or nations and continents is a new
experiment on the planet earth. Heretofore there have been small
groups--families, tribes and sects--that have adopted and followed
cooperation as a way of life, but widespread planned cooperation on a
national or continental scale is a novelty.

As a result of these changes, conflict-torn and fragmenting western
civilization found itself divided into three factional groups:

I. Corporate business organized domestically and internationally to
preserve and extend its wealth and power. Big business interests, their
dependents and backers were concentrated chiefly in West Europe and
North America. Their network of interests and controls was planet-wide.
Literally they were the backbone of western civilization.

II. Builders of socialism-communism, an alternative and rival life
pattern, have been concentrated in East Europe and Asia. The
socialists-communists occupied a minority position in most of the
countries dominated by big business. Their program called for the
replacement of capitalist competition and conflict by a cooperating,
planned, planet-wide society operated for service rather than for
profit.

III. A third segment, made up largely of nations and peoples located in
Africa, Asia and Latin America, who up to war's end in 1945 had been
colonies or dependencies of the big business directed empires. Since
1945 they have become increasingly independent and self-determining.

The three-fold division of the planet was determined in part by the
age-old ideas, principles and practices of civilized peoples during the
past six thousand years. In part, it was the outcome of the planet-wide
revolution of 1750-1970. It was likewise the result of the wars,
revolutions and independence movements that have upset and realigned the
world since 1776. Under the impact of these forces human society was
being unmade, re-examined and remade.

By comparison with its own beginnings and with its predecessors, western
civilization has made many changes in its political, economic and
sociological way of life. It has also developed national and regional
variants of its overall pattern.

Despite these changes, and with the possible exception of its very large
and significant socialist-communist sector, the West has retained the
structural and functional features of previous civilizations: urban
nuclei supporting themselves by trade, commerce and finance; expansion
up to and beyond the point of no re