Is there something about modern society itself that makes governments inadequate to the tasks they face in the contemporary industrial world? In recent years critics such as Daniel Bell and John Kenneth Galbraith have analyzed postindustrial society in an attempt to illuminate its basic character. Other prominent analysts have spoken about the ungovernability of modern societies and the dilemmas encountered by governments as the demands they face outstrip resources. The daily press obligingly confirms the existence of almost chronic crisis and of persistent political failure in the various capitals of the developed world.

What emerges from all this is the vision of a society that we recognize but do not really comprehend: a busy, complex society that projects new conquests for itself as it discovers ever new latent capabilities; at the same time, a society out of control and deeply dangerous to the individuals who are both its beneficiaries and its victims.