Spencer Heath Archive

Item 168

Pencil by Heath on 3-ring binder paper.

1951-52?

     Socionomy is the “theory or formulation of the organic laws exemplified in the organization and development of society” — Webster’s International Dictionary.

     This science presupposes that society is a special kind of organization being formed among men which, in the degree that it has developed, performs a specific function that is not otherwise nor by any prior form of organization or relationship achieved.

     This new and peculiar function of society is different from that performed by any other organized living thing. It is the progressive and continuous transformation of the environment in such manner that each succeeding generation lives richer and longer lives. This is in sharp contrast with all other forms of animal or human life. All other creatures, including men in any lesser and uncreative relationships, invariably make their habitat less habitable. Outer changes force changes in habits and behavior in both animals and men. Hence depletion of environment makes nomads of primitive men.

     A community is a place in which security of private possession springs from the manner in which it is held or obtained. So far as this is by open negotiation, as in a market, the possessor is secure. So far as his possession or dispossession is determined by force, whether his own or that of others, he is not secure. For the process of the market is the only arbitrament other than force and that to which all men give both assent and consent.

     Socionomy has to do with community-living men, for such alone can even begin to transform the environment in which they live. They do this by the practice of the societal relationship and rational process of contract and voluntary exchange in addition to their familial and bio­logical

     Socionomy discovers the evolution of this new relationship in community life, beginning with the contractual administration of sites and resources.