AbstractThere are many threats to human survival both internal (man-made weapons, over-population, destruction of resources, pollution and genetic breakdown) and external (meteors, changes in the Sun and contact with other intelligence.)The politics of survival is a series of practical programmes with the object of guaranteeing (as far as possible) the survival of mankind against all foreseeable dangers: an objective which could be met within 300 years. Extensive development of extraterrestrial resources will be required and two practical programmes are suggested: the first, starting in the late 1980s, an international effort to free the world from hunger within the next 20 years; the second, starting in the late 1990s, to remove all major raw materials gathering and industry from the Earth's surface by the end of the following century.