Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History Part 7

2. In each case an independent, self-directing, expanding state was built around an urban center.

3. In each experiment a simple, local, social structure was extended, expanded, specialized, sub-divided, integrated, consolidated.

4. In each experiment a relatively static society pa.s.sed into the control of an emerging cla.s.s of peddlers, merchants, traders, speculators, business enterprisers and professionals who were not directly involved in the conversion of nature's gifts into goods and services ready for human use, but in political and cultural practices which enabled the emerging bourgeois cla.s.s to stabilize and extend its wealth and power and build an economic structure that augmented unearned income and laid the foundation for predation, exploitation and parasitism.

5. In each experiment an amateur apparatus for defense and/or aggression matured into a professional military means for enlarging the geographical area and strengthening the economic and political authority of the new trading-ruling cla.s.ses. In each empire and each civilization there was an evolution of "defense" forces from voluntary to professional status, from subordinate to dominant status, from partic.i.p.ation in public life to political supremacy over all aspects of public life.

6. In each experiment ma.s.sed labor power (slave, serf, or wage-earner) was a.s.sembled, organized and trained to build roads, bridges, aqueducts, housing facilities and eventually to operate agriculture, construction, industry, trade and commerce, public utilities and other services in the interests of an oligarchy.

7. In each experiment a capital city (and a.s.sociated cities) became the nucleus for acc.u.mulating wealth, constructing public buildings, providing means of transportation and sources from which raw materials could be secured for city maintenance and for the provision of sanitary facilities, means of recreation and diversion.

8. In each experiment there was a compet.i.tive struggle between rival communities, each pa.s.sing through the rural-urban transformation. The result was an increasing conflict for survival, for expansion and for local supremacy.

9. Each experiment expanded along lines that led the more successful to build traditional empires consisting of wealth-power centers and peripheries of a.s.sociates and dependents.

10. Each experiment produced a compet.i.tive survival struggle between rival empires that would determine eventual supremacy.

11. In each experiment one among the local and regional contestants defeated, conquered, dismembered, a.s.similated or destroyed its rivals and emerged as victor, giving its name to a civilization: Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman.

12. In each experiment the victims of imperial aggression, conquest, exploitation and a.s.similation, conspired, united, resisted and revolted against the dominant power. The result was endemic civil war.

13. Within each experiment, as the civilization matured, the same confrontations appeared at the nuclear center and in the provincial-colonial periphery:

a. Extremes of riches side by side with slum-dwelling poverty.

b. Expanding unearned income, with one cla.s.s (the propertied and privileged) owning for a living and another cla.s.s (peasants, artisans, serfs, slaves) working for a living.

c. Intensified exploitation of ma.s.s labor side by side with the proliferation of parasitism throughout the body social, consisting of individuals and social sub-groups whose contribution in the form of goods produced and services rendered was less than the cost of maintaining the partic.i.p.ants.

d. Economic stagnation. Public spending in excess of public income; higher levies and taxes to replenish the empty treasury; rising prices due to excess of demand over supply; public borrowing with no means for repayment; the issue of money without corresponding reserves; degradation of currency through decrease of its metal content; unemployment among citizens due chiefly to increase in forced labor of war captives and other slaves; public insolvency due to territorial over-expansion; excessive overhead costs; nepotism, bribery, corruption in public service; an over-large bureaucracy feeding at the public trough.

e. Revolution in the nuclear center and fierce suppression.

Provincial revolt. Revolt in the colonies. Endemic civil war.

f. Migration toward the central honey-pot; invasion by rivals and adventurers seeking to control it, plunder it and guzzle its contents.

g. Dissolution of the society; boredom; ennui; loss of purpose and direction; growing dissension; power struggle and avoidance of responsibility for trends that were little understood and generally beyond the control of existing officialdom.

Histories of individual nations and empires and histories of civilizations and civilization a.s.semble and present a great body of factual information which support and substantiate this factual summary.

The present study aims to organize the facts, to compare them and to draw conclusions as to the benefits and detriments; the practicality or futility; the wisdom or folly of building empires and merging them into civilizations.

These conclusions are based on several thousand years of experiment and experience with the civilized life pattern. Time after time, in age after age, human beings by the millions have poured faith, hope and unbounded energy, devotion and dedication into the upbuilding of the urban nuclei of successive civilizations. Details have varied. Ultimate conclusions have been the same. One civilization after another has pa.s.sed into the limbo of history leaving, sometimes, splendid ruins as a testimonial to its evident inadequacy to meet the survival needs of oncoming generations.

