This planetary structure, with Europe as the center of wealth, power,
art, science, free business enterprise and wage slavery, progress and
poverty, left the majority of mankind living as dependents and
colonials. The situation embodied several confrontations:

1. The masters of Europe might quarrel among themselves.

2. Non-Europeans might set up rival wealth power centers
and challenge Europe's world hegemony.

3. Colonials and other dependants might demand independence,
and equal status in the family of nations.

4. Rootless middle classes and the wretched of the earth
might join forces and pull down western civilization's house
of cards.

Western civilization, like its predecessors, was accepting and following
one central principle: expand, grab and keep. The application of this
principle took the form of an axiom of public and private life: might
makes right; let him take who has the power; let him keep who can.

Grab and keep, in a period of rapid economic expansion, led each of the
burgeoning European empires to the zealous defense of its frontiers as
the first principle of imperial policy. The second principle:
geographical expansion, followed as a matter of course. Expansion inside
Europe, with its tight frontier defenses, meant war with aggressive
rivals. Expansion abroad, especially in Asia and Africa, was less costly
and might prove more profitable. As a consequence, from 1870 onward,