Once confined to a small group of writers and thinkers, the movement is now spawning think tanks and institutes around the world committed to systematically exploring its ideas and proposals, from the reintegration of community through alternative currency systems and socially responsible investing to visionary leadership based on participatory management and the principles of stewardship. Hubbard discusses the social potential movement against the backdrop of a broader visionary perspective on social and personal transformation. For example, the work of Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine has thrown new light on how open systems in nature are subject to constant fluctuations or perturbations, sudden shifts that allow for novelty and unpredictable change. The chief characteristic of these systems is that apparently random fluctuations inevitably culminate in a sudden shift in which the system's parts reorganize into a more complex pattern. Hubbard sees this process as a metaphor for the sort of change that lies in store for human civilization.
Social breakdowns are a lot like to the perturbations which precede a sudden whole-system shift.
The social potential movement has a key role to play during this transition by highlighting the social breakthroughs and innovations that signal the emergence of a more highly evolved global society. At bottom, Hubbard says, we need to rethink our standard approach to global problem-solving. This is an inspiring, if not always inspired, book. Hubbard brings together some of the most hopeful evidence that our culture is evolving in the right direction, but much of it is soft rather than hard data. For example, she gets a lot of mileage out of Paul Ray's assertion that there is a growing subculture in the United States, some 44 million strong, which embodies a new set of cultural values.