ABSTRACT
Who will take the first decisive steps toward the creation of a society that honors both positive and negative rights? Will it be the United States or the Soviet Union, today's superpowers, or is their path to a moral social order blocked by the intensity of their bitter ideological dispute and the unwillingness of their elites to concede the prerogatives of their dominance? Perhaps it will be smaller countries like Sweden, New Zealand, or Yugoslavia, all of whom have already taken steps in this direction. From their experiments it may be possible for larger societies to perceive the advantages of a newer way of life. Or perhaps, and this seems quite possible, it will be a large, populous nation like China, whose experiments in change may lead it to become the economic and moral superpower of the twenty-first century.
