either be a dynamic system that has developed spontaneously, as was the case with the trading exchange‑system, or it will be created artificially on the basis of cognitive and scientific insight. Even in the latter event it will gradually undergo changes and find a dynamic level that corresponds exactly to the developmental level of society.

As was the case with the capitalistic goods exchange system that developed from primitive markets to become the foundation of city states and later national states and ending up dominating the entire planet, the Idea exthange system and its societal superstructures will firstly be deployed by single firms, and when these firms have demonstrated superiour growth potential, groups of firms will band togeter making their combined idear markest more efficient. Eventually society will embrace the idea market system by establishing laws and other societal functions that effectively protect the rights of the owners of ideas.

 In the danish edition of this book, published in 1991, I described the fundamental mechanism of a national/international idea exchange stystem. The description was unfortunately on such an abstract level that it was hard to grasp. As such an idea exchange system in any case firstly will be implemented in firms and larger organizations, I have realized that it is appropiate to describe the functions of the idea exchange system as it would initially be implemented in firms. 

Initiative and idea exchange in firms and larger organisations.

Although a lot have been done through the years in order to avoid the negative effects of the hierarchical structure in large firms the fundamental problem still remains. This is due to the fact that the very strength of such a system is also its weakness. The hierarchical structure is so persistent exactly because it reflects the real inner power structure of firms. Business strategies can be implemented in order to empower the ordinary employee and encourage him/her to transgress the traditional organisational boundaries, but as long as it is necessary to maintain a stratified pyramid structure with different layers of managers the fundamental problem will still remain. In large firms and corporations managers have the power and obligation to judge the achievements of their subordinates, and this function as supervisor makes the subordinate dependant of his immediate superior as the possibilities for keeping the job or of advancement is affected by the superior’s judgement. The subordinate therefore naturally tend to act in accordance with the wants, views and needs of his superiors and one of the many unspoken expectations superiors have to their subordinates is that the subordinates actively contribute to improve the superiors image/position. All communication and all initiative that bypasses the superior is therefore in principle a potential thread to the superior’s position. Such a fundamental factor can not be eliminated but only modified by the implementation of corporate cultures that tries to break down departmental boundaries and further the free flow of information.

When one reflects on how easily misunderstandings arise in ordinary communication it is not difficult to understand that the communication of novel ideas and initiative faces even graver difficulties when such novel thinking has to be communicated through several organisational layers. When ideas and initiative goes through the chain of managers on still higher levels there are a great risk that the idea or initiative will be filtered out as each superior manager might have different views on or understanding of the subject, or simply might not give the message enough attention to properly understand it. If the subordinate on the other hand decides to run the risk of passing his superiors by in anything but trivial matters there has to be individual and personal incentives to do so!

A hierarchical structure is still an unavoidable necessity in larger corporations, the negative side effects of the filtering of communication and information is unfortunately that ideas and initiative might be treated just as all other information.

A further constraint on the development of ideas and initiative is that when new cognition is understood and especially accepted it often seems so obvious that everybody feels that they could have reached the same conclusion themselves. It is naturally a compliment to the idea originator that his superior after a meeting feels that he got the idea himself or others the next day recounts the idea as their own as often happens, but this is not motivating the real idea originator to be inventive in future. What might require special skills achieved through a special individual development and education is at one stroke turned into something everybody seemingly could have done! One might think that it is of no great significance weather it is the “idea originator” or someone else who is given the credit for the creative ideas as long as the creative ideas are utilized to the benefit of the company, but such a viewpoint is not correct. The “idea germs” that emerge from the unconscious in the form of inklings, hunches or feelings must be nurtured and developed before they become useful and well formulated ideas suitable for presentation for others. A high degree of motivation is needed for the “idea originator” to make this effort. Remember that such “idea germs” are flimsy and illusive and a mental surplus is needed in order to catch them. That is why new ideas or solutions to problems mostly emerge when one is relaxed or at sleep. If a creative employee is not properly credited for his achievements the new “idea germs” might never get developed.

A filtering of the vast stream of information must necessarily take place to make a large organisation function. The negative and restraining effect on the communication of ideas and initiative can in future be removed by introducing a structure which gives the employees the possibility to express the importance of their communication, a system which consistently rewards the employees for ideas and initiatives that objectively are economic beneficial to the firm. Such an idea system can be implemented as a supplement to the existing organisational structures of firms, alongside IPO (Input, Process, Output) or (Lotus) Workflow structures, as this new system maintains another and more advanced function. The basic organisational structures need no alterations and the benefits of economies of scale can be maintained at the same time as creativity is freed as much as in small dynamic firms! On the following pages a structure which is capable of optimising the internal flow of ideas and initiative will be described.

