To gain knowledge, we must learn to ask the right questions; and to get answers, we must act, not wait for answers to occur to us. - Anatol Rapoport

The American Revolution was ignited by the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’, a slogan suggested by democratic ideals... Ought not the present day version of the old slogan be ‘No annihilation without representation?

The behavior of two individuals, consisting of effort which results in output, is considered to be determined by a satisfaction function which depends on remuneration (receiving part of the output) and on the effort expended. The total output of the two individuals is not additive, that is, together they produce in general more than separately. Each individual behaves in a way which he considers will maximize his satisfaction function. Conditions are deduced for a certain relative equilibrium and for the stability of this equilibrium, i.e., conditions under which it will not “pay” the individual to decrease his efforts. In the absence of such conditions "exploitation" occurs which may or may not lead to total parasitism.

The usefulness of the models in constructing a testable theory of the process is severely limited by the quickly increasing number of parameters which must be estimated in order to compare the predictions of the models with empirical results.