Western civilization has urbanized its society. Until recently in

Europe and until very recently in North America, the majority of people

were living outside of cities, in villages or on the land. From their

flocks and herds or from their cultivated land they fed themselves and

the cities. Mechanization reduced the demand for labor power in the

countryside. At the same time the growth of industry, trade, commerce

and "services" increased the demand for labor power in the cities.

Relatively the countryside was poor while the cities were rich. The high

prizes were in the cities, bright lights, crowds and the seductive

excitements of seething mass life. Incessant human contacts were part

and parcel of city life. City landlords collected high rents, city

merchants found many customers. City manufacturers could pick and choose

their wage and salary underlings among throngs of young and not so young

jobseekers.

Western civilization grew in and around its cities. Both in form and

function it was urban rather than rural.

Western civilization specialized its society, mechanized it and later

computerized it, making social relationships depend less and less on

personality and more on the position of the individual in a working team

or on an assembly line. Human beings ceased to have names. Instead they

acquired numbers on the payroll, on their homes, on their identity

cards.

Specialization and division of labor, plus power-driven machines

increase productivity, income, surplus. In the countryside goods and

services often are scarce. In the city they are likely to be

super-abundant.

Growth of wealth and income provide support for an increase in

population. Hence the population explosions in cities and in centers of

developing industry, trade and commerce. Countries passing through the

industrial revolution expanded their populations. Recently, the

population of some countries has doubled each twenty-five years.

Western civilization has been militarized as it was mechanized. Every

tool is a potential weapon. The truck becomes a tank, the airplane a

bomber. War making, like other aspects of western civilization, was

mechanized. Formerly war had pitted man against man. Mechanized war

pitted machines and their attendants against other machines and their

human attachments. The same mechanical forces that built cities,

factories and ships converted these agencies of production into

instruments of destruction. Each country in the civilized West fortified

its frontiers, trained officers in special schools, mobilized young men

and women for military service, stockpiled weapons, multiplied

fire-power, making western civilization an armed camp, with guns

pointing in every direction.

Regimentation of city life, of industry and commerce, of war, of

education and public health followed one after another as the individual

human became more and more a cog in a vast social mechanism. This

regimentation dulled imagination at the same time that it deified greed,

with "gimme, gimme;" "more, more;" as its watch words.

At certain points in its development western civilization has lifted

itself temporarily above the material forces that hemmed in the life of

primitive man. The Renaissance was one such period. The Enlightenment

was another. A third was the scientific breakthrough from Darwin and

Marx to the research and experiments which split the atom and

inaugurated the space age. These gains were offset by the growing

planet-wide chasm between wealth and poverty, the plunder and pollution

of man's natural and social environment and the terrifying growth of

destructive power revealed during two prolonged general wars in one

generation.

Mechanized war demonstrated its destructivity, physically, socially,

psychologically. Prolonged war accustomed an entire generation of

mankind to unnecessary suffering and the deliberate twisting, maiming

and destroying which are characteristic features of the war-waging

civilized state.

Exposure of an entire generation to wholesale destruction and mass

murder as a way of life had two quite divergent effects. It converted

sensitive introverts into pacifists. It produced millions of trained

destroyers and killers, experienced in the science and art of

mechanized warfare. Pacifists opposed, denounced and resisted the

warfare state and its progeny. Masses of trained destroyers and killers,

the "new barbarians," gained experience and improved their

qualifications by taking part in conventional warfare and in the

innumerable guerrilla adventures and operations that accompanied and

followed conventional wars.

Previous civilizations have been harried, hectored and undermined by

migrating "barbarians" who had heard of accumulated wealth and had come

to share or perhaps to take over the "honey-pot" and lick up the honey.

Western civilization has faced the problem of migration, intensified by

population explosion. But the "barbarians" who are tearing the social

body of western civilization limb from limb are not outsiders, invading

a civilization in order to plunder and sack it, but the offspring of

well-to-do civilized affluent communities who have repudiated the

acquisition and accumulation of material goods and services, turning,

instead to the satiation of body hungers and the freedom of social

irresponsibility.

Western man has spent ten centuries in building a civilization aimed at

economic stability and social security for the privileged. The "new

barbarian" progeny have rejected this civilization of affluence and are

busily engaged in fragmenting the social apparatus that has made

affluence possible. In a word, western civilization has organized and

coordinated, but in the process it has sowed the seeds of

disorganization and chaos.

One last word about the effect of western civilization on human society.

The West has littered and cluttered the planet with an immense variety

and with enormous quantities of gimmicks and gadgets from tin cans to

airplanes that fly faster than sound, and rockets that carry their

occupants to the moon. Western productivity has multiplied greatly. Too

often it has by-passed utility, ignored quality and outraged beauty.

More often than not its goods, services, institutions, practices and

ideas have remained at the surface without reaching down to life's

essentials.

If life can be fragmented into "physical," "mental," "emotional,"

"energetic," "spiritual," and "creative" it must be evident that the

western way has smothered life's more significant aspects under a

blanket of trivialities, non-essentials and inconsequentials.

Western civilization has stressed competition, aimed at the acquisition

and accumulation of material goods and services. The competitive

struggle, in its civilian and military aspects, has played fast and

loose with the contents of nature's storehouse.

Through uncounted ages Mother Nature has set up a knife-edge balance

among the multitude of aspects and differentiated forms that have

existed and still exist on the planet. Humanity has increasingly upset

this balance of nature, ignorantly and often stupidly, without pausing

to determine the resultant changes. Nowhere is this upset more in

evidence than the changes in climate and animal life and their

possibilities of survival brought about by the erosion of topsoil. Paul

Sears, in his _Deserts on the March_, has told the story. It can be

summed up in four words: deforestation, overgrazing, erosion, drifting

sands.

Another aspect of man's aggressions against nature is the wanton

destruction of wildlife--like the American bison and the wood pigeon.

Still another example is the extraction from the earth's crust of

minerals and metals accumulated through ages and used to turn out

frivolous gadgets or, more disastrously, the materials and machines of

civilized warfare. Instead of conserving natural wealth, rationing it

and thus extending its use to succeeding generations, western man has

burnt it up in the firestorms deliberately kindled during the seven

disaster years from 1939 to 1945.

In the course of its existence western civilization has replaced food

gatherers, cultivators and artisans by hucksters and professional

destroyers of mankind and ravagers of the living space afforded by the

earth's land mass.

Western civilization has done its most far-reaching disservice to

mankind by separating and estranging man from nature. For ages man lived

with nature as one aspect of an evolving ecological balance.

Civilization's basic unit--the city--as it sprawls, cuts off man from

more and more contacts with the earth and its multitudinous life forms;

with fresh air, sunshine, starshine; with nature's sequences--day and

night, the procession of the seasons; with the birth, growth, death

animating so many of nature's aspects. The city is man-made. Well

planned, properly built and organized, it might have become an ornament

beautifying and exalting nature. Page the cities of the West one by

one--they are monotonous, ungainly, ugly slums and rookeries set off by

an occasional bit of creative architecture.

Western civilization has differed in certain respects from the long line

of its predecessors, stretching back through the centuries. In one sense

it has matured, ripened, taking its ideas and practices from its nearest

of kin. In the course of its life cycle it has already made distinctive

contributions:

1. It has become more nearly planet-wide than any of its

known forerunners.

2. It has developed unique approaches and controls through

its science and its technology, inaugurating the power age

by making riotous use of nature's energy sources.

3. It has extended man's conquest of the planet and begun

his adventures into space.

4. It has enlarged the field of human creativity by increasing

the number and proportion of men and women trained and

experienced in productive and creative enterprises.

5. It has opened the door to study and experimentation in

extrasensory perception--man's "sixth" sense.

6. It has made possible an unprecedented increase in the

human population of the planet.

7. It has raised its potential for destruction far above and

beyond its potential for production and construction.

8. It has brought together, classified and indexed the ideas,

materials, techniques and generalizations which made possible

this study of civilization, its appearances, disappearances

and reappearances.