The Model.

             The basic IPO (Input, Process, Output) structure is a formalised one-way communication where process upon process or person after person one-way forward the goods or information. The basic (Winograd & Flores) workflow structure is a formalised two-ways communication system. This two-ways communication system takes for granted that the two participants in the communication process are equal. Unfortunately that is not the case in the real world when the communication transgresses the departmental boundaries. The workflow structure therefore only has a limited field within which it functions optimally. For non-equal participants in a firm to be equally secure and equally safeguarded that they in their exchange of ideas and initiative maintain their rightful position, an intermediate third party is needed, an arbitrator. As a consequence of this understanding the basic elements of the (IRI) structure is organised as a three-ways communication. The three participants will therefore be the: "Idea-originator being the employee, the Registration and clearing central being a semi-independent body within the firm or organisation (several firms may very well collaborate around this function or leave this function to an independent agency), the Idea-consumer being a person or part of the firm/organisation/corporation or someone outside the organisation with whom the firm/organisation/corporation chooses to negotiate or communicate ideas and know how".

             As mentioned earlier contributing with new ideas and initiatives are not dynamically and systematically rewarded in toady's business organisations. That it is so witnesses the emergence of the many new-started small firms. Firms founded to exploit new ideas or products, in many cases created by their idea-originator during his employment in established firms, but where the idea-originator for one or other reason has not been able to have his idea developed and utilised by his employer with the prospect of adequate economic gain for himself. Therefore the idea-originator chooses "to jump out on the 100 fathoms of water", perhaps staking house, fortune and everything else he owns in order to develop and hopefully also reap the fruits of his idea.

             In order to optimise the utilisation of ideas and initiatives in firms and organisations, it is therefore necessary to establish a dynamic and consequent system which secures that the idea-originator/employee reaps a reasonable economic benefit from those of his creative achievements which eventually results in an economic gain for the firm or organisation.

The notion that employees are going to get a % royalty from their creative achievements made within the firm might be alien to the present management understanding, but the point is that those firms that implement this system is going to gain vastly more by doing so than by not catering for the employees natural drive to creatively optimize their own situation.

 

The hierarchical organisational structures are maintained in order to filter the flow of information, thereby preventing the higher levels of the organisation from being clogged by more or less irrelevant information. The hierarchical organisation structure makes it possible for leaders to maintain perspective. The challenge for the IRI structure is consequently to allow the filtering process to take place at the same time as it eliminates the impeding and limiting effect of such filtering on ideas and initiatives. The solution to this problem must include a mechanism through which the idea-originator dynamically can express the value and importance of his idea balanced with the importance of not unnecessarily disturbing the higher levels within the organisation. These conditions can be met if the idea-originator "pays" for having his idea accepted and analysed on a specific level and by specific persons in the organisation.

             The organisation establishes a semi-independent register and clearing body, or makes a contract with a management firm which has established such a body on the basis of the IRI structure. Each employee is given a number of points/coupons. Those points/coupons can subsequently be used by the employee to "buy" attention for his idea on the desired level in the organisation.

Presuming that the idea is judged to be directly usable on the lowest level within the organisation and therefore only are "sold" to that level, it will only cost few points. If e.g. the new idea is to change the immediate working routines. If the idea is aimed at the next level it will cost more and so on. It becomes more and more expensive the higher in the organisation the idea is aimed at. Ideas aimed at the board of directors or the advisory board will thus respectively be much more and much much more expensive to register.

             The new ideas are first registered in the clearing central by the idea-originator/employee, and provided the idea, after having been checked by the clearing central, is judged to be new to the organisational level in question, it is forwarded to that level to be thoroughly treated and valuated. If it results in the idea being utilised the economic consequences of its utilisation are analysed, and the idea-originator then receives a bonus which is a fixed proportion of the economic gains the firm/organisation reaps from the utilisation of the idea. The percentage of the bonus can be gradually reduced over a period of years. If the bonus e.g. are 15% the first year, 14% the second year and so on, the actual economic gain to the idea-originator might never the less grow even with the percentage decreasing, as the economic gains the firm reaps e.g. the fifth year might have grown with an even higher proportion making 11% that year more worth than 15% the first year.

