It has been twelve years since the First Symposium on New Problems of Advanced Societies held in November of 1972. During this time, the Second Symposium was held in May of 1976 under the auspices of HWWA-Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung-Hamburg. As the first oil crisis of 1973-74 was still having its impact, the themes taken up in the Second Symposium were mostly economic in nature. We have now convened the Third Symposium. It is held amidst a difficult and eventful time. Stagflation and kinds of anomic phenomena still torment many countries of the world, even several years after the second oil crisis of 1979. In addition, there have been frequent local disputes and conflicts in various areas, especially in the Middle East, which have further intensified the confrontation between the two superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The international organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, which have contributed to building post-World War II world order and peace, have come to face functional confusion and crisis entering the 1970s. The accumulated debts of the developing nations are enormous and there are many developing countries'which are reaching the point of bankrupcy.
