ivilized communities. In all civilizations
exploitation has been the rule; the exploitation of nature, of labor
power and of the social fabric.

The record of natural resources exploitation is well known. Paul Sears'
_Deserts on the March_; Fairfield Osborn's _Our Plundered Planet_;
William Vogt's _Road to Survival_, and Rachel Carson's _Silent Spring_
tell the story of the misuse and the extravagant abuse of nature. The
record of labor power exploitation is less publicized.

Food gatherers like the North American Indians had no machinery and a
minimum of implements or weapons. They migrated with the weather and the
available game, traveling with their possessions. Herdsmen also moved
about in search of pasture. Land workers faced four new problems. They
must stay with their land and make a weather-proof habitat in dwellings
and villages. They must make the implements needed for farming, building
and defense against marauders. They must accumulate and preserve enough
food to carry them from one harvest to the next. They must improve and
beautify their artifacts and constructs. Traders added a fifth
must--they must produce and accumulate stocks to meet the needs of
various customers as well as their own greed for profits.

Successive stages, from food gathering to trading and manufacturing,
required more energy--human energy, animal energy, and eventually
mechanical energy. Part of this energy enabled humans to survive,
another part enabled them to multiply. Still another part made it
possible for one portion of the population to live without productive
work on the work output of their fellow creatures. This exploiting
minority was headed by land owners, soldiers and priests.

Landowners built themselves and their dependents strong houses and
castles. Much of the labor power that went into this construction was
"forced." The laborer gave the landlord labor time in exchange for the
privilege of working part of the land for his own support. Soldiers
defended the landlord and joined plundering forays on the territory of
neighbors. The priests, in exchange for sustenance, mollified "higher
powers" and built temples in which the people could gather, worship and
be admonished.

Farsighted, energetic, resourceful men (and women), using mass
productive energy, built themselves castles, built their priests temples
and mobilized serfs, war captives and slaves who worked in gangs for
generations and centuries to assemble the r