At the risk of oversimplification, one may say that the coordinated
actions of societies are directed largely toward one or the other of two
basic goals. First and foremost, they are directed toward the maintenance
of the political status quo within the group. Since perfect stability
or equilibrium is impossible, this goal might better be described as the
minimization of the rate of internal political change. This manifests itself
in various ways, but particularly in the development of the machinery of
state and other agencies and instruments of social control, in the great
concern for law and order which every society's leaders express, and in
the cultivation of political ideologies which justify the status quo.
It is also seen in the universal concern of societies and their leaders
with defense against foreign aggression (1966, p.41-42).
The second basic goal of societies is the maximization of production
and the resources on which production depends. Sometimes this has
been sought by efforts to promote technological advance; more often it
has been through war and conquest (1966, p.42).