Позитивные изменения. Тематический выпуск «Экономика будущего» (2023). Positive changes. Special issue «The economy of the future» (2023)

At each level, the individual and the society achieve a greater degree of development, improving quality of life in all aspects. These levels are hierarchical in relation to one another – each higher encompasses and defines all lower levels. During the historical period known to us, the humankind has consistently climbed up the lower four levels of life, passing the corresponding events, achieving the corresponding accomplishments, surviving the corresponding crises, which are especially acute in the transitions between the levels. The economy developed accordingly. Of course, the society is heterogeneous, and its different parts may be standing at different development levels, so the measurement should be made by the highest level reached by a significant part of the society. The global society is currently mastering the 4th level of life, and will soon have to transition to the 5th level. This is the current stage of life and the corresponding challenge of the times for all people and the society.

Table 1. The general matrix of life

There is a fundamental difference between the lower four and upper four levels of life. It is the difference between the tangible and intangible, which means a radical transformation of the pivot point around which all of life is built. In the lower half of the matrix (the first four levels), everything is built around financial prosperity; that is, the humans are busy setting up their lives, gathering things around them. The upper half (the top four levels), however, is built around the intangible component of life, the humans’ non-physical nature. Here we must note that during the entire passing epoch, the human society’s attention and efforts were focused not on the humans themselves, but beyond them. Respectively, we know nothing about the humans’ intangible nature, about who they are in reality.

The period we are living in today is a transition from the lower half to the upper half of the matrix of life – from level 4 to level 5 and above. All the events, including the crises, that are happening in every person’s life as much as in the life of the entire society, shall be viewed through the prism and logic of this transition.

The transition from tangible to intangible, as in fact any significant transition, cannot happen overnight; it takes creating a projection of the current level and moving it to the next one, that is, a representation of the new level through elements of the old. This is to some extent a virtual construct, representing the nonexistent through the existing materials. It is always a distortion of reality, a kind of “fake simile” (largely idealistic) of what is coming. In this case, it is an important stage of transition, and generally, it should certainly be considered as something positive and constructive, compared to the existing level. But the transition to the level that is greater evolution-wise will only occur once this idealistic “fake simile” of the reality is torn down. The above can be considered a model for both individual and collective transition.

In the short run, this intermediate stop will be the most urgent and relevant for the humankind – the transition from the material present to an idealistic future (in the good sense of the word), where all the best qualities of the concept of the human developed in the contest of the current era, that is, all its superior qualities, will be revealed and integrated into the social life.