ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with certain psychological and anthropological problems. The necessity to begin with psychological and anthropological material springs from the fact that society is composed of individual human beings. The book examines the evidence for believing that human beings are continuously divided between the desire to co-operate with, and the desire to destroy, each other. It deals with the pattern of economic institutions upon which the material life of society depends, a system of institutions that is normally designated by the term capitalism. The book describes the most significant changes in the basic principles of its organization. It explores the Marxist and Communist thesis that alterations in the distribution of economic power and social privilege, desirable from the standpoint of efficiency and justice, can be brought about only by the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.
