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stimulated by a scientific discovery or a scientific discovery is 
being stimulated by industrial needs. 
2.6. For the last five or six thousand years, or more, the 
average per capita production remained more or less constant 
or fluctuated within narrow limits. The industrial revolution 
changed all this, and led to a spectacular increase in the variety 
and volume of goods produced. As a consequence of such 
increasing production, the standard of living of the advanced 
countries of West Europe and North America reached a level 
far higher than the rest of the world. Also, the advancement 
of science, technology and industry, made it possible for the 
western countries to become strong military powers; and, 
because of such military supremacy, the west was able to bring 
a large part of the world either into direct colonial rule or into 
conditions of economic or political subjugation. 
2.7. The last forty years have also seen the rise of U.S.S.R., 
as another world power, rapidly growing, through the promot- 
lon of science and technology, in economic, industrial and 
military strength together with a continuing increase in the 
level of living. The monopoly of scientific and technological 
knowledge and the unchallengeable military supremacy of the 
western countries have now gone. The increasing parity 
detween the ’’western’’ and the ’’eastern’’ countries in science, 
technology, industry, and military power is a most significant 
fact of the present time. Because of the unprecedented 
destructive power of atomic and nuclear weapons, it has become 
absolutely necessary to avoid a nuclear war which would be 
catastrophic for both sides and the whole world. Coexistence 
of both the ’’western’’ and the ’eastern’’ powers has become 
indispensable. 
2.8. There is no intention on either side to make a direct 
attack. The advanced countries pose no special problems 
decause it is not possible to hold such countries indefinitely in 
subjugation. However, so long as there are underdeveloped 
*4+] Mahalanobis I - pag. 
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