9. Europeans have carried the burdens of western civilization

and inherited its disintegrative consequences for so long a

period that the fate of western civilization and the fate

of present day Europe are closely interwoven.

Western civilization seems to have reached and passed the

zenith of its lifecycle without achieving the political integration,

the stability or the unified authority attained by the Romans and

the Egyptians at the high points in their lifecycles.

CHAPTER FIVE

FEATURES COMMON TO CIVILIZATIONS

Each civilization that has left legible records or significant

traditions during the past five or six thousand years has made

distinctive contributions that modified the culture pattern of its

predecessors and its contemporaries. At the same time all of the

civilizations have had certain common features that are the

characteristic aspects which justify the general definition of

civilization presented in the Introduction to this study.

Civilization is the most comprehensive, extensive and inclusive life

pattern achieved by terrestrial humanity. Starting locally and following

the three basic principles of urbanization, expansion and exploitation,

each civilization has charted a course that led from tentative local

beginnings through a cycle of growth, maturity, decline, decay and

dissolution.

The civilizing process is essentially collective, subordinating the

interests of each part to the interests of the whole, while allowing

sufficient home rule to enable each part to have the political, economic

and cultural advantages enjoyed by the other parts, always excepting the

privileged position occupied by the civilization's dominant empire and

its nucleus.

Necessarily a civilization is composed of more or less disparate

segments, each one (before its inclusion in the collective whole)

maintaining a large measure of sovereign independence. Utilizing

advanced techniques of communication, exchange, and transportation, the

separate sovereign units are coordinated, consolidated, unified and

universalized. The result is an aggregate of parts, differing in many

local respects, but acknowledging the authority of the power center and

contributing material goods and manpower to its support and defense. The

main sociological purpose of each civilization has been to impose

central authority and universality upon political, economic and

ideological diversity.

Every civilization has been confronted with the advantages of unity over

diversity. Every civilization has professed its devotion to unity. Every

civilization at one or another stage in its development has subordinated

unity to the increasingly insistent demands of diversity.

For at least six thousand years one civilization after another has

sought to achieve centralization and universality. In every instance of

which history provides a legible record, centralized, universalized

institutions and practices have fragmented into diversity and stubborn

localism.

Western civilization is part and parcel of this generalization.

Generation by generation and century by century it has professed and

proclaimed the advantages of universality while it yielded to the

persistent demands of nationalism, regionalism and localism. Throughout

the latter years of the nineteenth century the will to unify gained much

ground. The tide turned with the turn of the century. For the first half

of the present century the forces of unity and of diversity seemed

stalemated. War's end in 1945 saw the shadow of a universal state

flicker across the screen of history. With the adjournment of the

Bandung Conference in 1955 the shadow dissolved and was replaced by the

strident nationalisms that have become an outstanding feature of

planetary politics, economics and social organization.

Despite the insistence of reason and experience that strength and

stability are the result of unity,--tradition, custom and habit have

held human society at the level of political, economic and ideological

diversity. Nowhere in history is this generalization more emphatic than

in the failure of the European standard-bearers of western civilization

to replace a millennium of diversity, discord and conflict by a unified,

coordinated, co-existing, cooperating European community.

At its best a civilization is insecure and even unstable, disturbed and

upset by an increasing domestic struggle for preferment and power that

includes rivalry, competition, revolt, rebellion, civil war and wars of

self-determination carried on by unassimilated regional, provincial and

colonial elements. From beyond their frontiers civilizations have been

assailed by rival aspirants for power, by armed bands in search of

plunder or by migrating peoples seeking greener pastures. All of these

forces have held the ground for diversity and barred the way to

universality.

Another factor of great consequence leading to the instability of

civilizations has been the concentration of wealth, power, privilege,

comfort and security in the hands of a minority, in sharp contrast with

poverty and insecurity among the less well-placed majority. Generally,

the privileged minority has been relatively small and the exploited

majority overwhelmingly large.

Still another disturbing factor in each civilization is the

transformation of its military arm from a means of defense against

external enemies into a major factor in the direction of domestic

affairs. The professional military build-up has frequently usurped the

state power and became king-maker by virtue of its monopoly of weapons,

organization, and its highly trained personnel of professional

destroyers and killers.

Upset by one or another of these disturbing and disruptive forces,

civilized populations have panicked and retreated from their

collectiveness toward more localized, more fragmented, less social and

more individual life patterns. Such a retreat rounds out the later

phases of a cycle of civilization--the phases of decline and final

dissolution.

Civilizations perish in the first instance because of internal

contradictions and conflicts, the struggle to grab, monopolize, and keep

wealth, status, power.

They perish because of the division of the nucleus and its associates

and dependencies between those who work for a living, those who have an

unearned income and those parasites who scrounge for a living. They

perish because of the hard class and caste lines that grow out of

economic contradictions; because of the development of a social

pyramid, layer above layer, until the summit is reached where there is

standing room for only a few. Competent, talented persons may rise from

level to level in this pyramid. A political and social bureaucracy

develops which feeds at the public trough. Then comes a bitter struggle

to get both feet in the trough and keep them there side by side with an

equally determined effort to exclude outsiders and other intruders. An

army of volunteers and novices is converted into a military

establishment which becomes a state within the state, extending its

control until it makes policy, selects top leaderships and carries on

its internal feuds and wars of succession dividing the defense forces

and using them for partisan purposes. Overhead costs rise; deficits in

the public treasury grow; so does public debt. Inflation follows, and

the debasement of the currency. Levies are made on private wealth for

public purposes. There is expropriation of the property of political

enemies. Espionage, secret agents, the growth of informers become part

of the society, along with the use of assassination as a political

weapon, the increase of violence and crime, and eventually, a flight

from the cities.

This tragic enumeration only skims the surface of the many and various

aspects of a situation that reaches its breaking point in civil war,

famine, pestilence and eventually in depopulation.

Social dissolution is accelerated by provincial revolts against central

authority; by survival struggle between the empires which were

coordinated and consolidated into the civilization; by revolt in the

subordinate and dependent segments of the civilization; by rivalry and

conflict between racial, cultural and political sub-groups forced into

the civilization, held there by coercion, policed by armed force and

taking the first opportunity to win political independence and self

determination.

While the momentum for expansion lasted, the civilization grew in wealth

and power. When it waned, disintegration set in. Changelessness seems to

be impossible in a social group. A civilization either expands or

withers, builds up or falls to pieces.

Starting from one or more local groups, each civilization has reached

out "to conquer the world", occupy it, organize it, dominate it, exploit

it, perpetuate itself. In each case expansion, occupation, domination

and exploitation are limited by human capacity (human nature); by the

relative brevity of a single human life; by the extreme variations in

the capacity of successive leaders. It is limited by geography; by the

means of transportation and communication; by overhead costs that

increase geometrically as the civilization expands arithmetically; by

the means of delegating responsibility; by accounting devices, available

raw materials and labor power; by power struggles inside the ruling

oligarchies; by the failure to maintain a balance between centerism and

localism; by growing local demands for self-determination; by the

invasion of nomads seeking to plunder the tempting honey pot at the

nucleus of the civilization.

Such limitations are political, economic and sociological. Psychological

forces are also at work. The vigor and vitality of the early builders

gradually spends itself. The will to austerity and the sense of loyalty

and social responsibility are diffused and diluted. Bureaucracy

degenerates into a rat race. The paralysis of parasitism replaces the

will to power. Physical gratification gains priority over the service of

the gods. Consistently, through its entire written history, civilization

has been built upon what the civil law of all nations calls "robbery

with violence". In every instance when the robbers have grabbed

everything in sight, and gorged to the point of physical satiety, they

fall to quarreling among themselves or turn with boredom and disgust

from the whole sodden mess of discord, disorder and degeneration.

Each step, from the establishment of an urban nucleus of expansion,

through the building of rival empires to the final struggle for supreme

power, involves the violent subordination of lesser interests to the

interests of one supreme authority. Violence takes precedence over

persuasion and negotiation. In each case the final appeal is to armed

combat using the most sophisticated weapons available.

