tions and practices and replacing them by
the institutions and practices needed for the advancement of bourgeois
interests.

Today the bourgeois state is a bulwark of conservatism; devoting its
energies to the preservation of bourgeois forms and practices and doing
its utmost to fulfill its counter-revolutionary role of resisting and,
if possible, destroying the institutions and practices needed to replace
the political institutions and practices of civilization by the new
institutions required to move mankind from the outmoded lifestyle of
civilization to a lifestyle beyond and above that to which humanity has
become adapted during the now obsolete epoch of civilization.

At the same time, the socialist-communist variant of the bourgeois state
pattern is providing the framework within which the institutions and
practices needed for the transition from civilization to a newer and
more universal social order are being matured. At the next stage in the
birth process, the institutions and practices necessary for upbuilding
the social order that will replace civilization are being worked out in
theory and embodied in experimental practice.

In practice, an accurate distinction must be made between the
conservative bourgeois state, the temporary transitional state and the
universal socialist-communist state that will shepherd humanity along
the difficult and dangerous path of the political life pattern beyond
civilization. In theory such distinctions are needed as part of the
scaffolding within which the social pattern of beyond-civilization will
be constructed.

Like most decisive epochs of human history, the revolution through which
we are passing has had both a negative and a positive aspect. In Chapter
11 I wrote about one of its destructive aspects--the extreme
destructivity of two periods of general war. At this point, I would like
to list ten positive contributions made by the same revolution toward
the development of a social life style that is offering itself as an
alternative to civilization.

1. NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY. Up to 1750 human beings had the energy of
the human body plus the energy of domestic animals. They used wind to
turn mills and sail ships and water to turn crude wheels. They also
burned various things, particularly vegetable fibres, to produce heat.
During the revolution they have learned to use steam, electricity and
chemical explosives. Recently they have learned to use the energy in the
ato