As a result of these changes, conflict-torn and fragmenting western civilization found itself divided into three factional groups: 

I. Corporate business organized domestically and internationally to preserve and extend its wealth and power.  Big business interests, their dependents and backers were concentrated chiefly in West Europe and North America.  Their network of interests and controls was planet-wide.  Literally they were the backbone of western civilization.

II.  Builders of socialism-communism, an alternative and rival life pattern, have been concentrated in East Europe and Asia.  The socialists-communists occupied a minority position in most of the countries dominated by big business.  Their program called for the replacement of capitalist competition and conflict by a cooperating, planned, planet-wide society operated for service rather than for profit.

III.  A third segment, made up largely of nations and peoples located in Africa, Asia and Latin America, who up to war’s end in 1945 had been colonies or dependencies of the big business directed empires.  Since 1945 they have become increasingly independent and self-determining.

The three-fold division of the planet was determined in part by the age-old ideas, principles and practices of civilized peoples during the past six thousand years.  In part, it was the outcome of the planet-wide revolution of 1750-1970.  It was likewise the result of the wars, revolutions and independence movements that have upset and realigned the world since 1776.  Under the impact of these forces human society was being unmade, re-examined and remade.

By comparison with its own beginnings and with its predecessors, western civilization has made many changes in its political, economic and sociological way of life.  It has also developed national and regional variants of its overall pattern.

Despite these changes, and with the possible exception of its very large and significant socialist-communist sector, the West has retained the structural and functional features of previous civilizations:  urban nuclei supporting themselves by trade, commerce and finance; expansion up to and beyond the point of no return; the life and death power struggle within and between its constituent peoples, nations and empires; the use of war as the final arbiter in these struggles; the rise of the military to a position of supremacy in policy making and public administration; an all-pervasive pattern of exploitation within the urban nuclei and between rival provincial factions; speculation in the necessaries of life; the growth of overhead costs far beyond the increase of production and of income; the degradation of currency; multiple taxation; the abuse of credit; inflation, unemployment and chronic hard times.

Western civilization differs from its predecessors in one crucial respect:  it is planet-wide.  Previous civilizations known to history have been limited by oceans, deserts and other geographical barriers.  The revolution in communication and transportation has by-passed geographic barriers.