evel. As the
planet approaches one world technologically, there is an increasing
possibility of a planetary political federation, directed by a world
governmental apparatus.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

INTEGRATING A WORLD ECONOMY

Repeated efforts have been made to establish large-scale, widely ranging
economies. This was the case during Egyptian and Phoenician
civilizations. It was certainly true of the economy of the Roman Empire
and of Roman civilization.

Such efforts faced drastic limitations. The most formidable was the
narrow margin of surplus produced by hand labor in the forests, on the
fields and in the workshops, operated, in the main, with hand tools,
with minor inputs of energy supplied by domestic animals and with the
small amounts derived from wind and moving water.

Two further limitations existed. First, as each civilization matured its
leaders and policy makers ceased to labor on the land or in the
workshops, preferring to keep their hands and clothes clean, to free
themselves from irksome demanding toil and devote themselves to tasks
more befitting "gentlefolk." This was notably true of landlords as a
class. It was also true of the richer traders, merchants and
moneylenders, particularly of the third and fourth generations.

Expansion of empires and the civilizations which they developed entailed
military operations. Military operations, in their turn, produced
war-captives, who must earn their keep and, if possible, something more.
Sold in the market to the highest bidder, war captives and their
descendants became chattel slaves. As civilizations were expanded by
conquest and matured by struggle, they developed some type of forced
labor to balance the increased parasitism of the masters and the
growing numbers who were called upon to produce "services" rather than
material goods.

Certain areas of civilized economies were taken over by the public
authorities. Planning and building of cities and their ports, of
highways, including bridges, of viaducts, aqueducts, of drainages for
the cities, of public buildings. The construction of defenses, including
city walls, were partly or wholly public enterprises. Temples and tombs
for the mighty were often in the same category.

Maintenance of large elaborate households by political leaders, and in
later periods of empire building, by the successful merchants and
technicians, led to the employment of many servants, including
subordinate members and re