Structurally and functionally a civilization cannot remain static.  It must expand or contract.  If it expands, crossing frontiers and penetrating areas heretofore considered foreign or alien, and proposes to remain in those alien territories, it must have sufficient means at its disposal to continue the administration of its home territory and at the same time to take on the administration of the newly acquired foreign territory.

Home territory administration has as its broad purpose the utilization of available means to attain its ends and serve its interests.  Administration of areas into which the home forces are penetrating must attain the same ends and serve the same interests on the “you work—­I eat” axiom.  Unless the newly acquired territory can attain those ends and serve those interests it is a liability, not an asset, and its continued existence will pose a threat to the expansionist venture.

Natural resources, plus labor power, plus effective management and direction must be integrated in the interests of the entire enterprise.  Self determination is of secondary consequence, coming into play only after the interests of the whole have been assured and safeguarded.

There is of course the collective principle under which the interests of the whole can be best served through the cooperation of its component elements.  But this is a horse of quite another color.  It presupposes the willingness of the respective parts to enter voluntarily into a cooperative relationship.  Sociologically speaking this is the antithesis of the situation we have been considering:  expansion and exploitation in the interests and for the purposes of the expanding forces.  So long as expansion and exploitation are accepted and practiced as the basic principles of any community, so long independence and self-determination will be irrelevant and inimical to the dominant elements in the nation, empire or civilization under consideration.

Under the “you work—­I eat” formula natural resources will be utilized in the manner best calculated to advance the interests of the ruling oligarchy.  Who will be the judge, jury and executioner in the case?  Who else but the concerned ruling oligarchy?

In the history of civilization this principle has been followed systematically.  The forests have been cleared away, the land has been overgrazed, cultivated and exposed to the erosive attacks of sunlight, air, water and frost.  Wood from the forests has been hauled to the cities and burned, has been used to construct palaces and temples, houses and ships, with no recognition of the principles of priority or renewal.  If wood was available where must it go?  The oligarchy decided the issue in terms of ostentation and expediency.  Rarely during recorded human history have there been oligarchs who said:  “Irreplaceable resources like minerals must be used with extreme economy.  Replaceable resources like forests or top-soil must be used and at the same time replaced and if possible augmented.”