Feed back loop

An idea that has been paid, filed and forwarded to a specific level and person in the organisation is then processed by that level. The result of the processing is then sent to the idea originator, and the Clearing Centre, from where it at the same time is made available for the rest of the staff. If another employee anywhere in the organisation is capable of developing the idea further so that the idea becomes better or wider applicable than it was originally envisaged, that employee (the idea-elaborator) is free to do so and subsequently invest the required points to have his elaboration of the idea registered by the clearing central. If the elaborated idea leads to economic gains to the firm/organisation, the idea-originator will receive a reduced percentage of the total proportionate to his contribution, and the idea-elaborator will receive the rest of the "royalty". An idea can be developed through several stages and consequently the royalty might be split between the idea originator and several individuals or teams of idea elaborators.

             With the implementation of this system, work within the organisation will evolve and find new expressions, as the employees naturally will compete with each other to develop new ideas and approaches, to the benefit of the firm and themselves.

             In reality it is only some of the employees who are capable of contributing with new creative and realizable ideas. The allocation of points to all employees will therefore naturally result in the emergence of a market for points/coupons. Such a market will make it possible for some individuals to buy extra points for cash and forward more ideas than their own allocation of points permit. In that way it will be possible for persons on the lowest level of the economic and organisational hierarchy to have their ideas directly valuated by e.g. the board of directors provided that the employee invests in that. The liquidity of points can naturally be regulated by the firm in such a way that the cash price of points is kept optimal on the internal market.

With or without the implementation of this system it will be extremely beneficial for a company to establish a database where each and every employee describes his competencies and his professional as well as private interests. This way other employees and idea originators will be able to much more precisely target their extra departmental communication at the right persons. To properly understand new ideas unusual combinations of skills and interests might be required, and the more information that is available about the prospective caseworker, the more precise the idea originator will be able to target the idea.

If such a register is deemed too sensitive to be openly available it might be designed as a closed database to which the idea originators can express a row of keywords. As a result of the search a prioritized list of employees then turns up. The idea originator might then by e-mail ask the persons on the list further questions before he forward his idea to be processed by one of them. 

If A Market for Ideas is implemented, an eventual individual resistance to such a detailed register will be eliminated by the fact that the more detailed information an employee gives to the register, the more likely it will be that the idea originator manages to forward his new idea to the most suited employee. As the new idea is first made available to all the other employees after the processing by the caseworker, the caseworker has a preferential position to further develop the idea. The most suited employee will not only be the best caseworker but also be in possession of the specific qualifications to further elaborate on the idea, an elaboration that might be filed in the clearing body as an idea* leading to a % share in the profit derived from the idea.  

Cheating with the personal information in the database is avoided by the idea originators right (following the compulsory feed back from the caseworker) to forward his idea to a person higher in the organisational hierarchy, whereupon possible inadequacy of the first caseworker is exposed. As the caseworker primarily is an employee such cheating will have consequences for his position/career.  

The selection of developable ideas.

Once an idea has been evaluated by the destined caseworker, has been returned to the Clearing Centre and has been made available for the complete staff, it becomes a part of the pool of ideas. This total pool of ideas is made subject to an internal “prediction market” where all the employees can participate in choosing the winner ideas or initiatives. The best way to make such a “prediction market” function optimally is to allow the staff to invest real money. Either these employee investments can be micro payments giving them tickets in a lottery, or it can be real investments in the development of the idea, giving them a stake in the eventual gains. The investment price can be decided by the financial department, thereby making obvious winners more expensive to invest in than more doubtful ideas. By allowing the staff to invest in the development of ideas the whole staff is energized and the corporate culture is strengthened considerably. If new idea projects are wholly or partially financed by the staff, much more ideas will be developed as the risk taken by the company and the draw on the company’s economic recourses are reduced.

The content of the three IRI functions.

The Idea-originator.

The first step is naturally the emergence of the idea, weather it comes as an intuitive or another form of expression from the sub conscious or it is an impulse from the outside world which only needs minor modifications.

Preliminary investigation concerning the novelty of the idea to the firm. (PC contact with the data bank of the clearing body).

Development of the idea as far as the idea-originators own intellectual and technical recourses permit.

Cataloguing into one or more categories within a formalised system (e.g. using the official international cataloguing system of the patent authorities)

Registration within the Registration body with the necessary information expressed as clearly and formalised as possible.

Naming the desired target level/group/person within the organisation. 

"Payment" for registration and valuation of the idea.

The Clearing body.