During the "time of troubles" which overtakes each civilization, war

and the threat of war become normal aspects of domestic and

international relations. A specialized war-making bureaucracy is

organized; war plans are made; war games (rehearsals) are carried on,

and wars are fought as a means of determining which nation or

combination of nations shall have access to raw materials and markets,

dominate the trade routes, control the weaker peoples, own and exploit

the colonies.

To the victor, war is the means of extending national or imperial

frontiers and legalizing expansion at the expense of the vanquished.

Defeat in war leads to the imposition of indemnities, the payment of

tribute, the transfer of territory to the victor and in extreme cases

the extermination of the defeated nations or empires.

Settlements imposed by violence and policed by victors lead to

resentment, antagonism, hatred and the build-up of a desire for revenge,

including the restoration to the vanquished of lost territories. The

logical outcome of such a situation is preparation for a war of

independence by the vanquished, countered by military occupation, rigid

suppression, and exploitation by the victors in the previous struggle.

War is taken for granted as an instrument of policy. It is employed by

civilized nations and empires as a means of expansion. Wars of

independence and restitution follow conquest, dismemberment and

annexation. Civilized nations and empires prepare for war and wage war

as a normal aspect of civilized life.

Civilization, and in particular western civilization, is a time-bomb,

built to detonate and scatter its fragments far and wide. It is a type

of booby trap in which humanity has been caught periodically and

horribly mangled. Without exception, each civilization has contained the

forces and equipment needed for its own annihilation. At no time

reported by history has this formulation been more obvious than during

the decades immediately following war's end in 1945. Destructivity was

lifted to new levels of efficiency by electronic communication, the tank

and the airplane. It was further escalated by atomic fission and

nuclear fusion. Advances in science and technology had made dramatic

increases in the tempo of production and construction. Utilization of

atomic energy had stepped up destructivity to the nth power.

Based on assumptions that oft-repeated experience has proved to be false

and misleading, civilization in the 1970's is unstable and insecure.

Most civilizations are strangled in their cradles or plundered and

demolished in the course of the never-ending political, economic and

military conflicts which have marked and marred civilizations since the

dawn of history. The national and imperial survivors of these struggles

in every known instance have been largely or wholly led by military

adventurers and plunderers in search of booty, fame and power. With

professional plunderers, destroyers and murderers occupying the seats of

power, it is only a question of time and occasion before rising overhead

costs and the misfortunes of war result in their overthrow and

replacement by better organized, better armed invaders who slaughter and

enslave their predecessors and usurp and abuse their power. Of

necessity, civilizations are self-destructive, built as they are on the

ebb and flow of power struggle.

Successive conflicts involve an indefinite volume of overhead costs,

which grow with the intensity and extent of the expansive survival

struggle, creating a series of crises along a path that leads to

self-destruction and the return of the experimenters to a condition of

pre-civilized self-containment.

We in the West, looking back on our own immediate history, refer to this

pre-civilized status as the Dark Ages. Actually, such Dark Ages are the

transition stages between two periods of experiments with the building

of civilizations. In view of this oft-repeated experience, modern man

must look upon an epoch of civilization not as a way of life, but an

adventure of suicidal self-degradation and ultimate self-destruction.

Each cycle of civilization has had its peculiarities, determined by the

geographical and historical factors surrounding its origin and

development. Yet all have had features in common. Among the common

features we would list:

1. A revolutionary movement within the societies under

consideration. In each experiment with civilization the culture pattern

was transformed from pastoral and/or agricultural to a culture based on

trade, commerce and finance; from rural to urban; from simple to

complex; from local toward universal.

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 passed into the

control of an emerging class 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 class 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 classes. In each empire and each civilization

there was an evolution of "defense" forces from voluntary to

professional status, from subordinate to dominant status, from

participation in public life to political supremacy over all aspects of

public life.

6. In each experiment massed labor power (slave, serf, or wage-earner)

was assembled, 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 associated cities) became the

nucleus for accumulating 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 competitive struggle between rival

communities, each passing 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 associates and dependents.

10. Each experiment produced a competitive survival struggle between

rival empires that would determine eventual supremacy.

11. In each experiment one among the local and regional contestants

defeated, conquered, dismembered, assimilated 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 assimilation, 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 class (the propertied and

privileged) owning for a living and another class (peasants,

artisans, serfs, slaves) working for a living.

c. Intensified exploitation of mass 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 participants.

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 assemble 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

passed 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 Analysis 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 analyze and classify

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; accumulating 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 cluster 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

establishing 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 assimilate 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 institutions of their times. This

requirement covers the practice of effective leadership.

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 competitors, 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 competitors 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.

Good harbors and navigable waterways are notably absent along the west

coast of South America and notably present in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Consequently, the South American West Coast line is sparsely settled to

this day, while the Eastern Mediterranean has been crowded with peoples,

teemed with trade and commerce, carried largely by sea, between cities

that occupied the best access to waterways.

Safe harbors and navigable waterways made trade and transport easy and

cheap. As each wave of human advance turned from animal husbandry and

agriculture to bourgeois practices of industry, commerce and finance,

locations at strategic points along trade routes were first occupied by

occasional markets and fairs and eventually by trading towns and cities.

Geography was a decisive factor.

Fertility was equally important. In the early stages of social

development transportation was difficult, dangerous and expensive.

Sources of food and building materials were found within a short

distance of the growing trade center. Again geography played a decisive

role. A deep, sheltered harbor backed by a desert could not attract and

support a thriving trade center. Food and raw materials are

indispensable to concentrations of human beings.

The Nile Valley, like that of the Ganges and the Yellow River, provided

the fertility and transport, the food and raw materials that have

sustained concentrated human populations for many thousands of years,

forming part of the base for Egyptian, Indian and Chinese civilizations.

Animal husbandry and grain farming, coupled with fishing and forestry,

made possible the growth of cities and laid the foundations for the

nuclei of these civilizations.

Temples, tombs and other public constructs provided the centers around

which Egyptian civilization was built. The stone, wood and other raw

materials used in the building of these unique examples of human

handiwork were floated up and down the Nile from their sources of

origin. Annual Nile floods provided silt deposits necessary to fertilize

farms and gardens. Nile water, impounded during floods, irrigated the

land during the long dry seasons. Banked by deserts, the Nile was a

ribbon of fertility running through a largely uninhabited wilderness.

The upper reaches of the Nile lay in the mountains of Central Africa.

The Nile delta, built up through ages by silt deposits, provided a

meeting place where African, European and Asian traders could exchange

their wares and lay the foundations for the civilization of lower Egypt.

The Nile also provided the means of communication which connected Lower

Egypt with Upper Egypt and led, finally, to the unification of the two

areas in a long enduring and prestigious Egyptian civilization. Once

again geography was laying down the guide lines within which

civilizations have been built up and liquidated.

Thus far we have noted the role of physiographic factors that have led

to building the nuclei of empires and civilizations. They have been

parallelled by social factors as men took advantage of natural

opportunities to concentrate, feed and house ever larger human

aggregates.

Empires and civilizations have been built up by comparatively large

numbers of human beings concentrated in relatively small spaces.

Wandering food gatherers and herdsmen ranged widely in search of game

and grass. Cultivators settled in villages from which they could work

the land. If crops were scanty, population was sparse. Only abundant

crops, dependable, season after season, provided the basis for large

settled populations.

Large, settled populations, adequately supplied with the essentials of

life, enabled human beings to organize social centers in which a

comparatively few people, tending their animals and working the land,

could release a comparatively large part of the population to devote its

time and energy to trade and commerce, to industry and transport, to the

arts and sciences and to the organization, direction and administration

of large scale enterprises such as government, the military,

construction and the mobilization of sufficient labor power to carry on

and enlarge their enterprises. In its simplest essence this was

politics.

