In this book I want to show that reason is misleading us here. What seems to be absurd, is, in fact, reality. We are stuck in old conventional thinking patterns. What our senses and our brain want to make us believe is in many respects illusory.

In biology, but also in economy, we have overlooked the very obvious connection of both areas until the present. All animals, all plants, all human working structures and all acquisitive enterprises have the same main orientation, the same vital backbone, so to speak. However different they may look, they are all geared to enhancing their energy potential. Their existence stands or falls with this specific activity. Only if they succeed in achieving an energy outcome which on average is favourable, are they able to last. They have to win more exploitable energy than they spend while working. If they have a balance of deficit, they may be able to maintain themselves through their reserves or by consuming their own structure, but if the deficit persists they will disintegrate themselves. This goes for every worm as well as every locomotive factory, for every bacterium as well as for a bank robber.

Without energy there is no movement, no progress, not even for a thousandth of a second. Without energy there is no development or maintenance of any structure, no growth and no procreation.

In the end no physicist has yet been able to say what energy is. We do not have the smallest clue about the nature of energy. According to the view of the world of modern nuclear physics everything leads ultimately to energy... Energy is the root of all phenomena.

Energy is extremely transformable. It manifests itself as heat, as kinetic energy, as electricity and as chemical energy. Further manifestations are magnetism, gravitation, nuclear energy and energy of stationary mass. Every single one of these forms of energy can be transformed into any other, and we are now able to measure all of them. Units of energy measurement are among others ergs, calories, horse-power hours, electron volts, watt-seconds. Each one of these measures can be converted into the others. But what this extremely flexible phenomenon which is being measured here actually is, we do not know¹.

It is not only that animals and plants as well as economy structures created by mankind have to win on average more energy than they spend while winning it, but they also have to be competitive. In the realm of organisms as well as in business life monopolies are hard to achieve and maintain. Almost always there are several candidates claiming a specific source of income. The consequence is that competition between these claimants decides who survives and who doesn’t.

Now, which distinctive features are the basis for this characteristic which we call "competitiveness"? And are these features different for plants and animals than for human economy structures, or are they the same? Is it possible to measure them?

In animals and plants we find "individuals" and "species". Specific individuals may perish through competition or environmental impact, but that does not mean that their species become extinct as well. Small fir-trees die continuously, and gazelles perish, but their species last: as very specific structures in space and time not only capable of a acquisitive activity, but also of competitiveness. It is only when the environment changes in such a way that the type of structure cannot achieve a favourable energy balance, that the species is not able to survive: it "perishes". In evolution this has happened over and over again.

Also in this respect the same happens in human economy structures. Here too it is possible to distinguish between the type of gaining activity on the one hand and the working individual on the other. Here too a working person may lose his employment or a company may go to the wall, but the specific type of enterprise or profession will not disappear because of that. Here also we have structures in space and time which are competitive and capable of acquisitive activity within a certain environment. If these environmental factors change – specifically the productivity of the source of income - then these structures are doomed. It has happened in the course of human history that specific types of professions and enterprises have disappeared as well.

As there is no common name for energy gaining systems, I call each one of them an "energon". These energons are consequently not defined by a specific appearance, but rather by a specific effect.

In this book I avoid the word "system" because it is used in a different sense and therefore liable to be misunderstood. In natural science it is quite customary to denote living creatures as systems - as "living systems". In economy, however, we denote the higher political-economical construction as a system, and not the individual economy structure. There we speak about planned economy or market economy "systems", but no one would think of calling a goldsmith with his professional tools and other accessories or even an opera singer a "system". Recently cybernetics have also started having their impact in business management, but they have not got as far as smaller, simpler economy structures. The new notion "energon" bridges this gap.

Every energon is a "structure" which is based on the division of labour. It consists of functional units which achieve a favourable energy balance because they work together. In higher plants and animals these subordinate units are tissues and organs. Where a working person is concerned, apart from the natural organs in his body, artificially created units (tools, equipment and similar things) are added. In companies consisting of numerous professional structures, these subordinate units are employees, machines, equipment, departments etc. The essential point is that in any case it is not actually the appearance of these units that matters or the way they function – but rather the achieved effect.

A man from the business world is more familiar with this way of looking at things than a biologist. In companies it happens quite often that certain tasks can be carried out by a human being as well as by a machine. And frequently very different procedures can lead to the same desired result. So, the structure of a subordinate unit and type of activity are merely of secondary importance. Only the effect and the expenditure are of primary importance. These two factors are the only ones which have an impact on the balance. Seen in this light, human acquisitive entities in the end do not only consist of material units, but also of effects. They are effect-structures.