The function described under this heading may be executed by a single body, or they can be executed by separate bodies. Bodies that either are part of the firm/organisation or can be maintained by separate consultancy firms.

The functions are:

To register ideas and investigate weather or not these ideas are novel to the firm and the level in question. (If the idea is not described on the level in question prior to the idea originators registration, it is to be regarded as new!)

To clear (to be exchange and filtering organ) between the idea-originator and the firm/idea consumer.

To collect "points" from the idea-originators. To collect the percentage of the economic surplus, from the firm/organisation, allotted to the clearing body and the idea-originator/idea-elaborators. To forward the proceeds to the idea-originator/idea-elaborators.

To register and legally protect on behalf of the idea-originator and firm/idea user alike (patent filing etc.) what it may be possible to protect through the established legal system.

Although it is the firm/idea user who has to deliver the necessary data for valuation of the economic benefits of the idea, it is the clearing body that as intermediate between the idea originator and the firm does the actual valuation.

The fundamental principle for the functioning of this/these bodies are that the idea-originator/idea-elaborators are economically awarded proportionate to the economic benefit the firm/organisation/idea-consumer reaps from the novel idea over a period of several years.

It is not the task of the clearing body to judge the feasibility or presumed value of the implementation of the idea.

The idea-consumer/firm/organisation.

The idea-consumer/firm receives the idea from the clearing body and forwards it to the destined level/group/person in the organisation.

             If the employee(s) on the destined level just contribute with the skills to which he is hired, his contribution has been paid for through his salary, but if the employee contribute with new supplementing ideas that contribution can be filed and registered in the clearing body and he will then be entitled to a part of that percentage that are allocated to the idea-originator and perhaps other idea-elaborators.

             When the destined level/group/person forwards the material to another department/level, or give up or reject the idea, it will be obligatory at the same time to forward a report of the findings to the clearing body. The report must contain a judgement of the idea and an evaluation of the work which has been done by the group/employee in question. Subsequently the clearing body automatically forwards the judgement and report to the idea-originator and those idea-elaborators that are part in the project, so that they can follow the development. If, following a rejection, anyone of the idea-contributors (idea-originator and idea-elaborators alike) are dissatisfied with the decision by the case worker, they are free to file the project for a higher level and pay for a new thorough investigation of the idea on that level.

             The idea-consumer/firm develops the idea/project and makes all data available to the semi-independent or independent clearing body, so that it gets optimal possibilities to estimate the economic consequences of the idea.

Creating on demand.

When the above system has been implemented the process can naturally also be turned on its head meaning that persons in the firm can internally publish a problem which needs a solution and stipulate the economic possibilities the creation of a solution will give. As solving the problem will generate a % income to the one who solves the problem, other employees will use not only their working hours but also their private time to find a functional solution to the problem.

General optimization of the information flow.

Although A Market for Ideas can be implemented alongside all other existing organisational structures, the dynamics of A Market for Ideas will gradually influence all the other organisational structures in a firm. Gradually more and more functions will be channelled through The Market for Ideas thereby injecting other organisational functions with the same creativity, initiative and dynamics as the exchange of novel ideas.

In order to put these possible changes into perspective we can look at a hypothetical case involving the FBI.

During the run up to the “September 11” disaster some agents forwarded reports of young Arabic men who were taking flying lessons in Texas. These reports were not given high priority and that contributed to the disaster.

If A Market for Ideas had at that time been implemented in the FBI organisation the local field agent in Texas would have been able to express the importance of his report by “paying” for a higher priority.

Following the evaluation of the (hopefully prevented) disaster and of the consequences of the report being given higher priority, the local field agent would be paid a bonus proportional to his reports value to the actual events, disaster or no disaster.

If the caseworker handling the field agents report (with the higher priority) did not handle it optimally, A Market for Ideas contain the possibility of the field agent “paying” for a new evaluation on a higher level (upon receiving compulsory feedback from the caseworker). This way the caseworkers work might be scrutinized by a higher level, and just the possibility of this will incite the caseworker to do his work best possible.

Does a field agent wrongly aim his report too high in the organization the following evaluation might result in the field agent having to pay a fine because he misjudged the situation.

One might think that this system will result in the processing of too much information, but it is only the information which has been paid for to transgress the ordinary reporting procedures that is scrutinized. A further reduction can be obtained if either the field agent or the receiver of the report subsequently has specifically to ask for an economic evaluation.

As demonstrated with the above example it is not only the exchange of ideas that can be optimized by the implementation of A Market for Ideas, the system has the potential of a general optimization of the information flow in larger organizations.