Egyptian government, in its broad sense, rested on a class structured

society: the aristocracy, the priesthood, officialdom, businessmen,

highly trained scientists and engineers, skilled craftsmen and an

immense proletariat consisting of tenant farmers, peons, slaves and war

captives.

At the top of the political structure was an absolute monarch who

wielded power that was limited only by the ambition, tolerance and

loyalty of his associates--nobles, priests, soldiers, businessmen and

political advisers, and by the willingness of the rural and urban masses

to work and fight for their overlords. A number of the monarchs

(Pharaohs) ruled for long periods--up to sixty years. It was during

these long reigns that the Egyptian Kingdom was organized, strengthened

and unified, the rule of the monarch was safeguarded; ambitious nobles

were placated or destroyed; and the leadership succession was determined

and assured.

The nucleus of the Egyptian Empire was a dictatorship by a

self-perpetuated elite, headed by lords spiritual and temporal. Both

groups held land, accumulated wealth and exercised authority. It was a

government combining the theory of absolutism with the practice of

public responsibility. It was sufficiently arbitrary to get things done.

It was sufficiently inclusive to recognize and utilize special ability.

It was sufficiently structured to carry on from dynasty to dynasty. It

was sufficiently flexible to consolidate scattered communities into the

Old Kingdom, to unite Lower and Upper Egypt, to extend its authority

into Central Africa, the Near and Middle East and parts of Eastern

Europe, thus laying the foundations for history's most extensive and

long-lasting civilization during the period 3500 to 500 B.C.

I have used the Egyptian example of nucleus organization because of the

phenomenal successes achieved by the Egyptians in maintaining an empire

for at least 3,000 years. For a considerable part of those thirty

centuries Egypt was top dog in the strategic area where Africa joins

Eurasia.

The nucleus is the hub from which the spokes of empire and of

civilization radiate. The radius of authority and the vast stretches of

occupied, exploited territory constitute the circumference of the wheel.

The nucleus is the center of wealth and power surrounded by a cluster

of associates and dependencies. The control, direction and

administration of the nucleus is parallelled by the control, direction

and administration of the total complex--the empire and/or the

civilization.

The development from nucleus to empire and from empire to civilization

creates three sets of political problems: those arising from the

administration of the nucleus; those arising out of contacts between the

nucleus and the circumference, between the associates and dependencies

and the nucleus, and those arising out of the determination of the

associates and dependencies to sever their connections with the nucleus,

win their independence, and take part in the unceasing efforts to

establish new nuclei, win the unending power struggle and shift the

power center.

Relationship between nucleus and periphery are the normal outcome of the

expansion of a nucleus into an empire. Each growing urban center reaches

out for an extension of its territory; for the food and raw materials

required by a growing population; for markets that can absorb the goods

and services exported by the urban center to pay for its necessary

imports of food and raw materials.

Politically speaking, the essential problem is to maintain a

relationship that will keep the imports coming in and keep the exports

going out. Imports may take the form of plunder seized by the strong in

contacts and conflicts with weaker neighbors; tribute paid by the weak

to the strong at the insistence of the strong, or trade in which each

side gains something. Empire building involves all three methods.

In virtually all instances the nucleus is richer and stronger; the

periphery is poorer and weaker. In virtually all instances these

relative positions have been the outcome of military operations in which

each party has tried to impose its will upon its rivals. In each case

the spoils went to the victor, who forced defeated rivals to cede

territory, to pay tribute, to give hostages or in some other fashion to

agree upon a settlement that left the victor richer and stronger and the

vanquished poorer and weaker.

Politically speaking, the relation of nucleus to periphery was that of

superior to inferior. Where the discrepancy was very great it resulted

in a relation of master and vassal or even master and slave.

An empire or a civilization, consisting of a wealth-power center and a

periphery of associated and dependent territories and peoples, led to a

living-standard differential in favor of the center. It also involved

the establishment of a political apparatus strong enough to perpetuate

the relationship by collecting tribute and taxes from the weak and

depositing them in the treasure chests of the strong. The outcome was a

civil bureaucracy backed by a military or police strong enough to defend

and perpetuate an unpalatable superior-inferior position.

Once established, both the civilian bureaucracy and the military

apparatus tended to maintain themselves, to extend their privileges and

strengthen their positions. Since controversial issues, domestic and

foreign, are generally decided by force or the threat of force, the

military became the strong right arm of authority.

These confrontations and contradictions created three sets of political

problems: centralism versus localism; established central authority

versus provincial rights and self-determination; the concentration or

centralization of authority in the hands of a select few civilian and/or

military leaders, responsible to the central authority, who made on the

spot decisions and took action.

Under the institutions and practices of civilized society, the select

few were in a position to call in the military which was organized for

emergency action and was constantly standing-by. The military was

trained, disciplined and held a monopoly of weapons.

Civilizations frequently begin as commonwealths or federations forged in

the course of survival struggle. In any such struggle the military will

of necessity play a major role. As the competitive survival struggle

develops, one of the contending parties establishes its superiority by

winning military victory. In the course of this struggle the

commonwealth, a cluster of equals, yields place to the pattern of

empire--a center of wealth and authority with its associates,

subordinates and dependencies.

The strong right arm of politics includes man-power, money and weapons.

The politics of civilization faces a simple mandate: establish,

stabilize and perpetuate a nucleus of wealth and authority; build around

the nucleus a periphery of associates and dependencies.

Historically, the process was a long one extending through generations

and probably centuries. Throughout the struggle individuals must have

the necessities of daily life. Community activities must be housed,

equipped, staffed, supported.

Pastoral and village life were based on a use economy. People produced

what they needed and consumed their own products. Each tribe, family,

village was a more or less self-sufficient unit. When they were

threatened or invaded people defended themselves as best they could. At

worst they abandoned their homes to the invaders and fled into the

forests, mountains or deserts.

Towns and cities, with their industries, trade, commerce, their

permanent housing and capital equipment faced a radically different

situation. Since they could not carry their wealth on their backs they

must stay put and defend themselves or face irreparable losses. Defense

required careful, extensive, expensive preparations: walls, equipment,

stored food, personnel. Unless the city was sacked and burned during

survival struggles it remained as a vantage point to be held at all

costs. If surrendered and occupied by assailants, it was equally

valuable to invaders who were prepared to settle down, take advantage of

the site, the capital equipment and exploit the available manpower.

Whether occupied by friend or enemy, towns and cities were centers of

actual or potential wealth and power. They were also consumers of goods

and services many of which could not be home-produced. Food must come

from herdsmen or farmers. Building materials must come from forests or

mines. Such raw materials, the essentials of daily life, must be brought

into urban centers when and as wanted.

Food and raw materials could be secured occasionally by plunder. A

regular supply depended on trade and commerce, or on tribute levied and

collected periodically from associated or dependent peoples. In the long

run trade and commerce proved to be more reliable and more productive

than plunder.

As urban centers grew and developed, they established regular channels

of trade and communication, by land and water. Along these channels

needed imports moved into the urban centers and exports in exchange

moved from the urban centers into the back country or the provinces. At

every stage in the process care must be taken to prevent intervention by

thieves, robbers or envious rivals. Two devices were used to meet this

situation: money to facilitate exchange and a defense organization to

deal with intruders.

Money and its uses developed money changers, money lenders and banks.

Bankers and banks exchanged currency at a profit and extended credit.

Weapons in the hands of trained personnel evolved into locally employed

police and centrally organized armed services, performing police

functions and fighting wars, domestic and foreign.

Politics, local, regional or national, developed with the growth of

population, the profits of expanding urban life, production, technology.

As its scope broadened geographically city survival depended

increasingly on wealth and power (money and weapons).

During periods of peace and stability the civil authorities controlled

public affairs. In emergencies, such as natural disasters, invasion,

civil or international wars, the military authorities took command.

Military authority is an institutional feature of every civilization. In

periods of public danger it enjoys complete ascendancy. Like civil

authority, the military is a permanent and frequently the dominant

feature of each civilization. It is assured of ample income and

entrusted with the installations and implements of war making. Both in

income and in prestige the military holds a preferred position.