In animals and plants the different parts are not freely interchangeable. Therefore we are used to looking at these bodies in a different way than we do with companies. But also here the appearance of the subordinate units or how they function is not really essential – it is their effect and the energy expenditure which comes with the effect. As was previously pointed out, the same result is achieved in very different ways. The echinoderms alone ( starfish, sea-urchins) have produced no less than five different types of respiratory organs. Some breathe through dimples in the abdominal wall into the abdominal cavity, others through gills close to their oral aperture, yet others through lung-like formations in their anus. What is only essential here is that the organisms receive the required amount of gas – how this happens in detail is of lesser importance. Consequently, very different procedures can lead to the same result. In arid regions for example, it is of vital importance to store water. The toad which lives in the Australian prairies by the name of Chiroleptes platycephalus stores water in its bladder, in its lymph cavities under its skin and in the abdominal cavity – it swells like a sphere, digs itself 30 centimetres into the earth, and thus it can survive a dry season. The camel, on the other hand, carries a supply of fat in its humps and wins it through chemical breakdown. 30 Kilos of fat produce about 32 litres of water. Here we see again how by means of different procedures the same results are achieved. In the end, the only thing that is essential is the effect.

Consequently, animals and plants also are effect-structures.

When we consider human acquisitive structures to be so entirely different from plant and animal bodies, this is mainly due to three aspects: their components consist to a large extent in non-organic material (for example machines); they are not grown together; and they are of a completely different origin.

I will try to show that these differences are not fundamental. The term energon is more than a mere concept. It shows connections over which the term "living creature" – which was transferred from generation to the next without thinking – has drawn a veil.

I will show that the structure of all energons – necessarily – is set up according to the same laws and that the competitiveness, which is so decisive, for all of them is based on the same principles. These are not metaphysical, mystical ideas, but concretely measurable connections².

Also governmental institutions, as I will show, are energons – or parts of it. Their structure, however, is more difficult to understand. Therefore we will only look at them towards the end of this book.

However, I do not only assert that plants, animals, human acquisitive entities and governmental institutions have a common structure which until now has remained hidden to us, but I will prove that all these energons are related through tribal affinity. Until now we have been convinced that, for the time being, humankind is the peak of the evolution of organisms, i.e. that we are a kind of end, if not goal, of organismic development, "the culmination of creation". Evolution has developed beyond humankind a long time ago. It continues in the professional entities, business organisations and governmental institutions – in which humankind is only a kind of controlling germ cell.

That is the starting point of the ideas that are to be presented here. The energon theory is at its centre.

In the first part of the book I will specify my definition of the term energon and give an overall view of all books which deal with similar topics. Then follow the principle arguments of my theories as well as an overall view of the acquisitive forms of the energons and their evolution.

At the centre of the second and third part there stands the question whether competitiveness can be measured. At first the factors having an effect from outside, and then the problems arising within each energon. The fourth part is about the development as a whole. There I try to describe the state of the art of our present economic and political situation.

It is certainly problematic to connect the presentation of a theory immediately with its practical application for problems in the present. A theory may be right, but its application may be wrong, then the theory suffers from this application. On the other hand, critics, even when they give a very short summary of this book, may try to apply it. Therefore I think that I can just as well do it myself.

Konrad Lorenz once said that the elements of a whole can only be understood all at once, or not at all: in my work I was confronted with this problem. The concept of the energon induces a radically different way of looking at the habitual, and therefore it is difficult to start with the presentation at some other end. I have tried to put the material into order; this, however, means that I cannot respond immediately to every objection. Apart from this, the scope of the discussed field rather large and therefore some of what is squeezed into one chapter actually should be discussed more extensively or should actually be presented in a book of its own. Above all it seems important to me, however, to give an overall view of my theories and their most relevant consequences.

My research was accomplished in a period of more than ten years. Therefore I cannot list the names of all helpers. Here I would like to express my gratitude to all of them again.

In the area of business management and national economy, fields which are largely alien to a biologist, specifically the presentation by Sombart, Nichlisch and Gutenberg was most useful to me. In political science I mainly followed the works of Gierke, Kelsen, Jellinek and Krüger. For valuable information and corrections I am obliged to H. Lexa of the Institute for Industrial Business Management, and R. Reim of the Institute of Political Economy, both at the University of International Economy in Vienna. In the area of physics I was helped by H. Thirring and by G. Ecker, in the area of physical chemistry by E. Broda. In my own field, zoology, I specifically thank W. Kühnelt, W. Marinelli and F. Schaller of the Uiversity of Vienna and G. Steiner from Heidelberg for his critics and information. Continuous inspiration, especially in the area of behaviour research, was given to me by my friend of many years I. Eibl-Eibelsfeldt. In botany I owe thanks to A. Biebl, B. Gessner, F. Knoll and H. Mohr as well as L. Burian.

Research, specially in the historical field, was actively done for me by Mrs. M. Windisch-Graetz. I have to thank my friend Fritz Molden for agreeing to give me considerable means in order to obtain information and for having so much patience, even though he received the script many years later than originally planned. The drawings were made by Kurt Röschl.
 
 

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Comments:

¹ See appendix V.
² I want to point out that the affinities which is shown here do not fit into the alternative homologous – analogous. This evaluation scheme, which dominates in biology at present, is losing importance; much less obvious connections are at stake.