Whereas other software products “just” generate income by the sale of the product and perhaps by servicing the product, A Market for Ideas will also generate income through the running of the Clearing Body. One of the dynamic mechanisms of the Clearing Body is to obtain a small percentage of the royalty generated by successful ideas. The firm (or department) managing the Clearing Body function can receive a micro payment every time an idea is cleared. Provided many transactions take place, such micro payments might generate a big income.

In small newly started firms it is the closeness between the top and the bottom of the firm which ensures that the creative individuals are credited for their extraordinary achievements, the result is a positive spiralling effect. A Market for Ideas ensures that creative and dynamic individuals in large firms and corporations are likewise rewarded and credited for their achievements.

A Market for Ideas is founded on the fundamental human drive to optimize every living situation, and it is the effective utilization of this fundamental human quality that makes it possible to fulfil the claim that large organizations by implementing the above described system can be made as efficient, dynamic and creative as only small newly started firms are today.

The present and the "near" future

If we regard the present and the immediate future on the basis of this book's theoretical framework it is important to bear in mind that, due to the dynamic interplay between a society´s material base and its superstructure, in reality it is not possible to omit any of the developmental stages. On the other hand, by understanding the societal dynamics involved, it is possible to accelerate the developmental process concerned so that the categorial stages are traversed much quicker than would have been the case were it merely a question of spontaneous development.

                             We must also realize that as good as almost all nation states differ as regards their societal development. No serious comparison of the societal elements in different nation states is in fact possible until we are aware of the developmental standpoints of the nation states concerned.

The developing countries

As previously mentioned, the developing countries are to be found on levels in which their societal structures are influenced both by agrarian‑categorial developed areas and trading‑categorial developed towns. And while most of the developing countries' governments naturally aim to raise the agriculturally developed areas onto the trading-categorial level, this is a long and tough process stretching over several generations.

                             Since people are not generally aware that the infrastructure of a developing country is in reality based on two different categorial levels, such countries are thought of as homogenous structures capable of functioning democratically according to the same principles as the one‑vote‑per‑citizen political systems of the industrialized countries. The unfortunate result of the misinterpretation of such dual categorial structures is that the urban structures are in reality dragged down onto the lower societal structural level of the nation as a whole.

                             In countless cases it has turned out that, regardless of their political ambitions, visions and intentions, developing countries that introduce democracy after having been liberated from colonial masters inevitably end up with a totalitarian form of government.

                             As mentioned, each nation state is on its own specific and unique developmental level, and as far as the developing countries are concerned it is always a question of an equilibrium between agrarian‑categorial and trading‑categorial forces.

                             In some African countries, for example, where the tribal system is still prevalent, the development of the respective nation states is still at a level on which it even can be difficult to keep the country together and assemble the power in the hands of an autocratic leader. Other developing countries have relatively stable systems of government based on autocratic leadership, while still others have even reached the stage where the trading‑categorial structure is about to get the upper hand and an oligarchical system of government has been introduced.

For those readers who are not content with such theoretical elaborations as given above, I can refer to the factual historical development of Denmark. A development which has brought Denmark from a purely agricultural society less than 300 years ago to one of the richest and highest developed countries today. This development has taken place without other internal recourses than arable land and the dynamic development of the citizens!

A problem societies are always confronted with when they approach the trading‑categorial level, throughout history and also today, is the difficulty in achieving a smooth and harmonious transition from the superstructural forms of the agrarian to those of the trading category.

                             Because of the previous lack of understanding of the internal dynamics of the societal processes the autocratic leaders of the agrarian‑categorial superstructure are in fact unable to relinquish their power gradually as the country concerned matures, but are forced with their supporters to continue the more and more repressive use of power in order not to be eliminated themselves - until finally the structure breaks down altogether and is replaced by a new trading‑categorial structure. But it may take as much as half a century or more of revolts, changing rulers and social and economic instability until true democratic forms of government gain the upper hand, as was the case with e.g. France.

                             We must remember that the democratic system of government we know in the industrialized countries is simply the final stage of the trading‑categorial superstructure´s governmental development, which, as mentioned before, passes through oligarchical systems of government via selective forms of democracy to the form of democracy characterized by one‑vote‑per‑citizen - nowadays somewhat misleadingly regarded as the only form of democracy.

