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.
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