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In this way relationships change between individuals and the society, between the society and the environment, between the community and the economy, between consumption and resources. In this way, during a certain lapse of time, society modifies previous laws and finds solutions to problems, making the whole society move forward one level. The personal history of an individual is not very different from the history of society. In both cases the absence of problems marks amorphous periods, while crisis signals inventive periods. Primitive people, for example, were involved in hunting and began to work the land only to satisfy their pressing need for food. Lacking rational organization and planning, animals and eatable plants became more and more scarce; indiscriminate exploitation caused scarcity of resources which resulted in a crisis that forced them to try out new systems so that, little by little, agriculture and cooperation among villages replaced the system based on the individual and founded on hunting. The same occurred in other societies with different social organizations. Past history shows that big changes occurred not after the establishment of a situation of abundance, but as the consequence of dissipation of existing resources. Exactly as it happens today. In fact our twenty first century society is coming out of a period of extreme waste of resources and is entering a period of enormous scarcity. During the last 50 years the advanced masses of humanity have wasted large quantities of energy and resources at an insane rate, very often it has been useless consumption as an end in itself. Today we are, on the threshold of the third millenium, in a transitional period. Problems are overwhelming a humanity that finds it difficult to come up with a suitable solution.
(15:2)
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