ues of economic endeavor. The challenge goes
beyond ensuring an equitable distribution of opportunity, important as
that is. It calls for a fundamental rethinking of economic issues in a
manner that will invite the full participation of a range of human
experience and insight hitherto largely excluded from the discourse. The
classical economic models of impersonal markets in which human beings act
as autonomous makers of self-regarding choices will not serve the needs of
a world motivated by ideals of unity and justice. Society will find itself
increasingly challenged to develop new economic models shaped by insights
that arise from a sympathetic understanding of shared experience, from
viewing human beings in relation to others, and from a recognition of the
centrality to social well-being of the role of the family and the
community. Such an intellectual breakthrough--strongly altruistic rather
than self-centered in focus--must draw heavily on both the spiritual and
scientific sensibilities of the race, and millenia of experience have
prepared women to make crucial contributions to the common effort.

VI

To contemplate a transformation of society on this scale is to raise both
the question of the power that can be harnessed to accomplish it and the
issue inextricably linked to it, the authority to exercise that power. As
with all other implications of the accelerating integration of the planet
and its people, both of these familiar terms stand in urgent need of
redefinition.

Throughout history--and despite theologically or ideologically inspired
assurances to the contrary--power has been largely interpreted as advantage
enjoyed by persons or groups. Often, indeed, it has been expressed simply
in terms of means to be used against others. This interpretation of power
has become an inherent feature of the culture of division and conflict
that has characterized the human race during the past several millenia,
regardless of the social, religious, or political orientations that have
enjoyed ascendancy in given ages, in given parts of the world. In general,
power has been an attribute of individuals, factions, peoples, classes,
and nations. It has been an attribute especially associated with men
rather than women. Its chief effect has been to confer on its
beneficiaries the ability to acquire, to surpass, to dominate, to resist,
to win.

The resulting historical processes have been responsible for both ruinous