The Great Transition (1963)
The human race is now engaged in what I have called elsewhere "the Great Transition." I distinguish three major conditions of man: precivilized, civilized, and post-civilized. The Great Transition is that from civilization to post-civilized society, the beginnings of which we are seeing in the United States and some other countries. This is the real meaning of "economic development."
All transitions are based fundamental on an increase in knowledge. The transition from precivilized to civilized society rests on the acquisition of the knowledge of agriculture, which gives a food surplus, and of enough political organization to concentrate the food surplus in the cities. The transition to post-civilization is a result of the scientific revolution which got under way in the 17th and 18th centuries. We are still in the middle of this and the end is not in sight.
"The Horizons of Economic Knowledge and the Great Transition," Outline of a speech presented at Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin, January 15, 1963 (unpublished). Kenneth E. Boulding Papers, Archives (Box # 38), University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries.
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