                             Ever since the French Revolution our political consciousness has been focused on a misleading conception of the concepts of freedom, equality and brotherhood. It is characteristic of the epoch during which these concepts became recognized, that they were launched by the bourgeoisie - in order to entice the lower classes into revolting against feudal society. But as soon as the revolution was over, the bourgeoisie in power showed no particular interest in establishing freedom, equality and brotherhood in practice.

                             If we realize that the developing countries comprise both agrarian‑categorial and trading‑categorial elements, and that the development from the agrarian‑categorial to the trading‑categorial structure ideally passes through various stages, the possibility arises in future of ensuring a smooth and harmonious transition from totalitarian systems of government to the type of government we are familiar with in the highly developed industrialized countries. Both the realization of this, and its possible implementation are bound to meet with massive ideological resistance, however, because they constitute a revolt against the ideological currents that have been prevalent ever since the French Revolution.

                             Realizing that democracy has traversed several developmental stages - from the oligarchical to the one‑vote‑per‑citizen representative democracy, it could be expedient as regards the developing countries to implement a system whereby all citizens basically have one vote but where all registered town‑dwellers have an extra vote. Furthermore, all persons with a degree of economic responsibility, such as heads of villages and leaders of firms, should have yet another vote, while additional extra votes should be given in accordance with the persons´ educational level. By allotting extra votes according to economic and educational criteria a gradual transition towards real democracy is ensured step by step with the development and expansion of the economy and the educational level of the citizens.

                             The criteria for awarding extra votes are naturally subjective, but the greater the insight as regards the categorial make‑up of the respective developing country, the easier it will be to establish guidelines for awarding such votes.

                             As already mentioned, political structures such as these risk instantly being branded as unreasonable and unjust. But those who pronounce such judgments forget that in countries whose material basis has not fully reached the trading‑categorial level, the ideal challenge - one‑vote‑per‑citizen democracy - has always led to social imbalance and political and economic recessions, instead of the democracy everyone dreams about. In such cases totalitarian de facto systems of government inevitably arise, and a harmonious and gradual transition to democracy as we know it becomes impossible.

                             If we know the true categorial developmental status of a developing country and a political system of government to correspond with it is introduced, it becomes possible to avoid such imbalances and political catastrophes as, for example, occurred in China during the first half of 1989, when students and city‑dwellers revolted against the undemocratic and corrupt forms of leadership. The Chinese cities must presumably be ripe for trading‑categorial forms of government, but since 75% of China's population (800,000,000 people!) live in areas that are still on the agrarian‑categorial level, it is unrealistic to believe that it is possible to switch instantly to one‑vote‑per‑citizen democracy in China without incurring even greater political, economic and social catastrophes than those we have hitherto witnessed.

                             As previously mentioned, the USSR consisted of republics on widely different levels of development. Thus it is extremely unrealistic of us in Western Europe and the USA to expect the former USSR republics to introduce our form of democracy at this stage. In nations consisting of republics and regions at such radically different levels of development as is the case with the former USSR republics, a centralistic and dictatorial system of government will be the result for quite some time, in so far as a model of the type sketched above - with its gradual development of democracy - is not used.

                             If the above type of developmental model is used in the present Russian republics, each separate republic will acquire a system of government corresponding to its own specific level and may be represented in a federal government according to their (economic and commercial) importance for the federation as a whole. A gradual development of democracy of this type would avoid the otherwise enevitable repression of republics or splitting up of that vast country.

As long as a societal superstructure continues to be influenced by agrarian‑categorial elements it will slow down the development of the trading‑categorial elements. Such phenomena as corruption, bribery and misuse of office are sure signs that the trading‑categorial societal structure is not functioning optimally.

                             We in the industrialized countries can ask ourselves what we can do to optimize the conditions for the developing countries. Fortunately, my impression is that the realization that it is morally and politically justifiable for the industrialized countries to impose political and economic conditions on the developing countries - by way of international organizations - in return for giving economic and humanitarian aid is already becoming widespread.

                             Just as nation states can be kept at a low level of development if they are closely linked to an only  moderately developed great power, as was the case until recently with the Eastern European countries and the USSR, the highly developed industrialized countries can effect the opposite, and help the developing countries by forming closer links with them. And setting economic and societal conditions for their acceptance as full partners.

                             In so far as these initiatives are made through international organizations, such as has already been the case to a modest extent with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, this will help to stabilize and raise the political and economic levels of the developing countries. In that context it is interesting  to note that the very principles of voting I have advocated in the previous pages are in fact used in those international bodies, where each nation gets votes according to their economic contribution to the system.