Such conclusions, based on history, are underlined by current experience with the over-ballyhooed, over-priced variant of the life pattern which signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried forward by the blood, sweat and tears of credulous, hopeful, eager human beings. Its promises have been wonderful; its performance, especially since 1900, has been pitifully inadequate, superficial and unsatisfying.

_Part II_

A Social a.n.a.lysis of Civilization

CHAPTER SIX

THE POLITICS OF CIVILIZATION

Several thousand years ago humankind began experimenting with the life style which we are now calling civilization. Presumably it was not thought out and blueprinted in advance but worked out by trial and error, episode by episode, step by step--perhaps, also, leap by leap.

Historical and contemporary experiments with this lifestyle supply a fund of valuable information, some of which has been covered in the earlier chapters of this book. Our next task is to a.n.a.lyze and cla.s.sify this information under four headings: the politics, the economics, the sociology and the ideology of civilization. (When the information is properly arranged, we can do something with it and about it.)

Politics is the part of social science and engineering which is concerned with the organization, direction and administration of human communities. We use the word to cover the conduct of public affairs in any social group more extensive than a family. Hence we refer to village politics, town politics, national politics, international politics and, in the present instance, to the politics of civilization as a way of life.

Each sample, referred to in our examination of typical civilizations, was built around a center, nucleus or homeland consisting of one or more cities with their adjacent hinterlands. The nucleus of the developing civilization was also the nucleus of an empire. Each nucleus was a center of planned production; acc.u.mulating wealth, growing population and expanding authority. Certain locations are better suited than others to provide the essentials of a civilization nucleus.

The first requirement for a nucleus is a tolerable climate, primarily a satisfactory balance between heat and cold. Before the general use of fire as a source of warmth human populations were concentrated at or near the tropics. With the increasing use of artificial heating and lighting human beings were able to cl.u.s.ter farther and farther away from concentrated equatorial sunlight.

The second requirement of such a location is a strategic position in a crossroads, in a network of transportation and communication.

The third requirement is a readily available source of the food and building materials necessary to feed, house, and clothe a community and provide it with some of the niceties of daily living.

The fourth requirement is the presence of sufficient man-power to operate the nucleus and provide a surplus for defense and for its extension and expansion.

The fifth requirement is defensibility against aggression or invasion.

The sixth essential is the availability of sufficient raw materials to meet the requirements of the nucleus, provide the exports needed to maintain a favorable trade balance for the nucleus and permit of its expansion, advancement and enrichment.

Seventh, and in some ways, the most important requirement for the establis.h.i.+ng of an empire or a civilization nucleus, is the presence of a will to live, a will to grow, a will to advance, competence in management, and a dogged persistence that will remain constant through generations or centuries of adversity, and still more demanding, through long periods of security, comfort and affluence.

Eighth, and by no means least important, is the capacity to fight and win the aggressive trade and military wars incidental to the defense and expansion of the nucleus, of the empire, and eventually of the civilization.

The ninth requirement is tolerance, receptivity to new ideas and practices, the capacity to adapt and to a.s.similate the outside elements which are constantly incorporated into the growing, expanding empire or the civilization.

Finally, as we read the history and observe the development of nuclei, empires and civilizations, we are impressed by the role of outstanding individuals who occupy positions of responsibility over sufficiently long periods or with sufficient intensity to leave a lasting impression on the ideas, practices and inst.i.tutions of their times. This requirement covers the practice of effective leaders.h.i.+p.

Our concern, at this point, lies primarily with the first eight of these requirements for survival and success in building up empires and civilizations.

Empires and civilizations are established during periods of social expansion when the up-building and out-going urges are widely felt. The surge produces not a single center of growth and expansion but dozens or scores of compet.i.tors, each aiming to win and keep a position well in advance of its rivals. The resulting up-surge and free-for-all, which usually lasts for centuries, is a characteristic and recurring feature in the political life of every civilization.

This statement is less a requirement for success in organizing the nucleus of a civilization, than a generalization about the natural and social milieu out of which competing nuclei arise. Success of one among the many compet.i.tors is a characteristic feature of the struggle for nuclear survival, development and perhaps for eventual supremacy.

From earliest times waterways have provided the readiest means of getting about. All that was needed was a hollow log, a raft, a primitive canoe. Movement by land was impeded by mountains, deserts, forests, swamps, water courses. Movement by water was a natural.

More and bigger boats required shelter against storms and protection against destruction by enemies. A good harbor with an adjacent walled town or city was the answer to this need.