The western theory of modernization has a uniform evolutionary vision of social, political, and economic development for all nations. In WW Rostow's theory of economic development there are prescribed stages through which all societies are supposed to follow. From a traditional, agricultural economy, adaptations to modern technologies lead to a rapid capitol accumulation and early industrialism. Industrialism grows to a high level creating a new standard of living and the development of energy sources. Following this is an era of high consumption through consumerism, which leads to the development of post industrial service industries. With this modernization comes a strong socio-psychological motivation towards achievement and advancement.

The Agricultural Revolution, which began around 8,000 BC, was also the beginning of a sedentary human population that no longer had to depend on hunting for food, and had the beginnings of new forms of social and political organization. A secure, domesticated food supply led to the first major increase in human population. Vast areas of the globe subsequently were deforested by clearing and burning to accommodate the steadily increasing agriculture needed to feed the growing population. New technologies, such as the iron plow, made possible the extension of farmland, which led to an even greater population growth. By the year 1 AD, the world's population had reached about 100 million people. With subsequent advancements in medicine and health, and increased production of food, clothing, and shelter, population steadily increased, with a growth rate of about 0.1% yearly by the start of the Industrial Revolution. Productivity had greatly increased within the energy budget provided by the current solar income and natural carrying capacity of the land.

The Industrial Revolution, which stared to evolve around the 16^th century, made possible a much greater increase in population and enhanced human productivity by using the energy gotten from fossil fuels to do tasks usually done by humans or animals which enabled humans to do things not possible before. This resulted in increased farm productivity, easier and more widespread distribution due to inventions such as the steam engine and later the internal combustion engine. These new technologies increased carrying capacity by tapping into the solar energy stored in fossil fuels. Large scale exploitation of non-renewable natural resources, rapid population growth, and the growing quantity and variety of non-fuel minerals used, led to more frequent and intense interaction between national populations. An international political and economic order based on rapid, technology inspired growth and expansion was developed. Nations expanding at a rate that could not be supported by their own national resources, sought these things through trade, political confederations, and colonization, using their economic, military, technological, and geographic capabilities to get what they needed. This often entailed taking territories from their defenseless inhabitants, disregarding moral inhibitions. Thus, the "power of progress" was rapidly becoming "the progress of power."

It has now become apparent that technological progress is running into problems that have been thus far unforeseen or ignored. These problems include the increasing scarcity of our finite resources, lack of new locations for expansion and to supply needed resources, and the tremendously increasing world population, which, as expected, has exceeded 6 billion near the end of the 20^th century. In 1970, 70% of the world's population was in under-developed countries. By 2000 it has grown to about 80%.

The World System Theory claims that the modernization theory is an ideology based on the English model of development as the ideal for others to follow, refusing to accept the idea that deep structural factors might prevent modernization in other societies. These societies then become dependent on a core of 'developed' nations to whom they never actually quite "catch up" to. The core countries, the highly developed industrialized, technocratic powers, see their development as the appropriate path to progress, and perpetuate the myth by offering under-developed countries assistance with their modernization. In the early 1970's the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Green Revolution," which was supposed to stave off famine with a "miracle" grain seed, had apparently failed. American industries backed the campaign so they could sell their goods (fertilizers, pesticides, and farm machinery) to the under-developed countries. The plan failed because of several reasons. The farmers who used the new grain found that higher yields brought lower profits. Transportation in many areas was not sufficient to bring the necessary fertilizers to the farmers, or to bring their produce to the market. Finally, rodents, insects, and disease destroyed most of the "miracle" crop. In reaction to the United States' apparent failure, the then Soviet Union offered their technocentric solution to the under-developed countries. This was a new pesticide called Thoradrin. This meant the building of massive Thoradrin factories in the under-developed countries for production of the Soviet's panacea. But again this was not the solution, for the problem was not one of agriculture, but one of population (Paul Ehrlich in Eco-Catastrophe). Dr. Bob Scholte of the New School for Social Research points out, "In Imperialism, maximal economic returns suffice to silence questions of normative intent or human degradation. It's goal is efficiency, domination, and the exploitation through the grim domination and efficient exploitation of human nature (conquest abroad and repression at home) with a calculating contemplation of the world as prey". John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, believed that nations should strive for self-sufficiency. In his1933 essay "National Self-Sufficiency" (published in Yale Review) he attributes economic inequality to the imperialist, capitalist, technocentric assumptions of nations. In that essay he wrote, "We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the unappropriated splendours of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend. London is one of the richest cities in the history of civilisation, but it cannot 'afford' the highest standards of achievement of which its own living citizens are capable, because they do not 'pay.'"

However, we are currently undergoing an emergence of a paradigm of eco-politics in which broader ecological, ethical, and economic issues and conflicts in international politics are given greater attention and importance than the narrower military political issues typical of the Industrial era. The new paradigm involves seeing the Earth as an interdependent system of ecological communities that depend on finite and exhaustible resources needed to support an ever increasing population. Our survival depends on our willingness to understand the interconnectedness of life systems and to live in harmony and cooperation with these systems.

This new paradigm seems to be part of a third major revolution in human history, following the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions, in which man drastically changes his relationship with the planet and thus changes the planet.