In this description I have focused on the systems of government in the developing countries, but the political element is naturally only one aspect of the societal superstructure.

The industrialized countries

Even though industrialized countries also differ as regards their developmental level, they are nevertheless all to be found 100% on the trading‑categorial level. Furthermore, as far as the older industrialized countries are concerned, despite their differences these are all to be found in the trading category´s monopolistic phase, so in this respect it is reasonable to regard them as a whole.

                             Prallel to the situation in which the old industrial countries  are today, there are throughout history countless other examples of city states and nation states that were on the monopolistic level of the trading category. It is characteristic of this level that the possibilities for societal development are limited, and that societal intercourse becomes encumbered with more and more laws and regulations. Such societies become rigid and unwieldy as a result, and at some point or other such stagnant societies are overtaken by competitors.

                             Now, as in the past, a stagnant society can delay this tendency in two ways, one of which is to dominate or even eliminate its competitors by military force, while the other strategy is to integrate with the competitors and create one single greater structure.

                             We must remember that democracy ‑ the trading‑categorial governmental structure ‑ is a natural product of a society's production basis. If, however, the military "solution" is chosen a society's governmental structures will shift from reflecting the interests and motivations of the economic and trade‑categorial elements and become an instrument for the military power‑complex, until such time as the trading‑categorial basis is so weak and the societal infrastructure so lopsided and corrupt that influences coming from without can cause the society to break down altogether.

                             The other way of impeding the development of a society's monopolistic phase is, as mentioned, to integrate the competitors and their markets within a bigger, composite structure. When such, lesser developed competitors are integrated with the above‑mentioned monopolistically developed trade‑categorial structure, the original structure (city state, nation state or trading block), will continue to have only a modest rate of growth within the new expanded structure, but stagnation or a direct recession will be prevented. After the merger in question, the new bigger structure, with common rules and mechanisms for economic equalisation,  will as a whole develope both quicker and more harmoniously.

                             The Roman Empire is a good example of a state which ended by losing its roots in the trading‑categorial production basis when it degenerated into a military fascist‑type power, in order finally to break down altogether after most production and commerce had moved out of Rome into the provinces and Rome was left solely as the centre of power and administration.

                             Denmark's integration in the European Community today is an excellent example of "the integration model". On the basis of this theory, Denmark's societal structure (together with Sweden and Finland) continues to be slightly superior even to the other northern European Community members.  The other EC‑countries cannot understand why there is such great scepticism and so little enthusiasm in Denmark for the European Community. This is easy for the Danes to understand, however; they feel they have "paid" for economic stability and political security with a small though general drop in the standard of living and by the direct deterioration of parts of the social sector, and it is generally understood that "the Scandinavian model" will not have possibilities of developing much further before the other member countries including Portugal and Greece (and by now the eastern European countries too) have reached the Scandinavian level of societal development.

If we leave the developmental potential of the idea-category out of account and imagine that the present trading‑categorial dynamics alone will determine the future historical development of the world, we may expect the monopolization of the production forces to continue in the older industrialized countries, and this, among other things, will cause increasing social tension.

                             As is already the case, the developmental potential will gradually move from Europe and the USA to other continents. Thus although, on a global level, the level of development will continue to rise, other nations will take over the lead.

                             Although ideas, initiatives and capital will, as now, chiefly come from the older industrialized countries, this situation will only continue in so far as their societal structures continue to be the world´s most advanced. In the long run those initiatives will also be transferred to new productive‑force centres, as the infrastructures and societal superstructures of the latter develop. Thereafter, if no radical change of direction has yet taken place, the older industrialized countries will be compelled - as has happened so many times during the course of history - to attempt to control their internal societal tensions by force, and to maintain their leading global position by suppressing their competitors. This will lead to increased international instability, with the threat of major wars between the new and the old industrialized countries luring in the background ‑ Delenda est Carthago.

                             So long as the trading‑categorial structure continues to dominate, the only possibility the older industrialized countries have of retaining their leading position - apart from destabilizing their competitors by force - will be to encourage the developmental tendency within the international community to establish a true global market with a supranational superstructure and governmental functions.

In my opinion the establishment of a global governmental structure will only be possible within a relatively short space of time, i.e. during the period in which there is a near balance between the older industrialized countries´ need for renovation and stabilization and the new industrialized countries´ need for integration.

