ABSTRACT
The structure of the global/international system used to be shaped by gradients in the capacity of various states to influence events beyond their borders. The Industrial Revolution then changed the economic basis of human life. It provides by small-scale agriculture mainly. Productivity of human labor had remained roughly constant, with hard labor yielding the same low results. A growing share of a nation's economy is therefore in international trade, with increased dependency on imports and exports. The positive and the negative consequences of economic expansion are reflected in internal and in global politics. The very nature of politics has been transformed. Politics have to intervene and drive the fight against corruption in order to remove this obstacle on the road to greater wealth. The complementary and mutually supportive function of the economy and of politics becomes evident too, in the data on a more or less sound natural environment.
