Primary to understanding the necessity for the evolution of societies, democracies, politics, and economies is to understand the “original cause” of social change that is everywhere around us. Causes of the incessant social, political, and economic changes that erupted in the 1800s and 1900s are the same causes that push social change today — fueled by our individual yearning for a better quality of life, to grow into the innate potential that we brought into life, and to equally enjoy an improving quality of life and to grow into our innate potential as anyone else. Those values, today, as then, are always waiting for opportunities to come into expression.
The motive power behind SOCIAL change. What we define as social change is the collective movement of vast numbers of people who are striving to satisfy their evolving personal interpretations of the values that have sustained our species. Those personal interpreted values provide the basis for an evolving hierarchy of needs described by Dr. Abraham Maslow.
Dr. Maslow stated that as basic human needs are fulfilled more evolved needs become apparent to form a hierarchy of needs. Our hierarchy of needs evolve as our interpretations of our innate values evolve — we are still using the same value system as our ancestors did tens of thousands of years ago, but we interpret them in new ways. Collectively, as individuals improve the quality of their life and grow into their innate potential as others do, they create social change through their “demand” for new avenues and new means to fulfill their evolving needs. Perceptive marketers strive to be in touch and in tune with the “demand” of the public to assess any changes in the market for the potential of new services and products.
While individual interpretations of the three primary values of social sustainability may vary wildly from one person to the next, vast numbers of people provide slow-moving, ongoing trends that stabilize the movement of a society over time. Social instability occurs when vast numbers of people sense that their ability to satisfy their needs is being threatened; and occurs rapidly and violently when they simultaneously sense that their ability is imminently threatened and there is no hope of preventing the threat.
”Everything is fine.”13 It is not surprising that most people in mature democracies assume that “everything is fine.” “Everything is fine” is assumed in the almost invisible slow creep of social change by most people who are easily distracted by the immediate events in their personal life. Yet in only five decades, the macro-scale of social change in the United States has been immense. Its only evidence is how uncomfortable citizens feel with “the way things are” in Washington, D.C., other national capitals, and in their state and provincial capitals. When large numbers of the public sense and wake up and see that everything is NOT FINE, then social, political, and economic panic can cause rapid, large scale disruptions.
The motive power behind POLITICAL change. As vast numbers of the public sense that their current political processes do not support an improving quality of life for them, and do not promote the individual to grow into their potential, or support them to do both, those vast numbers become less and less satisfied with the status quo. In a democracy, citizens are used to exercising their right of self-determination in all things that affect them, including their government. They yearn for a return to the quality relationship their great grandparents had with their elected and appointed public executives.
13 Bohm, David 2004 On Dialogue: 68.