Abstract

A society or a culture can be observed from sociological, economic, geographic, historical, political, and other viewpoints. Each viewpoint introducs a system and presents part of the properties of the object under consideration. To come closer to holism, one needs to link a set of viewpoints into a system of interdependent viewpoints which I call a "dialectical system" ("dialectics" being the antique Greek word for "interdependence", which is a Latin word).

The development phases since preindustrial times (from early industrialization to labor-intensive industry to technology intensive industry to science and innovation intensive industry) have quite distinct properties in terms of culture and societal organization. The types of market (from a random market to producers predominance to buyers predominance to government-supported buyers predominance) have very distinct relations and cultural properties. The attitude toward innovation is especially interesting. The processes of evolution from a preindustrial stage of development toward a modern society culminates in visible breaks, qualitative changes, or revolutions about every 70 years. I call these periods two generation cycles.

The effect of giving free reign to innovation in some countries has been dramatic. In the 1870s the difference in per capita income between the richest and poorest countries was 3 to 1. In the 1970s it was 150 to 1, and in 1995 it was 400 to 1. (World Bank data)
 

Biography

Matjaz Mulej is a professor of systems and innovation theory at the School of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia. He is a former dean and vice-rector of the University. He is the author of Dialectical Systems Theory and The Theory of Innovative Business (applied to transitional societies). He is a leading theorist on the transition from authoritarian, centrally planned societies to democratic, free market societies.