Analyzing Current Challenges in the Mirror of the Past: The Two-Step Nature of Modernity and What We Learn from It

Global social problems as terror, migration, crises, and increasing inequalities resemble those of the early 20th century. This parallel can be understood analytically resulting from two steps to modernity. Modernity is understood here analytically as the introduction of principles as rationality and deliberation that result from the modern growth process. First and second modernity are the two transitions when these principles are introduced first around and later within organizations. And problems arise each in the stage when organizations already follow these principles while macro-social institutions do not yet offer an appropriate framework. This perspective allows to understand what changes are to be expected for the next two decades, parallel to the institutional changes that distinguished the functioning industrial society in 1950 from the state of crisis in 1930.