WEBVTT NOTE Economic Revolutions 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 Economic Revolutions 2 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:19.000 This planet upon which we live has been around for about five billion years, according to geologists and the best guessers. We actually don't know. 3 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:26.000 However, what we are concerned with here is not the geological age of the earth, but the age of the earth as it relates to man, 4 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.080 Man and How Man Has Put the Pieces Together in Order to Survive and to Survive in Increasing 5 00:00:33.080 --> 00:00:36.320 Comfort and Prosperity. 6 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:43.760 So far as human life is concerned, it appears that man has been on this earth for a million 7 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:46.520 years or more. 8 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:52.920 Actually, relatively few years ago, a consensus was reached among a number of anthropologists 9 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:58.720 to the effect that human life began here about one million years ago. 10 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:06.240 But since then, new discoveries, primarily made in Africa by Professor Leakey and Professor 11 00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:12.720 Dart, have tended to shake our faith in that one million year figure, and it has now been 12 00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:19.640 extended backwards in time until many scholars are contending that man has been on this old 13 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:27.000 Earth of ours for closer to 2 million rather than 1 million years. Be that as it may, human beings 14 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:34.200 have been around for a fairly long time. And the characteristic that we have, that differentiates 15 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:42.440 us from other species, is our ability to organize and in essence to take over the earth. Man is 16 00:01:42.440 --> 00:01:49.680 is without question the dominant species in this world. And so it becomes important for 17 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:57.400 us to examine that and to see how we got the way we got and what way we are going into 18 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:05.320 the future. To begin with, if we were to use this one million year scale and simply say 19 00:02:05.320 --> 00:02:10.800 that man has been around for at least a million years, and then we can give or take whatever 20 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:40.800 In the world of human behavior, however in excess there may have been, we would have to take note of the fact that in man's earliest experience on this planet, he lived in a state of savagery. I'm using the term in a general way. Incidentally, the word as I will use it does not intend to infer ferocity. By a savage, I simply mean a primitive man, a man living under very primitive conditions. And if we examine human behavior, 21 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:47.360 and Human Organization over this past million years, to the extent of our ability to examine it. 22 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:54.480 And of course, in some instances, we have far more lack of information than we have information. 23 00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:59.760 But to the best of our ability, putting the pieces together, it appears that in general, 24 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:08.400 human beings lived in a state of savagery for about 990,000 of the last one million years. 25 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:15.640 Of course, though that long period of time, for purposes of understanding and study, is 26 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:23.520 subdivided into various shorter periods of time. Usually anthropologists break it down 27 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:33.520 according to the kind of tools that were in use, and we hear of paleolithic man, mesolithic, 28 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:40.920 Neolithic and so on relating to the type of tool that they evolved. This is not a discussion 29 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:47.920 of savagery. I simply want to get into the record that we lived, human beings lived in 30 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:55.080 a state of savagery, employing only primitive tools, primarily made of stone or wood, and 31 00:03:55.080 --> 00:04:05.000 that we managed to survive with a gradually ascending scale of livelihood for about 990,000 32 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:13.040 years without anything in the way of a remarkable change. Then, about 10,000 years ago, came 33 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:19.120 the first economic revolution. What happened was this. So long as men lived in a state 34 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:26.240 of Savagery, they tended to organize in hunting and foraging societies. They accepted as their 35 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:32.320 leaders the best hunter or the best