Since military functions center about destroying the person and

property of the "enemy"--domestic or foreign--public funds are made

available or are pre-empted by the military during periods of martial

law. As a civilization becomes more complex and extensive, the funds at

the disposal of the military tend to increase. The same factors of

extent and complexity lead to larger and larger numbers of

confrontations and conflicts in which the military is called upon to

play the leading role. Increasingly, therefore, the military is at the

center of policy making. Finally a point is reached at which war, civil,

colonial or international is always in progress somewhere within the

territories occupied by the civilization. At such periods civil law

slumbers and military authority is more or less dominant and permanent.

Under the slogan "defense of civilization," military necessity and

military adventurism shape public policy, empty the public treasury,

bankrupt and eventually destroy the superstructure of a civilization.

The nucleus which lies at the heart of an empire or a civilization has a

political life cycle that runs from the unstructured or little

structured aggregation of confederation or self-determining local groups

to a highly centralized political absolutism holding and exercising its

authority by the use of the military. The steps in this process have

been clearly marked in earlier civilizations. They are playing a

decisive role in the day-to-day life of western civilization. They

extend from early forms of government under leaders selected or elected

by popular acclaim or at least by popular consent, to more or less

permanent leadership enjoying many political privileges, including the

selection of its successors.

Under the pressure of social emergency, engendered within the social

group or imposed from outside the group by migration, intrusion or

invasion, leadership takes the measures which it considers necessary to

preserve and/or extend its authority. Each emergency offers leadership

an opportunity or an excuse to by-pass custom and/or law, overlook

whatever public opinion may exist and proceed to the measures needed to

meet the emergency. In each organized social group the exercise of

authority has provided the leadership with a near-monopoly of money and

weapons in the hands of a permanent military elite. The use of this

elite to deal with the emergency is accepted by civil authority as a

matter of course.

When social division of function has produced and armed a military

elite, leadership turns to this elite in any emergency arising from

natural disaster or social crisis. The outcome is a community directed

by a military arm seeking to perpetuate and enlarge its own role in the

determination and exercise of public authority, using any means which

seems likely to produce the desired results.

Politically, therefore, any expanding empire or civilization reaches a

point at which absolute monarchy, exercising unquestioned authority,

makes and enforces public policy by the use of the military or with its

help.

Many commentators write as though the essence of civilization was its

art galleries, concert halls, its universities and its libraries. Such

agencies are the trappings, decorations and fringes of a civilization.

There is no justification for such a selective approach. The strong

right-arm of every civilization has been its wealth (money) and its

martial equipment (its guns).

Success in politics has been described as the art of selecting the

possible and bringing it to fruition. Every community is more or less

fragmented by deviations, contradictions, confrontations and conflicts.

These fragmentations begin in the personality and extend through the

entire social structure--from the individual, through the family, such

voluntary associations as the sports club, the trade union, the

merchants' association, the educational system, the political party, the

municipal or the national government.

Unrestrained and undirected social fragmentation leads to conflict,

destruction, perhaps to chaos. Success in politics rests on an

understanding of the chaos and its causes and an integration of

conflicting forces behind specific programs and around charismatic

personalities.

One aspect of the problem is especially disturbing and baffling to the

uninitiated. Compared with the brief adulthood of an individual the life

span of communities is immensely long. The individual is at his or her

best for a few years or decades. Communities and their institutions

endure for hundreds and in some cases for thousands of years. Under the

most favorable conditions an individual can hope to play a part in

community affairs for a decade or two. Before he comes on the stage of

public affairs and after he leaves it, social life stretches

indefinitely.

Politics is one aspect of that more or less extensive social experience.

Its immediate objective is to bring order out of chaos and replace

randomness by purpose and if possible by plan.

In the wake of the bourgeois revolution, which was directed particularly

against monarchy and generally against absolutism, the most obvious and

attractive social pattern was a republic, ruled by the citizens in a

manner which in their opinion was best calculated to promote their

safety and happiness.

Under a republican government public affairs would be openly and freely

discussed by the citizens at a time or place of their choice by word of

mouth, through a free press or in public gatherings. At stated intervals

elections would be held at which all citizens of proper age would select

representatives and a legislature or parliament where questions of

public concern could be debated and appropriate measures adopted.

Implementation or execution of these measures would be placed in the

hands of executive officers responsible to the parliament. As a

safeguard against any miscarriage of the public will, the right of

petition was guaranteed. In some instances the right of referendum and

recall was provided. To obviate any miscarriage of justice, provision

was made for courts, responsible to the citizenry, as an independent arm

of government competent to protect and assert popular rights.

Overall, citizens of the republic, through duly elected representatives,

would draw up and proclaim a constitution containing a general plan of

the governmental machinery. When adopted by the legislature or

parliament this constitution became the law of the land. Governmental

activities were carried out and laws were enacted in conformity with

constitutional provisions. In practice the citizens of the freest

republic were face to face with one of the oldest political dilemmas

confronting mankind: the question of leadership and followership.

In almost any social situation, from trivial to grave and critical, some

one woman or man volunteers advice and often initiates action. If no one

approves, the initiative falls flat. If there is a chorus of approval,

the crowd follows the lead of its spokesman. If some approve while

others disapprove or remain silent, a show of hands is in order. If

there are real differences in the group, some taking one side, some

another side with no chance of common action, the group may divide into

several factions, some remaining in the assemblage, others departing,

with their spokesmen leading the way.

In such confrontations there are many determining factors, the

experience and wisdom of the leadership; the urgency of the subject

under discussion; the depth of the separation between opposing factions;

the experience of the citizenry and their willingness to compromise on

divisive issues; the willingness of the factionalists to abide by a

majority decision.

Experienced leadership, which has enjoyed a period of public approval

long enough to build up not only a group of devoted followers, but a

group of place-men and office-holders who owe their positions to the

leader, can assemble a bureaucratic or political machine, adopt measures

and take the steps necessary to keep its chosen leader in a life job,

with the possibility of naming a successor.

Republics have adopted various measures to prevent the establishment of

a self-perpetuating dynasty, by limiting public office-holding to a

stated number of years; by providing that the office holder may not

succeed himself. Political leaders may avoid such provisions by staying

in the background, having their closest associates elected to office,

and when their term is ended, secure the selection of other associates

upon whose personal fidelity they can rely.

All such measures require that the leader keep the favor of a

considerable number of his constituents. To avoid this often difficult

or disagreeable task the leader and his close associates may persuade

their constituency to by-pass both constitution and parliament, enlist

the support of the military, seize power and establish an arbitrary

dictatorship of admirals and generals or establish a committee of

military leaders who will pick out civilian office holders willing to

follow the political line laid down by the military leaders.

As republics gain in wealth, increase their power and broaden their

geographical base by bringing outside peoples under their sway, their

dependence upon military means of resolving public controversies becomes

greater. This is particularly true where outsiders brought under the

republic's authority have mature political institutions including their

own leaders and their own ways of dealing with public relations.

Given such a situation, the control by the republic over the

policy-making apparatus of dependencies is likely to have been

established by force of arms. In such a case it is only a matter of time

and occasion when the dependency will demand the right of

self-determination and be prepared to fight for independence of "foreign

tyrants, oppressors and exploiters."

Minor inexpensive military operations for the suppression of colonial

revolt which are quickly and successfully ended may add to the stature

of empire-building leaders. But major operations, long continued,

expensive and inconclusive, will undermine the prestige and weaken the

position of the most firmly seated imperialist. The Boer War against the

British and the wars waged by the Koreans and the Vietnamese against a

series of occupiers and exploiters are excellent examples of the

operation of this principle.

