On the Two Diverging-Sector Model of Social Development

Abstract

A very old Egyptian proverb has it that is the mother of the world; but then, as Oscar Wilde pointed out, All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. The hypothesis put forward here is that ancient Egypt represents the social pattern toward which the contemporary world is moving. More precisely, it represents the earliest and clearest example of the two diverging-sector society. Sector E represents the everyday world and is the one that immediately strikes the visitor: the poor hygiene, the slums, the dirty streets, the broken pavements. There is nothing peculiar to Egypt in all this; it shares these symptoms with other underdeveloped parts of the world. But the other sector, T, is represented by that marvel of technology and engineering, the pyramids, man's earliest, most grandiose, and probably most durable largescale artifact. Today the advanced part of the world, led by its most technologically and economically developed society, the United States, is following the ancient Egyptian model. The E sector is steadily deteriorating: witness the increasingly dirty streets and spreading potholes, the declining hygienic standards, the creeping slums, the shoddy buildings, the power blackouts and water shortages, and the paralyzed public transport of New York and