forager, often the strongest man or the man with the 36 00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:38.680 greatest endurance, and then others would band around him as he would endeavor to lead 37 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:45.760 them successfully on the hunt or in search for the various things that they would require 38 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:52.120 in order to get enough to eat and to stay alive amidst the vicissitudes of a faltering 39 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:59.240 climate and the hazards of wild animals and exposure and so on. 40 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:05.060 So during a great period of time of this last one million years in which human beings have 41 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:13.760 been around, men lived in a kind of tribal communism in which property was shared and 42 00:05:13.760 --> 00:05:21.420 Men Shared Alike, in which the general view was a collective one, and people organized 43 00:05:21.420 --> 00:05:28.520 around the kind of leader that could assist them in having that type of economy. 44 00:05:28.520 --> 00:05:35.520 I might point out that it is somewhere in the Savage Period that religions are first 45 00:05:35.520 --> 00:05:43.260 developed. Men, because they have brains and are able to use their minds, began to conjecture 46 00:05:43.260 --> 00:05:49.260 about things that they didn't know anything about. And it is in the area of speculation, 47 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:57.660 what happens after we are dead, or what happens before we are born, that causes men to begin to 48 00:05:57.660 --> 00:06:04.940 structure and devise religious or theological theory of one sort or another. And of course, 49 00:06:04.940 --> 00:06:10.780 these early religions that were formed back in very primitive times were collectivist in nature. 50 00:06:10.780 --> 00:06:16.700 Here, they invariably contained a pantheon of deity, that is to say there would be a 51 00:06:16.700 --> 00:06:22.340 multiplicity of gods and goddesses. To begin with, they would be probably animistic in 52 00:06:22.340 --> 00:06:29.420 character with various totems and fetishes depicting either certain qualities of strength, 53 00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:36.020 courage, endurance, etc., or actually depicting animal forms, because this was the nature 54 00:06:36.020 --> 00:06:42.940 of the World that Men Lived in, and they tended to deify those things that they were familiar 55 00:06:42.940 --> 00:06:48.640 with in one sense, but those things that in addition to being familiar with, they were, 56 00:06:48.640 --> 00:06:56.980 they seemed superlative, and so they tended to create a whole pantheon of deity comprised 57 00:06:56.980 --> 00:07:00.140 of animistic and totemistic forms. 58 00:07:00.140 --> 00:07:09.220 When came the first economic revolution? It began about 10,000 years ago, approximately, 59 00:07:09.220 --> 00:07:15.960 wherein men discovered finally that they would have a better chance of survival if they were 60 00:07:15.960 --> 00:07:27.560 to begin planting crops. The hunt is always a process fraught with much risk and the great 61 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:33.280 Chance of Failure. You don't succeed well in a hunt unless there is a plentiful supply 62 00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:40.280 of game and, further, a kind of game that you can master, track down, and overcome. 63 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:47.040 And thus, when men were operating in a hunting-foraging type of economy, the numbers of men alive 64 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:52.760 at any one time—of course, we don't know, no census was taken back as early as this—but 65 00:07:52.760 --> 00:08:00.360 The conjecture is that only a relatively few thousand, possibly half a million people would 66 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:06.220 have been alive at any one time on the whole face of the earth. Then we had this economic 67 00:08:06.220 --> 00:08:12.240 revolution where we discovered that by planting crops and by domesticating animals and putting 68 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:17.420 them out to pasture but riding herd on them and taking care of them, we could have a much 69 00:08:17.420 --> 00:08:22.800 Much more reliable food supply. And that, of course, was always the basic problem. In 70 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:28.600 all of the history of man, our basic problem has been to get enough to eat. Starvation 71 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:34.820 has probably killed more people than all of the wars that we have ever had, and even probably 72 00:08:34.820 --> 00:08:40.360 more than our present traffic. So, starvation has been a problem from the beginning. And 73 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:47.160 And once we learned how to cultivate fields and put in crops, then of course our entire 74 00:08:47.160 --> 00:08:54.360 outlook changed and we reorganized society in a different way. This introduced the next 75 00:08:54.360 --> 00:09:03.400 epoch of human experience, which we will call barbarism. Barbarism is a step above savagery. 