As empire building proceeds under its inescapable expansionist drive, a

point will be reached at which the overhead costs of maintaining the

empire will exceed the income. As that point is approached in one after

another of the empires comprising the civilization, the central

authority will be successfully challenged by the dependent, colonial

periphery. Ordinarily, such challenges will coincide with the

inter-imperial wars which have periodically disrupted every civilization

known to history. When such a coincidence does occur, as it did in

western civilization from 1914 to 1945, the bell is likely to toll

loudly for the civilization in question.

Measures usually adopted to prevent such a catastrophe--martial law,

military dictatorship, self-perpetuating monarchy, divine authority, are

more than likely to heap fuel on the flames of rebellion and lead into a

social revolution.

An unstructured social group operating under the competitive principle

"Let him take who has the power" tends to develop into absolutism. At

any stage in the history of a civilization this development can take

place.

Civilization, therefore, comes into being with this built-in

contradiction: the strong and predatory exploit the weak, but at a

certain point protect the weak and nurture the defenseless. Exploitation

by the rich and powerful is recognized and accepted as a prerogative

enjoyed by the rich and powerful. At the same time limitations are

placed on the character and intensity of the exploitation.

This dichotomy is perpetuated by agreements, laws and constitutions

which guarantee the property rights and social privileges by which the

rich and powerful safeguard and increase their wealth and power. Under

the same agreements, laws and constitutions, the privileges and rights

of the defenseless and weak, are specified.

Political institutions in every civilization, including that of the

West, have accepted and adopted a regulatory structure under which

limits are imposed on profiteering. The domestic life of a civilization

consists of an establishment within which exploitation can continue in a

manner which the constitution makers and legislators consider to be as

efficient as possible and as fair as possible to all of the parties

concerned.

As a civilization matures, wealth and power (the means of exploitation)

are increased in volume and concentrated in fewer hands. The resulting

absolutism with its immense structure of wealth production and its

well-organized military arm, imposes conformity to its decrees,

servility, peonage and even slavery on the working masses. The masses,

in their turn, organize, agitate, demonstrate, strike, sabotage, and

periodically take up, arms in defense of their lives and their

livelihood.

We are describing certain political aspects of a process of social

selection which has dominated one civilization after another. At the

present moment it has reached a critical stage in the West. We apply the

term "social selection" to the result of this process because there is a

parallel between the natural selection of the biologists and the social

selection which sociologists observe in the rapid and extensive changes

presently taking place in the centers of western civilization.

Natural selection is a process in the course of which many compete and

contend while only a few survive and mature.

Social selection is a similar knock-down and drag-out struggle in which

peoples, nations, empires and civilizations take part. Many enter the

contest but only a few live to write their story in the long and complex

history of civilizations.

At the outset of such a contest, the European-Asian-African cradle of

the coming western culture contained numerous political

fragments--kingdoms, principalities, cities, city states, inert peasant

masses, migrating tribes--struggling locally and regionally for a place

in the sun, or for additional territory and extended authority. These

struggles reached the military level in local wars, regional wars,

general wars. In the course of this survival struggle, the weakest and

least effective contestants were defeated, dismembered and gobbled up by

their stronger and more efficient opponents.

Local struggles--in the Near and Middle East, in North Africa, in

eastern, central and western Europe--were trial heats in the course of

which many contestants were eliminated, while the survivors continued

the process of city, nation and empire building at higher and broader

levels. It was only after five hundred years of such conflicts that the

outlines of western civilization took definite political form:--a group

of battle-hardened contestants, centered in Europe, heavily armed and

equipped, intent on protecting and enlarging their home territory and

extending their authority over dependencies and colonies in various

parts of the planet.

This survival struggle continued for another three hundred years, down

to the beginning of the present century, reaching its highest level of

intensity between 1914 and 1945, with contestants from all of the

continents taking an active part. In this present round the contestants

are nations and empires, organized in ever-changing alliances. Some of

the contestants are old, scarred and battle weary. Others are young and

vigorous, recent entrants in the planet-wide contest for pelf,

possessions and power.

During the later years of the struggle, after war's end in 1945,

erstwhile dependencies and colonies of the disintegrating European

empires declared their independence, joined the United Nations as

sovereign states and played active parts in the battle for survival.

African development typifies the process during the later phases of

western civilization. When voyaging and discovery became a leading

activity of European nations around 1450 A.D. northern Africa was

directly involved, but the bulk of the continent--Equatorial

Africa--remained almost entirely untouched. After 1870 the pattern was

dramatically altered as British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and

Italian forces moved inland, staking out their claims.

Division of Africa among the great powers reached its culmination when

this process was completed, about 1910, when the whole vast continent of

Africa excepting Ethiopia, Egypt and South Africa had been parcelled out

among the rival European empires. In terms of geography and population,

Africa was still African. Politically it was pre-empted, occupied,

dominated and exploited by European empire builders, who used the over,

all trade name of western civilization.

Excessive costs of empire building, including the disastrous losses of

military struggle from 1914 to 1945, impoverished and weakened the

European overlords to such an extent that they could no longer maintain

their footholds in Africa. At the same time African minorities in

various parts of the continent launched independence movements under the

slogan of self-determination, drove out the European occupiers,

organized political states and declared that Africa must be governed by

and for Africans.

Much of Africa, at the time, was organized along tribal lines, which cut

across the boundaries drawn by the European imperialists between their

colonial territories. The resulting chaos temporarily removed Africa

from any meaningful role in the planet-wide contest for pelf and power.

Africans are politically sovereign. Economically and culturally they

remain dependent on their former European masters.

Politically, western civilization is in a state of flux. Its European

homeland is basically divided by potent fears, ambitions, feuds and

conflicts, and separated geographically from North America and Asia.

Despite several attempts to unify the continent politically, Europe was

disrupted, fragmented and weakened by two general wars in a single

generation. The European empires were politically and economically upset

by widespread colonial revolt in Asia and Africa. Spectacular

achievements of socialism-communism, particularly in East Europe and

Asia, added to the previous fragmentation a new line of division between

capitalist West Europe and socialist East Europe. This process of

fragmentation is giving separatist forces ascendancy over the forces of

integration and unification.

In Roman and Egyptian civilizations, the period of survival conflict led

to the centralization of wealth and authority. After five centuries of

suicidal competitive struggle, the European homeland of western

civilization is criss-crossed by sharp lines of division. Furthermore,

the shift of production and military power from Europe to North America

and Asia reduces the probability of speedy European integration.

In the more important centers of western civilization the chief item of

public expenditure is preparation for a war of air, water and land

machines that may extend technologically into a nuclear war. While we

have no precedent that would enable us to gauge the consequences of an

extensive nuclear war it seems reasonable to assume that it would

further fragment an already fragmented European continent.

The heavy burdens of militarism which western civilization is presently

carrying, have unbalanced budgets, which lead to inflation and to

onerous burdens of debt and taxes. It seems unlikely that a group of

warfare states like the top western European powers can escape the

economic contraction which presently threatens them and regain solvency

and stability through fiscal reforms or readjustments in tariffs and

trade.

Our analysis of the politics of civilization may be summarized in four

general statements:

1. Each civilization has consisted of a cluster of empires,

nations and peoples which at some previous period have

enjoyed independence and sovereignty.

2. Relations between these erstwhile sovereign units have

been determined by a shifting mixture of diplomacy and

armed force, with war playing a determining role in the

process.

3. In the course of survival struggle, political leadership within

the civilization has shifted back and forth as one group

has succeeded in establishing and maintaining its authority

over the entire civilization.

4. A general axiom of the politics of civilization might read:

At the conclusion of each war among civilized peoples

the victors are entitled to make the following declaration:

We operate under the Law of the Jungle: "Let him take

who has the power and let him keep who can." We have

the power. We have grabbed the real and personal property

of our neighbors and we propose to keep it. Our

friends are welcome to attend our Feast of Victory. Let

our enemies beware.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ECONOMICS OF CIVILIZATION

Politics involves the exercise of authority--the policy making,

planning, control, direction and administration of a community. Economic

forces provide the wealth, income and livelihood--the wherewithal upon

which a community depends for its physical existence, its survival, its

geographical extension, the continuance of its life cycle.

