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...