76 00:09:03.400 --> 00:09:09.400 We are now becoming more complicated, more sophisticated. And note that this is always 77 00:09:09.400 --> 00:09:14.560 is an important factor whenever an agrarian type economy emerges. 78 00:09:14.560 --> 00:09:23.560 What is important is that we stop being migratory types of persons who wander around following 79 00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:28.520 the game. We have to settle down. It doesn't do us a bit of good, you see, to put in a 80 00:09:28.520 --> 00:09:33.920 crop and then walk off and leave it. We have to stay there and take care of it and certainly 81 00:09:33.920 --> 00:09:37.860 be around in time for the harvest. Otherwise, there was no point in putting it in in the 82 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:46.460 in the first place. So as we began our agrarian revolution, the holding of land became important. 83 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:53.880 Land became an asset and we sought to own it and control it. And to do this, men created 84 00:09:53.880 --> 00:09:58.980 governments. Many persons have supposed that government is actually an instrument that 85 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:06.480 emerges in savage times. That is not true. Actually, government is a barbaric invention 86 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:15.360 and not a savage invention. It was developed by men who recognized the primacy of holding land. 87 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:21.440 And of course, governments were devised originally to take land away from other men 88 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:27.920 who were holding it, and thus to add to the number of acres or the number of square miles 89 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:34.480 that you could annex to your own holdings, whatever they were. So along with government, 90 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:41.600 The military arm was created simultaneously. In fact, the government and the military have always 91 00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:48.800 gone hand in hand. It is virtually impossible to imagine a government without a military or, 92 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:56.240 in point of fact, a military that does not have at least a rudimentary government to make it function. 93 00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:03.840 So government and the military came together. Curiously, they both evolved out of the theocratic 94 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:11.500 route, because in the earlier times when men were organized around religious concepts, 95 00:11:11.500 --> 00:11:19.660 the way was paved for deifying first animals and then men. And we have a period of time 96 00:11:19.660 --> 00:11:27.040 in which the kind of gods that men worship are essentially heroes who have died but who 97 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:34.240 who are remembered for their exploits and who become in time such revered figures that 98 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:41.400 they essentially provide figures of worship. And so it was a natural thing as governments 99 00:11:41.400 --> 00:11:49.440 were evolved to evolve political leaders who it was presumed had some special deification 100 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:54.840 or they couldn't have been chosen as leaders. And so there is a logical extension of the 101 00:11:54.840 --> 00:12:04.340 a theocratic route into the political structure as men turned away from religion per se, not that they ever really turned away from it, I'm not suggesting that, 102 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:21.340 instead they turned away from a pantheistic, paganistic type of religion with a pantheon of deity that is essentially primitive and communistic toward a new type of deity that is embodied in the trappings of the state. 103 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:28.820 And, of course, it is a matter of common knowledge, I think, that many of your early governments 104 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:36.540 tended to deify their principal leaders, the Romans being well known in this regard, where 105 00:12:36.540 --> 00:12:41.940 a number of the Caesars were presumed to become gods when they died, and we even have the 106 00:12:41.940 --> 00:12:49.580 interesting record that when Nero's horse died, he had that deified, so you can have 107 00:12:49.580 --> 00:12:57.500 all kinds of animistic types of deity continuing right on down for any number of years. 