If we look carefully, throughout history the West has always adhered to the first position; the second position was held by Russia and certain parts of the East and South. In most cases, the centers of power within society remained relatively unchanged, despite the presence of followers for both models in various regions. Although isolated parts of the global society attempted to adopt alternative perspectives repeatedly over the course of history, the deeply entrenched stereotypes associated with their respective worldviews endured. Consequently, these attempts often proved temporary, ultimately reversing to the established order. Nonetheless, they served as valuable lessons, providing insights and knowledge that proved beneficial in many ways.
How can we solve this conflict? Is there a way to reconcile the parties, or does one opponent have to beat the other? Who is right? What model is better? To answer these questions properly, we must first understand the logic of life in general and the logic of its development process.
To this end, it is only fair to remember the general matrix of life applicable to the development of the humans and the society, which contains a sequence of levels that must be mastered step by step, from the bottom up (see Table 1).
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 societys 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 persons 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.
Looking at this intermediate point from the viewpoint of todays regular societal constructs (including the economy as a mechanism of human interaction), we can say that intangible aspects of life will prevail compared to the tangible ones. Education, management, culture, science, philosophy, religion, all aspects of information handling (sorting, analysis, synthesis, presentation), as well as general knowledge, morality, human relations will become more and more dominant, increasingly important and crucial in relation to the areas of material production, provision with tangible resources, physical security, etc. Among other things, these and other purely material spheres will be transformed into the mixed tangible-intangible form, integrating the missing modules, acquiring intangible meanings and contexts. The society will realize the primacy of intangible spheres over tangible ones, whether applied to a single individual or to the entire society that is, the value, the context, the individual and societal benefit of a certain activity will be more important than the activity itself and its results in the form of tangible products and financial profits. There will be a shift in focus from the production and possession of things, and the provision of the necessary and desirable items to the person themselves, the way they are in terms of their qualities and competencies. Everything will follow this formula: Everything that works for human development, in the sense of developing human qualities and competencies, is good; everything that does not work for human development or works for human degradation is bad. The realization will come that a society of developed people has no place for mess and disorder, including in regard to any material spheres and the economy in particular. The economy, politics, science, education, security, and all other areas are secondary to the individual. A developed individual means every sphere, including the realm of material, is developed.
Accordingly, the entire economy, at this intermediate point of idealistic intangible in the development of the human society, will be fast-tracked to what can be defined as the implementation of positive social impact, where the humans and the society represent both subjects and objects of impact, developing human qualities and competencies at the individual level and at the level of the entire society. The economy of the near future is an economy of positive social interchange, where everyone without exception will contribute every person, every enterprise, institution, industry, sphere, state, etc. everyone will create a positive social impact that becomes a common measure for all. This is in fact what we can call a human-centered economy and a human-centered society, where a person is not an object to be provided, equipped and complemented from the outside by the society or the state, acting essentially as a consumer who is owed by everyone. Instead, it is the person developing as a subject, the starting point of everything, who has the primary qualities and competencies to perform any activity, who has the primary initiative to decide to act and who has chosen voluntarily to be creative for the benefit of themselves and the others, and whose development as a subject is the ultimate goal of their actions and the actions of the entire society.