This is an essay on social change in the Western industrialized countries. The discussion of the changes that actually happen will be in the tradition of materialist analysis: the potential of the development of new institutional and value structures in our society is seen to be dependent on the development and adaptation of the productive and reproductive forces which are being developed in this society. I shall describe some options of the "Walking People" to act as a ferment in the actual process of change. The "Walking People" are no class in the Marxian sense, but they may very well be the subjective carriers of the changes that will be needed for our physical and cultural survival.¹ In the language of some of the very recent political literature, the "Walking People" can be said to belong to the "Fourth World".²