108 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:05.280 The age of barbarism then began about 10,000 years ago and it is characterized by the emergence 109 00:13:05.280 --> 00:13:12.900 of a new type of economy centering around the development of mass-produced foodstuffs 110 00:13:12.900 --> 00:13:18.800 rather than foodstuffs that have to be tracked down and the development of holding the land, 111 00:13:18.800 --> 00:13:23.960 The emergence of the military mechanism and the government mechanism and a kind of refinement 112 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:31.560 in the religious area as major religions become more and more individualistic. At first they 113 00:13:31.560 --> 00:13:37.600 are collectivistic in concept, then they become more and more singular as people think more 114 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.760 and more in this area. 115 00:13:40.760 --> 00:13:50.400 Now, about 2500 years ago, usually it is said about the time that the city-states were being 116 00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:58.540 developed in Greece, we have a shift in thinking and there are any number of scholars who tend 117 00:13:58.540 --> 00:14:03.880 to date the birth of civilization with that time. In other words, going back to about 118 00:14:03.880 --> 00:14:12.360 About 500 B.C., or approximately 2500 years ago, it is claimed by many that we had a new 119 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:19.200 development and the civilized period began. Actually, I have to differ with that view. 120 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:24.760 I do not think that we have yet learned to be civilized. I believe the period that we 121 00:14:24.760 --> 00:14:33.760 are in is still at least a semi-barbaric period. I think most of us are still barbarians. I 122 00:14:33.760 --> 00:14:41.440 I think we act like it. I think that although we may have developed a technology that is civilized, 123 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:46.720 well, I don't think there's any question of that. Insofar as our sociology is concerned, 124 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:54.240 we remain virtually ignorant of the nature of man and virtually unprepared to deal with other men, 125 00:14:54.240 --> 00:15:00.160 accepting by barbaric means. And this, of course, is characteristic of the barbarians, 126 00:15:00.160 --> 00:15:05.920 who from the beginning when they first emerged about 10,000 years ago up to the present have 127 00:15:05.920 --> 00:15:14.400 believed that force is the ultimate tool in dealing with others of their kind and hence they always 128 00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:21.120 tend to organize along forceful lines. Government becomes the most essential tool that they have 129 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:27.760 because in the end they lack any real confidence in their ability to deal with other people 130 00:15:27.760 --> 00:15:35.040 unless they have a war club in one hand. And so we have tended during the last 10,000 years 131 00:15:35.040 --> 00:15:43.360 to concentrate on government and to turn more and more chores and responsibilities over to the state 132 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:49.840 with the state's ultimate weapon, total force, backing these decisions and these policies that 133 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.160 that are set forth. 134 00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:59.720 Now beginning about 200 years ago, the second major economic revolution occurred. This is 135 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:06.880 the Industrial Revolution. And we haven't yet resolved what it means. Beginning in England 136 00:16:06.880 --> 00:16:14.000 around 1760 and continuing up to the present time, gradually around the earth, industrialization 137 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:21.200 has taken over. We are still in the age of industrial revolution and industrial development. 138 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:28.320 Currently, it is taking on new overtones as we get into not only mechanization of various 139 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:35.360 jobs, but the automation of various jobs, where we have tools that make the tools and 140 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:41.660 even now managerial tools that manage the tools that are capable of making the tools. 141 00:16:41.660 --> 00:16:51.020 And so we have a retreat in depth into the tool area, so that more and more we are counting 142 00:16:51.020 --> 00:16:59.460 upon tools to do our work for us and, in terms of modern computers, we are even asking the 143 00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:06.460 tools to do our mathematical sums for us and ultimately even to make decisions for us and 144 00:17:06.460 --> 00:17:08.380 to do some of our thinking for us. 145 00:17:08.380 --> 00:17:11.020 So this is the current shift. 146 00:17:11.020 --> 00:17:17.380 It is all part of the Industrial Revolution and it is moving in that area. How far it 147 00:17:17.380 --> 00:17:24.940 will go is a matter of conjecture. We don't know. But beginning in 1760, this very recent 148 00:17:24.940 --> 00:17:35.380 change began. It's the second major economic development. However, with this development, 149 00:17:35.380 --> 00:17:41.660 We are right on the threshold of a great sociological breakthrough. 150 00:17:41.660 --> 00:17:50.500 And what I'm hoping for is that we can now develop our knowledge sociologically and anthropologically 151 00:17:50.500 --> 00:17:58.420 in sufficient depth so that we can throw off our barbaric trappings and actually culminate 152 00:17:58.420 --> 00:18:04.700 the Industrial Revolution in a birth of civilization, per se. 153 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:11.300 Now I realize that my use of the term civilized here and the connotations I apply to it are 154 00:18:11.300 --> 00:18:19.460 unorthodox and they don't really pertain if you look up the word civilization in a dictionary. 