Spencer Heath Archive

Item 258 

Taping by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath looking for some text for promoting CM&A. The resulting text and an amended version are given here.

No date

     By far the majority of the books in the world today are written only for the entertainment of their readers. However, there are also a great many books that stimulate or at least presuppose thought on the part of their readers. Yet even these almost invariably /are/ traditional, recombining and restating the old and time-worn conceptions of nature and of man and adding nothing new to them but what may have been already implied by their basic propositions. But every now and then a book such as this one appears that is fresh and novel in its approach, or at least in its appli­cation of old method to a new field. It considers a field where the existing knowledge, impractical and frustrating, has been thought complete, and discarding the present knowledge it sets out on a new method, a novum organum. This happened in the field of natural science during the Renaissance and again in physics fifty years ago.

     There are two features to successful new knowledge thus built up. It is derived from, rather than preconceived and imposed upon, the phenomena described, and it has a predictive power that lays the way for a practical, working technology, such a technology as has already developed in physics and is becoming more effective each day in biology.

     This book studies the organization of society as a whole in terms of the relationships between individuals. But it treats these relationships with the same objectivity and freedom from past thinking that has been used in nearly every other field.

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 Of all the books being written in the world, the vast majority are written for entertainment of their readers and for that alone. There are, however, a considerable number of books that stimulate or at least presuppose some intel­lectual reaction on the part of their readers. Of these nearly all are written from traditional points of view. They take old and time-worn conceptions of nature and of man, combining and recombining these traditions without any additions to them or with only such additions as are inherently implied in the maxims and concepts of the past. Once in a blue moon, however, a bold mind breaks with tradi­tion. It approaches a field in which the old knowledge, however impractical and frustrating, has-been thought to be perfect and complete. /It/ abandons traditional knowledge, sets out on a new method, a novum organum. This is what happened in natural science in the Renaissance period and the so-called Enlightenment, and again in the field of phy­sical science at the turn of the present century. There are two distinctive features of ideas so evolved. First, the ideas are derived from and not preconceived and sought to be imposed on the phenomena described. Second, this kind of knowledge invariably or at least eventually possesses a predictive power which gives rise to a thoroughly practical and dependable technology. This is conspicuous in the physical field and becomes almost daily more effective in the biological world.

The present work examines the organization of society in terms of the relationships existing among its indivi­duals. What is novel about it is that it examines these relationships with the same objectivity and freedom from traditional conceptions (and misconceptions) employed by nearly if not all of its predecessors in other fields. It thus points out the operative relationships, the practical functioning of men and institutions much as natural science understands and employs the operations of nature.

The result is that it lays foundation for an operative technology in the social field corresponding in all essential respects with scientific technology in the natural field. This correspondence includes an important feature of ________ engineering always taken for granted though seldom considered or observed. The technology of natural science has to do with non-living or at least non-human relationships. At no point does its application involve (at least not neces­sarily) any impact of one human will upon another. It deals only with spontaneous relationships among men resulting from mutual inclinations among men. Hence its technology employs none but such relationships. It defines these as societal, or social, and classes all others as political and coercive, thus having no part in the organic functioning of society but rather a hindrance to it. The problem presented (if you want to use that term) is how to extend the field of contractual relationships into the field of domination by force. Strange as it may seem, a field of business organization so long viewed askance by the so-called social sciences is found to practice exclusively the processes by which society evolves — a conclusion as bold and unique and unconventional as the thinking that leads to it.