The content and forms of American communications-the myths and the means of transmitting them-are devoted to manipulation. When successfully employed, as they invariably are, the result is individual passivity, a state of inertia that precludes action.

The actions and inactions of hundreds of millions of people and nearly 200 states, will affect what kind of world emerges in the time ahead.

Popular dissatisfaction seems to occur only when the shopping or the commercials are interrupted. In such an atmosphere, is there any reason to imagine that saturation shopping could be a source of instability to the U.S. world position?

Ultimately, each transnational firm strives for its own advantage, and is supported in that effort by the state power wherein it resides, or at least where its main shareholders are domiciled.

Though some still see the Internet, for example, as a democratic structure for international individual expression, it is more realistic to recognize it as only the latest technological vehicle to be turned, sooner or later, to corporate advantage - for advertising, marketing and general corporate aggrandizement.

One growing threat to the stability of the U.S. economy, and therefore to its capability to continue to direct the global order, paradoxically emerges from its success in establishing capitalism around the world.

Behind all the hype shaping the electronic highway are corporate interests. These huge companies are doing the most natural thing in the world to them; following their own corporate interest.