Channels of communication, trade and travel keep members of the human race constantly in touch with one another.  Except for the solitary, living alone in the wilderness (urban or rural) there is no hiding place.  Mechanisms supplementing man’s five senses, see, feel, hear and report everything.

Facility in communication provides a wealth of information.  Using available means of human communication, a central planetary authority can inform, alert and arouse the entire human family with its 3,700 million members.  Socially minded, it could announce and initiate the measures necessary to maintain peace and order through conformity to a common program of social action.  Coordinating, integrating and administering the channels of communication at the planetary level will be a primary responsibility of any planet-wide economic program.

Planetary government will be responsible for establishing, maintaining and improving a network of communication and education designed to ensure both uniformity and diversity in the human population.  The revolution in science and technology has been particularly noteworthy in the field of communication, extending from the family to the entire human race; from the home telephone, the morning newspaper, the phonograph, radio and television to regular mail delivery, the printing press, the camera, lithography, the typewriter, tele-communication, the computer, public address systems and the various devices for overhearing and recording that produce more or less permanent records of casual vocal expressions.

Planet-wide communication in the 1970’s provides an example of the transformation from economic localism to economic worldism during recent times.  By its very nature, communication tends to involve all four corners of the planet.  In that sense, communication tends to become unique.  It is not a real exception, however.  Through communication channels, knowledge concerning every aspect of man’s economy, from agriculture to commerce and finance, crosses frontiers almost automatically, strengthening, deepening and integrating planet-wide economy.

A planet-wide economy will not be designed, planned and coordinated as a result of either military conquest or political expansion and predation.  Rather, it will be a public enterprise of the entire human family, operated by a world government in the public interest for the social service and well-being of mankind.

The worldwide revolution of 1750-1970 provides the economic basis for a planet-wide society—­for One World.  The real danger—­that any local or regional war may grow into another general war in which nuclear weapons are used—­provides reason aplenty to put the whole before the part and, in the pursuit of general human welfare, to federate the political life of the human family, following the many steps toward worldism already taken by various aspects of its economy.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN