| Sumario: | A comprehensive theory of social development is needed that treats human beings as the center of the development process and integrates all its economic, political, social, and cultural factors. Drawing a wide range of intriguing parallels with biological evolution, the authors describe the central role of organization in social development; “surplus human energy” as both condition and fuel for the process; the role of conscious individual pioneers who express subconscious social aspirations; imitation as the mechanism for social diffusion; information flows that serve as catalysts for new things to do and new ways to do old things; and laws, policies and formal systems as way-stations on the road to internalized values and informal social organizations. The primary resource and ultimate determinant of development is the individual human being's unlimited capacity for creativity and resourcefulness. Extending greater freedom of choice to its individual citizens is the central mechanism by which society can tap and release this infinite resource for the collective benefit. Copyright 1999, Pergamon Press Ltd.
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