                             Whereas today there is an obvious imbalance in favour of the older industrialized countries, it will not be long, historically speaking, before the equilibrium is disturbed - in favour of the new industrialized countries. As soon as this occurs the latter will no longer have any motive to help to maintain the stability of the stagnant older industrialized countries, for these will no longer be the most important markets, and the tension between the two blocks will increase.

As has happened so many times before during the course of history, even though development as a whole automatically tends towards the creation of a global trading‑categorial market with a global societal superstructure, there may be several structural regressions before the development gets that far. In so far as the historical development is allowed to continue without effectively furthering global integration, a confrontation between old and new industrialized countries will be the consequence. And in the event of a Third World War caused by a confrontation between the old and the new industrialized countries, the military potential is now so overwhelming that after such a war it is an open question as to whether there will be any foundation at all on which to base the continued historical development.

                             It is unfortunately a realistic threat that nation states will mostly pursue the same path as hitherto and allow the inertia of history to determine the development. This will inevitably upset the global equilibrium to an increasing extent and lead to large‑scale armed conflicts - not ideological wars between the eastern and western blocks, as previously feared, but between the new and the old industrialized countries.

                             We must nevertheless hope that the old industrialized countries, not least the USA and the European Community will manage to accelerate the integration process - of the member nations, their markets and the newly industrialized countries - and to encourage the establishment of true supranational governmental organizations.

The industrialised countries and the fourth historical category

In the section entitled "The present day and the linear future" I based the point of departure on the theory of history detailed in this book, though without allowing for any developmental changes precipitated by the recognition of the fourth historical category. With the emergence of a fourth historical category, however, entirely new and constructive possibilities for the old industrialized countries and the world as a whole present themselves.

As previously mentioned, since it is not expedient to omit any developmental stage a new historical category will develop on the basis of the categorial structure preceding it. Thus it is the old industrialized countries - those that have attained the highest level of development within the trading category - that are now in a position to keep the lead in developing the new, fourth historical categorial structure.

                             It is recognised that it is important to enforce intellectual property rights world wide, but it is first when such rights are firmly established in an idea-categorial exchange system, where a considerable amount of the value are channelled to the idea originators and their home countries where the advanced ideas are created, that those advanced (old industrial) countries will be stabilised.

Taxation in the old industrialized countries is primarily based on the taxation of the individual citizens whereas firms, especially the big firms and multinationals, can avoid national taxation. When firms export the non-physical achievements (inventions, ideas and know how) of the advanced (old industrial) countries “duty free”. Those old industrial countries are deprived the important taxation revenues that should have financed their sophisticated infrastructures and further development.

As long as such an idea categorical system is not established, the value derived from intellectual property and ideas will bleed out of the advanced (old industrial countries) the same way as production and trade bleeded out of the mainland Greek city states to the newly established city states in Italy , Asia Minor and the Black Sea region. Or the same way Rome gradually declined because production and trade were lost to the provinces without fully integrating those provinces in the roman political system.

The slow rate of growth that faces the old industrialized countries, if the development continues solely to be trading‑categorial, does now have a chance of being converted into a new and explosive idea‑categorial societal development where the old industrialized countries will continue to be in the lead.

                             If we consider how rapidly the industrialized countries have changed during the one to two centuries since they definitively transferred from the feudal‑agrarian to the trading-categorial level, we obtain a slight idea as to how explosive the unfolding of the new, fourth historical category might be.

The old industrialized countries, including the USA, are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of know‑how, service and intellectual property, and when it is widely acknowledged, that the establishment of a world government structure, organized on the basis of the idea category, will foster a stable historical development in which the old industrialized countries will continue to have the lead, there should be hope of a smooth non-violent transition to several hundred years of idea categorical global development and growth.

And so to work

T.S. Kuhn points out that a new scientific paradigm does not usually break through until a new generation of scientists takes over. So it is probably realistic to expect some elapse of time before the contents of this theory break through.

                             Until then, if we are to be able to make use of the resources in the best possible way, it would be an advantage to establish a central register of scientists who make use of the body of knowledge contained in this theory. I shall therefore invite all such people to send copies of any papers that build on this theory to:

Søren Hetland Basse

Røvej 24

3760 Gudhjem

Denmark



Bibliography

Since this manuscript in many ways represents a break with the usual approach to the subject, I have certain reservations as regards the sources given. The titles listed below should rather be seen as proposals for future reading in connection with various aspects of this work. In several cases I have chosen to list works I did not become acquainted with until after I had formulated my own standpoint. I have chosen to list them because they are more in accordance with my own approach than those I originally had at my disposal.

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