Dr Hunout in La Hulpe, Belgium.

The Tripartite Model of Societal Change was elaborated in the years 1995-1996 by Dr. Patrick Hunout. This visionary model has been inspired both by his research and his social observation in the cities of Northern France. At the center of the model is the idea, firstly, that the development of society is dependent upon the policies of the ruling class, and secondly, that these policies intimately bind three fields: the flexible, globalized, profit-seeking economy — the immigration flows into industrial nations and their cultural identity — the personal behaviors and relationships within entities such as families, and communities.

This bond had never been perceived before, because these policies are determined and carried forward in an occult, undeclared way — and also because of conventional wisdom that separates public and private matters, the economy and the personal life, the leftwing and the rightwing.

These policies, the New Leviathan’s Policy as Dr. Hunout puts it, are basically similar in all industrial countries either in America, Europe or Asia. The following diagram presents their main features and their effects.

Forty years after the elaboration of the model, a growing number of observers and social actors recognize the role of the “elite” in social life and its impact over a wide range of issues including the increase of economic inequality, the crisis of mental health and personal relationships, and the vacillation of ethnic and cultural identity. Many became aware that the ’solutions’ of the elite irrigate the whole political spectrum and that carrying them forward is not the privilege of a particular side of the aisle. Hence the growing disappointment of those who had invested their hopes in politics and their growing aspiration to change politics for good.

Instead of carrying on policies that hinder or delay the economic development and waste societal resources, we recommend policies building a new, alternative community, social capital model. The third slide represents the main outlines of these new orientations, and the effects they would have if they would be systematically applied.