The massive economic and social changes begun in the American era spilled into politics over the last quarter of the 20th century. After 1976, the senior bureaucracy, palace, and military still clung to the model of a passive rural society that accepted the hierarchical social and political order and that needed to be protected against both communism and capitalism. The generals and bureaucratic elite laid plans to engineer social harmony and guide ‘democracy’ from above. But economically and culturally, the country was rapidly becoming more urban than rural, dominated more by business than by bureaucracy, and more assertive than passive. The paternalist vision was swept away by the advance of industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and the growth of mass society.