to the
future.

This planetary structure, with Europe as the center of wealth, power,
art, science, free business enterprise and wage slavery, progress and
poverty, left the majority of mankind living as dependents and
colonials. The situation embodied several confrontations:

1. The masters of Europe might quarrel among themselves.

2. Non-Europeans might set up rival wealth power centers
and challenge Europe's world hegemony.

3. Colonials and other dependants might demand independence,
and equal status in the family of nations.

4. Rootless middle classes and the wretched of the earth
might join forces and pull down western civilization's house
of cards.

Western civilization, like its predecessors, was accepting and following
one central principle: expand, grab and keep. The application of this
principle took the form of an axiom of public and private life: might
makes right; let him take who has the power; let him keep who can.

Grab and keep, in a period of rapid economic expansion, led each of the
burgeoning European empires to the zealous defense of its frontiers as
the first principle of imperial policy. The second principle:
geographical expansion, followed as a matter of course. Expansion inside
Europe, with its tight frontier defenses, meant war with aggressive
rivals. Expansion abroad, especially in Asia and Africa, was less costly
and might prove more profitable. As a consequence, from 1870 onward,
British, French, Dutch, Russia and German colonial territory increased;
European armaments multiplied. Each expanding empire prepared for the
day which would give it additional square miles of European and foreign
real estate.

Grab-and-keep, with its resultant chaotic free-for-all, was the rule of
thumb accepted and followed by the West during the decline of Roman
power and through the middle ages to modern times.

The "might makes right" formula was in violent conflict with the "love
and serve your neighbor" professions of Christian ethics. Nevertheless,
it was the accepted overall principle of private enterprise economy and
the ruling ethic of Western statecraft. The principle was formulated in
five propositions or axioms:

1. Make money, honestly if possible, but make money.

2. Every businessman for himself and the devil take the laggards.

3. We defend and promote our national interests.

4. Our national interests come first.

5. Our country, right o