ABSTRACT
It could be argued that the world is not only becoming a smaller place, it is also becoming a similar place-a place of identikit culture. Sociologists speak of a process of convergence. They maintain that whether we are primitives or sophisticates, whether we are ideologically wedded to the East or West, we are all moving in the same general direction. All want to industrialize or at least experience the benefits of industrialization. It is argued that Third World transitional societies are experiencing the growth of scientism, and the extension of technical knowledge and education. They too are experiencing the breakdown of the old extended family system and its replacement by the mobile, nuclear family which is so adaptable to the needs of modern industrial societies. Gradual capital accumulation is making possible a greater variety of investment opportunities, and there is a developing value-consensus about the intrinsic worthwhileness of the modernizing process.
