On the other hand, there are always some people who amass wealth and then use it, along with their superior political and social positions, to consolidate effective control over productive resources. They then further their interests by using their enhanced influence to gain yet more power. This positive feedback system routinely creates social inequities which are compounded by laws passed and enforced, in the name of justice, to protect the special advantages and power of the few rather than to secure a minimum standard of decency for the many. Differential access to privilege and power thus both produces and perpetuates social stratification, because the material prosperity of the upper class is usually created and maintained by the debasement of all others. Such a system may then go to excess as the mighty reinforce their own self-confirming, self-serving perceptions, attitudes and beliefs at the expense of objectivity.

Frequently, such ruling groups are also in charge of the theological establishment, so they control access not only to natural but supernatural resources as well. By using all the means available to them, leaders can assure themselves that the prevailing ideology sanctions their privileged status, economic influence and political rank. Not only do the established powers maintain the stratified system which supports them, but their position is further secured by popular belief in the system. Modern societies have thus secularized religion while becoming religious about secular systems. All these factors can make the mighty self-assured to the point of complacent stupidity.

A major factor in determining the amount and nature of work performed in a society is the level and type of technology applied to the exploitation of its environmental resources. Basically, technology is that aspect of culture which encompasses the tools as well as the techniques people use in meeting their material needs. It functions through time in its interrelations to other aspects of society, so its full significance can be appreciated only as means to maladapt a society not only to its environment but to itself as well.

Regardless of the level of sophistication of its technology, when a group outstrips the carrying capacity of its environment, starvation will follow. This is a basic principle of life, and technology cannot alter it. Sophisticated devices and methods may expand the capacity of the environment to sustain a certain way of life, but when these new limits are quantitatively exceeded, the same predictable result is inevitable. In fact,

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