ting under the competitive principle
"Let him take who has the power" tends to develop into absolutism. At
any stage in the history of a civilization this development can take
place.

Civilization, therefore, comes into being with this built-in
contradiction: the strong and predatory exploit the weak, but at a
certain point protect the weak and nurture the defenseless. Exploitation
by the rich and powerful is recognized and accepted as a prerogative
enjoyed by the rich and powerful. At the same time limitations are
placed on the character and intensity of the exploitation.

This dichotomy is perpetuated by agreements, laws and constitutions
which guarantee the property rights and social privileges by which the
rich and powerful safeguard and increase their wealth and power. Under
the same agreements, laws and constitutions, the privileges and rights
of the defenseless and weak, are specified.

Political institutions in every civilization, including that of the
West, have accepted and adopted a regulatory structure under which
limits are imposed on profiteering. The domestic life of a civilization
consists of an establishment within which exploitation can continue in a
manner which the constitution makers and legislators consider to be as
efficient as possible and as fair as possible to all of the parties
concerned.

As a civilization matures, wealth and power (the means of exploitation)
are increased in volume and concentrated in fewer hands. The resulting
absolutism with its immense structure of wealth production and its
well-organized military arm, imposes conformity to its decrees,
servility, peonage and even slavery on the working masses. The masses,
in their turn, organize, agitate, demonstrate, strike, sabotage, and
periodically take up, arms in defense of their lives and their
livelihood.

We are describing certain political aspects of a process of social
selection which has dominated one civilization after another. At the
present moment it has reached a critical stage in the West. We apply the
term "social selection" to the result of this process because there is a
parallel between the natural selection of the biologists and the social
selection which sociologists observe in the rapid and extensive changes
presently taking place in the centers of western civilization.

Natural selection is a process in the course of which many compete and
contend while only a few survive and mature.

Social selection is