Draft, 19 February 2002

It is deep and important fact about human beings that extraordinary things can be achieved through concerted, coordinated action. The phenomena of coordination extends from elementary exchanges of goods or services between two persons, through a vast array of small to large scale social, commercial, industrial, military, political, public and non-governmental organizations and institutions, to whole social or cultural systems, nation states, and civilizations, that extend over vast territories and persist for many generations. All of written history—itself the product of a highly complex form of concerted action—testifies to what has been and can be accomplished by the coordination of human energies.