The structure of the world has long been characterized by extreme hierarchization and stratification. In many dimensions, rifts can be observed. For example, there is a dramatic gap in the global economic system between the so-called OECD world and the rest of the world. While the former is densely and relatively symmetrically interconnected among itself, the rest of the world remains predominantly asymmetrically oriented towards this gravitational center. This politically dominant and highly coordinated gravitational center (about 16 percent of the world's population) currently faces no comparably coordinated collective or even regional power center. The rifts within the non-OECD world are no less pronounced: about ten percent of the world's population lives under the conditions of states that have collapsed or whose...