155 00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:25.280 I know what it means. Of course, a civilized man is essentially a man who lives in a city. 156 00:18:25.280 --> 00:18:33.280 He has been citified. That is to say, he has attained to a type of urban life which causes 157 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:41.360 was him not to himself carry his own war club, but rather he depends upon a kind of collectivizing 158 00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:49.000 of force so that he can individualize his other pursuits. And this has been the character 159 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:57.000 of barbaric development, I would say gradually, over the past 10,000 years up to and including 160 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:05.320 in the present time. But we are on the fringe of a major development. What we are beginning 161 00:19:05.320 --> 00:19:13.680 to discover is that government, as we understand it, is becoming a tool that is so archaic 162 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:21.000 and obsolete that in point of fact we can't afford it anymore. It has become no longer 163 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:29.280 are a tool that we can use. It is a tool that is using us. It is dominating our lives, directing 164 00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:37.080 our industry, subordinating our mentalities, and essentially pushing us into the status 165 00:19:37.080 --> 00:19:45.080 of obedient, docile, and indeed industrious animals. And this is something that the nature 166 00:19:45.080 --> 00:19:52.820 of Man is going to rebel against. Indeed, we can already sense this feeling of rebellion 167 00:19:52.820 --> 00:20:00.780 and revolution. It is in the air. Things are happening because men no longer want to operate 168 00:20:00.780 --> 00:20:08.800 that way. That is a great many of them do not. Now, unfortunately, many of today's rebels, 169 00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:15.400 Many of today's youth in particular, who call themselves revolutionists, have not sorted 170 00:20:15.400 --> 00:20:21.920 out the pieces properly. And so they tend to look at the marketplace and the operation 171 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:29.400 of an economy as their enemy. They turn thumbs down on what they call commercialism and all 172 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:36.900 of its crass implications, and they view government as the essential tool, and thus they actually 173 00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:43.980 actually seek power so that they can take over and impose their will on other people. 174 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:50.200 Actually that tendency to seek for power is nothing but the evidence of barbarism. 175 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:58.100 This is characteristic of all barbarians and the many of the new youthful movements, and 176 00:20:58.100 --> 00:21:02.460 I'm sorry to have to say this because I know that many of them have wonderful hearts and 177 00:21:02.460 --> 00:21:09.700 and Wonderful Intentions. Nonetheless, they are engaged in a rebirth of barbarism in the 178 00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:15.940 things that they do, which is unfortunate. What they're really getting at, I think, and 179 00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:23.260 what if we can provide the proper direction and guidance, will be a passing across the 180 00:21:23.260 --> 00:21:32.620 or threshold into what will be, in fact, the new economic system, which is one that, although 181 00:21:32.620 --> 00:21:37.620 we've been leaning this way gradually, could only be properly called, when it comes into 182 00:21:37.620 --> 00:21:45.460 full bloom, a laissez-faire economy, one that does not depend on the government at all. 183 00:21:45.460 --> 00:21:52.280 Now to imagine this type of culture, one has to put aside a lot of notions that he may 184 00:21:52.280 --> 00:21:57.160 may have held for a long time. In fact, I remember that when it was first suggested 185 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:05.300 to me that possibly, just possibly, human beings could get along without having the 186 00:22:05.300 --> 00:22:12.420 government to referee and to make decisions for them, I personally experienced a sense 187 00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:18.180 of nausea, as if I had been struck a sudden blow in the stomach or something. I could 188 00:22:18.180 --> 00:22:26.180 would hardly endure the thought of anything as revolutionary as that sounds. And yet, 189 00:22:26.180 --> 00:22:32.220 on the basis of the evidence that we now have, it appears certain that we are either going 190 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:38.940 to move in that direction and learn how to live at peace with our fellows on a sound 191 00:22:38.940 --> 00:22:45.060 economic base, and that we must have, one that is predicated upon private property and 192 00:22:45.060 --> 00:22:51.140 and the private management of the assets that individuals have, or we are going to turn 193 00:22:51.140 --> 00:22:59.100 the corner and head back again into barbarism full tilt. And that we can do too. Just what 194 00:22:59.100 --> 00:23:04.020 we will do, I don't know. There is no way that I can predict on the basis of what has 195 00:23:04.020 --> 00:23:09.700 happened before what is going to happen in the future. I can only examine the record 196 00:23:09.700 --> 00:23:15.300 that we have up to this time and see what the indications are and then hope and pray 197 00:23:15.300 --> 00:23:20.540 that we make intelligent decisions so that we can move in the right direction rather 198 00:23:20.540 --> 00:23:22.460 than the wrong one. 199 00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:29.620 We are living in the latter part of the 20th century in the most crucial age that human 200 00:23:29.620 --> 00:23:35.580 beings have ever lived in. How it will emerge, how we will emerge from it, I frankly do 201 00:23:35.580 --> 00:23:41.660 do not know, but the factors are there for a gigantic breakthrough that will make it 202 00:23:41.660 --> 00:23:51.100 possible for us to put aside war and government and coercion as the ultimate decision-makers 203 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:59.300 for us and instead move into what Tom Paine called the age of reason and realize that 204 00:23:59.300 --> 00:24:05.580 Amicable understanding predicated upon private ownership of property and respect for one 205 00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:12.420 another's persons, one another's lives, is the cornerstone on which true civilization, 206 00:24:12.420 --> 00:24:15.420 if it is to come, must rest. 207 00:24:15.420 --> 00:24:23.040 To understand what is involved here, I would like to point out the prerequisites of government, 208 00:24:23.040 --> 00:24:28.580 because that is the age we are still dealing with. We are still dealing with barbarism. 209 00:24:28.580 --> 00:24:34.980 In fact, I like to call the particular age that we're in an age of post-barbarism, 210 00:24:34.980 --> 00:24:43.380 because intellectually we are not barbarians. Intellectually, we have evolved far enough 211 00:24:43.380 --> 00:24:50.420 so that we recognize, we know, we understand the nature of the physical world we live in. 212 00:24:50.420 --> 00:24:56.700 There is hardly a technical problem which, given the time and the resources to work with, 213 00:24:56.700 --> 00:25:02.600 We could not resolve. We have put men in orbit around this planet, in outer space. We have 214 00:25:02.600 --> 00:25:08.360 sent them to the moon. In theory, we can send them to other planets in this solar system, 215 00:25:08.360 --> 00:25:13.180 and doubtless it could be done if there were a reason to do it. There is hardly a problem 216 00:25:13.180 --> 00:25:19.400 that we could not resolve technologically. And yet, when it comes to our working together, 217 00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:26.240 we are still at a primitive level, using war clubs and ultimate force as a means of making 218 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:32.520 Decision. Now that's a very dangerous condition to be in. If you have to deal with barbarians, 219 00:25:32.520 --> 00:25:37.720 it would be much better if the best weapon they had was a war club. When you're dealing 220 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:45.860 with barbarians who are emotionally barbarous, but who are intellectually sophisticated, 221 00:25:45.860 --> 00:25:53.040 who have atomic weapons at their disposal, you are dealing with a condition that is fraught 222 00:25:53.040 --> 00:26:00.240 with Peril, not just for those who in the immediate vicinity of the weaponry, but anybody 223 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:07.640 on the planet is now confronted with the absolute possibility that our emotionalism, our failure 224 00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:12.840 to understand the nature of man, the nature of the market and the nature of government 225 00:26:12.840 --> 00:26:19.960 may convert this earth into a nova and our entire solar system will erupt in one grand 226 00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:25.560 and Atomic Explosion. It could happen. And that would be the end of the whole bit. So 227 00:26:25.560 --> 00:26:33.040 whether we like it or not, we are going to have to use our minds to develop better mechanisms 228 00:26:33.040 --> 00:26:39.680 for dealing with one another than mechanisms that rely totally upon force. This is, I think, 229 00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:48.300 the challenge of our age. The great third economic and social revolution is at hand. 230 00:26:48.300 --> 00:26:55.600 If we can get through it properly, we will for the first time have civilization, a kind 231 00:26:55.600 --> 00:27:04.360 of human arrangement that depends upon reason, upon exchanges voluntarily made, that will 232 00:27:04.360 --> 00:27:13.460 depend upon understanding, education, knowledge, rather than upon force, politics, barbarism, 233 00:27:13.460 --> 00:27:17.220 violence, war, etc. 234 00:27:17.220 --> 00:27:25.160 The choice is going to be up to every person now alive. This is a decision that you and 235 00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:31.720 I can make. None of us is big enough to have caused all the problems that exist, and none 236 00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:39.000 of us is big enough to solve all of them. The best you and I can be is a part of the 237 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:47.000 problem or a part of the solution. The choice will ultimately be up to you.