There is no sharp line separating economics from politics. While the two

fields are different in character and scope, they are so interrelated

and interwoven that any successful attempt to separate them would leave

the inquirer with two segments of a lifeless social cadaver. In the

course of this exposition it will become increasingly evident, as the

political and economic lines cross and re-cross, that the two fields are

inseparable parts of a total body social.

One civilization after another has begun with a predominantly rural

economy that has become increasingly urban as it matured. Food

gathering, pastoral life and small scale agriculture were rural. Trade,

commerce, manufacturing and finance, concentrated populations, increased

division of labor, specialization, inter-communication and

interdependence produced the trade center, the commercial metropolis and

the general purpose city.

Herdsmen and land workers, dependent on grass and rainfall, lived close

to the subsistence margin and were at the mercy of forces they could not

control. Traders and money changers, with an eye for business in a

growing marketplace made a more ample living. At the same time the more

successful among them accumulated capital which they loaned or invested

in stocks of goods, shops, warehouses, caravans, ships. By hiring

labor-power they multiplied their own limited physical capacities. By

investing in varied enterprises they assured themselves against possible

loss in any one of them. They also multiplied the possibilities of

profit.

Trade, finance and commerce, by producing a regular flow of abundant

income, brought into existence a new field of occupations and a new

class--business and the businessmen. Herdsmen and farmers depended for

their livelihood on nature, her niggardliness or generosity. The

businessmen required only the presence of a group large enough to

purchase goods and services, pay rent and interest, work for wages and

leave the profits to the enterpriser. Each profit beyond the subsistence

level enabled the businessmen to expand, buying more goods, hiring more

labor, making still greater profits.

Communities of businessmen pooled their profits, extended their markets,

built fleets, enlarged cities. Through joint action they engaged in

plundering expeditions and collected tribute from their victims.

Organized fabrication turned out the goods and services which were

marketed for profits. The resulting wealth enabled the successful

businessmen to build houses, stock them with consumer goods and art

treasures, hire servants, live sumptuously. Productivity, wealth,

prosperity filled their honey pot to overflowing.

Honey pots provide the "good things" of life for their owners. They also

tempt outsiders. Honey-pot owners fear pilfering by their servants; fear

sponging by their relatives, friends, neighbors; fear robbers and

kidnappers; fear migrating hordes on the lookout for plunder. Defense is

a necessary aspect of each rich household, neighborhood, city, nation,

empire, civilization.

The sequence from productivity, through prosperity, wealth accumulation,

abundance and the measures needed to defend and safeguard the

accumulations, leads to an affluent community or society. It also calls

into being new and distinctive class forces.

I. The business class (hucksters and profiteers), a self-seeking,

aggressive group of adventurers, promoters and

organizers of bourgeois society to whom _profit_ comes

first. At one or another stage in the life cycle of every

civilization aggressive bourgeois greed for wealth and

power makes itself felt. Their role in western civilization

has been outstanding. The business class through

its control of the productive apparatus and the sources

of credit has been able to surround itself with subordinates,

scientists and other experts, apologists, strong-arm

squads (police and military), spies and assassins.

II. A middle class, made up of business class subordinates

plus self employed tradesmen, professionals, independent

farmers and craftsmen.

III. A class of blue collared and white collared producers of

goods and services who hold their jobs during good

behavior. When not needed or wanted they are pushed

into the ranks of the partially or wholly unemployed.

Most civilizations have added to the working force serfs,

peons and/or chattel slaves.

IV. A class of hangers on--economic parasites--who consume

more than they produce. The payment of unearned income

to property holders and the creation of monopolies

enables this class to live on rent, interest and profit in

proportion to their ownership. As parasitism increases

and multiplies it proves to be a dead weight which

eventually drags down any economy that tolerates it.

V. A class of dependents, defectives and delinquents, supported

by society but contributing little or nothing to

its maintenance or its advancement.

Every civilization has maintained a greater or lesser degree of mobility

between the classes. Mobility makes it possible for those with greater

ability and energy to leave the countryside, settle near the

market-place and climb the ladder of success. It has also made it

possible for policy makers to dump those whose services are no longer

needed or wanted by the ruling oligarchy.

Among the driving economic forces in a civilization are hunger, fear,

greed, ambition. In practice these forces have proved far more effective

than whips and clubs in the hand of slave drivers. They animate the

rat-race for pelf, power, "success", which attracts idealism, energy,

ability and throws out the carcases of those no longer able to make a

contribution to the wealth and power of the oligarchy and its

establishment.

Hunters, herdsmen, cultivators, craftsmen, mariners, miners perform

services that maintain the solvency of any economy in which they play a

leading role. Fast talkers, adventurers, promoters, manipulators,

gamblers add little or nothing to the income of the communities in which

they operate. Often, however, as gargantuan consumers, they play an

important role in building up the deficits which finally wreck an

economy.

Accumulations of wealth in market centers tempts the ambitious and the

adventurous to enter the rat-race and grab more than their pro-rata

share of the honey. The most obvious way to do this is to secure

possession of the honey pot.

Far away, in the tribal past of a civilization, lay a period of scarcity

in which the members of the community shared the scarce income or

starved. As the tribal wealth increased, the leaders, their families and

retainers got more than a fair share of the available goods, services,

preferment, privileges. At a very early stage the "ants" stored away

what they could spare, while the "grasshoppers" had a "good time".

Investing their stored wealth in land or productive enterprises the

"ants" added unearned income to their normal earnings from productive

labor.

Because the "ants" held the wealth of the community they were able to

exercise authority and determine community policy. One result of their

decisions was the creation of titles to land and stored wealth. A second

result was the institution of property-custom and later of property-law

under which those who owned property enjoyed special privileges which

gave them still larger shares of the community wealth and income.

Wealth ownership and the exercise of authority, concentrated in one

person or family, created a basic division in the community between

those whose livelihood depended on their labor and those whose income

was determined by their ownership of property and their exercise of

authority. In the course of time this development divided the community

into a property-owning, governing minority which was wealthy, and a

property-poor majority whose livelihood depended upon the willingness of

the property holding minority to use their land and productive

implements in operations that turned out goods and services.

Property ownership and income were protected by law. Labor income

depended on the bargaining power of the property-less majority. Property

income yielded wealth to the property owners. Labor income, under the

pressure of competition in the labor market, yielded only subsistence.

Thus the community was divided into owners and workers. The owners

controlled and spent or invested the income. The workers were provided

with the necessaries and a few crumbs of comfort.

Private property and property law supported by state power

institutionalized a basic division in every civilization. One segment of

a civilized community enjoyed wealth and power; other segments produced

goods and performed services. The owners were rich; the producers were

poor. Riches side by side with poverty are characteristic features of a

civilized society.

Exploitation has been the economic backbone of every civilization from

earliest times to the present day. Each civilization has exploited and

used up its natural resources. In every civilization individuals,

groups, classes and sometimes castes have exploited or used up fellow

humans and fellow creatures to suit their own purposes and advance their

own interests.

Abraham Lincoln gave a classical definition of human exploitation in a

simple sentence: "It is the principal that says you work and toil and

earn bread and I will eat it."

Exploitation of nature and of fellow beings by man began long before

written history. During periods of civilization, and notably in

present-day civilization, exploitation has determined social

relationships. It has also become one of the pillars of every civilized

community.

Civilized peoples use up natural resources as a matter of course. The

more advanced technically have stripped their environments of

replaceable and irreplaceable resources. They have also perfected

techniques for using the productive power of their fellow creatures. One

way to do this is by owning the body. Another way is ownership of land,

capital and consumer goods which enable the owner to live without labor

on the products resulting from the labor of others.

Owners of property and wealth receive an income because they are owners.

They may be very young or very old, able-bodied or helpless. Their

livelihood comes to them not because of anything they do, but because of

the property titles which they own.

The owner of land may collect rent. The owner of capital may collect

interest. The owner of an enterprise may collect profits. Each lives by

owning.

