ABSTRACT
From Towards a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (1995):
We live in a period of great change, some would even say of paradigmatic transition or movement from one epoch to another. Technology
and science move at ever faster rates, personified by genetics and computing. Economically, many affluent countries of the North are moving into post-industrialism; materially poor countries of the South with vast populations, like China and India, are entering a phase of rapid and massive industrialisation and economic growth; while all countries are affected by changes in production, capital and employment. Markets are opened up and competition intensifies. Cities in the Majority World are growing rapidly, as people flood to them in search of work and a better life. Politically, the Soviet empire has crumbled leaving the United States as the only world super-power; while the European Union, which in Europe at least has revolutionised relationships between nation states, is at the time of writing about to make a great and peaceful expansion east and south.