Workers produce goods and services. They are paid an income proportioned

to their production.

Owners of land, capital and consumer goods are paid incomes proportioned

to their ownership.

Workers work for a living. Owners live by ownership, chiefly of land and

the implements of production.

Owners of property frequently are rich. Workers, by comparison, are

poor. The line separating owners from workers also separates riches from

poverty.

Income from services rendered, from work, is earned income. Income from

property ownership, by contrast, is unearned income.

The relation between earned and unearned income is not confined to one

generation. Under laws passed by the owners and their retainers the

owners of private property may give or bequeath this property to their

descendants. In the course of time a community is divided between

workers who are poor and owners who are rich. Since the rich need not

work in order to live, they and those associated with them may live on

the unearned income derived from property ownership. In a word, they may

become parasitic.

Parasitism may lead to social decay. Generation after generation, the

owners and their dependants may live in comfort or even in luxury while

those who work and their dependents may lack simple necessities. This is

the confrontation of riches and poverty which has played so large a role

in every civilization.

Through the ages, in one civilization after another, the glaring

contrast between riches and poverty has appeared, dividing the community

and laying the foundation for class struggle and class war, both of

which decrease social efficiency, intensify class antagonism.

In the early stages of any culture cycle, barter is replaced by a money

economy. Money is a medium of exchange, usually issued by a public

authority and used in daily transactions, to pay tribute or taxes and to

meet other general expenses. In its earlier forms it is made of

relatively scarce materials that are in general demand, limited in

supply and easily divisible into smaller units. Gold, silver and other

metals meet these requirements and have been used as money through the

ages.

Cash money and promises to pay speed up wholesale and retail exchanges

in the market place. They fill the bill in normal times. But there are

emergencies and other exceptions. One of the commonest of the

emergencies is war.

In a previous chapter we pointed out that war is a characteristic

feature of a civilization that has passed the top-point of its expansion

and begun to decline. Then the chickens come home to roost. Civil war,

colonial wars and wars between imperial rivals follow each other,

creating emergencies in which demand for certain strategic goods and

services rises steeply, with no corresponding increase in supply. Prices

increase. The common defense requires immediate purchase of supplies.

The public treasury is exhausted. The government borrows from money

lenders (bankers). It also prints paper money and puts it in

circulation.

If the credit of the government is good, if the emergency is of short

duration, matters right themselves and the economy survives without

serious derangements. But war-emergency disrupts and sometimes destroys

an economy. This outcome often results from military defeat.

Another exception to normal economic transactions is buying on

credit--buying today and paying tomorrow. The temporary gap between

purchase and payment is filled by credit--a promise of the purchaser to

pay later and the confidence of the seller that the bill will be paid.

Such credit transactions are covered by notes, bonds and mortgages made

out by the buyer and accepted by the seller. Until the debt is settled,

the borrower pays the seller interest at an agreed rate. Bankers enter

the picture, providing capital and collecting interest on their loans.

Where credit is abundant and relatively cheap, borrowers spend beyond

their incomes, hoping to pay later when the loan falls due. Borrowing

and over-spending are among human frailties. They are also forms of

risk-taking or gambling. Who knows whether the banker who promises to

pay on demand will be alive and doing business next week when his

promise to pay is presented for settlement? When the promise to pay is

issued by a government which decides the value of currency, and accepted

by that government as payment for taxes and other obligations, it is

more readily acceptable than paper issued and guaranteed by an

individual money lender or banker.

Each civilization has had a background of simple use economy--food

gathering, animal husbandry, agriculture--in which most of the people

produced what they needed and consumed what they produced. Such an

economy employs money rarely.

In a money economy those who have cash use it to pay their bills or

settle their accounts.

Those who buy on credit pay interest to money lenders. The money

lenders, later the bankers, make their profits by helping others to

spend beyond their own means. The money-lender also accepted loans from

others, promising to pay them back at a later date, and giving the

lender a piece of paper, specifying the amount of the loan. The paper

promise to pay became a bank-note, passed from hand to hand. It had no

intrinsic value, but as the money lender promised to pay cash for the

note on demand, it was accepted in payment of debts or for the purchase

of commodities.

When a shirt-maker turns out a product and exchanges it for a pair of

shoes made by a shoemaker there are no overhead costs. Each producer

adds to his wardrobe an item that makes his life more satisfactory.

Examples of simple barter are seldom found in market economies.

Civilized society assembles quantities and varieties of goods and

services in the market place, invites consumers to choose among the

wares and provides money to make transactions quick and easy. Civilized

society supplements money with credit on the principle: buy and use

today; pay tomorrow. Civilization goes beyond these bare essentials of

merchandizing by furnishing transportation and communication, making

long term loans at interest, writing insurance, developing the

techniques of accounting and management. Customers who visit the market

have basic human needs--the necessities of life. Beyond these

necessaries, there are conveniences, comforts, luxuries. The markets of

civilization cover the entire range of human needs and human wants from

necessaries to luxuries.

Civilized merchandizers take two other steps aimed to activate

consumption. They develop new lines of merchandise that will have more

customer appeal, leading to new wants. They also advertise new wares

that will create new wants, bring back old customers and attract new

ones.

For the foot-weary customer who has shopped away his energy and

enthusiasm for buying more and more, a civilized marketplace furnishes

food and shelter, recreation, entertainment and culture--beer,

libraries, concert halls and circuses as well as food, clothing and

shelter.

These multiple functions of a civilized economy are part and parcel of

the changes which have converted the simple barter deal of exchanging a

pair of shoes for a shirt into a specialized, civilized market place.

They also cause civilized economies to devote far more time and money to

marketing goods and services than they spend in their manufacture. In a

broad sense, these supplementary costs are "overhead."

Shirt makers and shoemakers convert raw materials and partly finished

goods into shirts and shoes. Operating costs of manufacture are minimal

in a civilized economy. The major items that go into the final price of

the product are overhead costs.

Current accounting practices include in overhead: taxes, interest,

insurance and general items. Actually the price of goods and services in

a civilized economy includes minimal charges for raw materials and labor

and maximum charges for overhead.

There is another phase of overhead which pyramids with each advance in

the extent and complexity of a civilization--taxes to cover the costs of

government. As the civilization expands and specializes, governmental

services multiply. The number of government workers grows in proportion

and often out of proportion to the total production costs. Expenses of

government rise and with them the corresponding need to increase taxes.

Overhead costs in the village or small town are low. Much of the "public

service" is done by citizens who volunteer their time and energy. In the

centers of civilization public service is a profession, often well paid

and usually quite permanent.

Expansion is a basic feature in the life of every civilization.

Expansion increases overhead costs. When American Indians made their

silent way through the forests or roamed the plains there was no

overhead. Each provided his own means of locomotion. With roads came

bridges. With roads and bridges came capital costs. As dirt roads gave

way to macadam and macadam to asphalt and concrete, as country roads,

winding over hill and through dale were replaced by graded superhighways

cut straight through or built over all obstacles, the cost per mile rose

fantastically. All of these added costs appeared somewhere in the tax

bills which citizens were required to pay.

In any enterprise overhead costs rise in direct proportion to the extent

and complexity of the social order. As they rise, they increase the

prices of the goods and services which citizens (or consumers) must pay

for their livelihood. A good illustration of this principle is the price

of an identical acre of land: in the remote countryside; on an improved

highway; in the suburbs of a growing city and at the city center.

Increasing wealth brings greater risks. Wealthy cities like wealthy

individuals and families must pay for their protection against robbery

and piracy; against extortion and expropriation. Among important

business enterprises insurance ranks high. The costs and profits of

insurance are suggested by elaborate insurance company buildings and the

high salaries paid to their officials.

Insurance, usually a private overhead, comes high. Public insurance:

maintenance of law and order, crime and punishment, the secret and open

police, the armed forces, (land and sea and air) are vastly more

expensive. If, to these limited costs of overhead are added the costs of

militarism as a public enterprise and the ruinous costs of military

adventurism and its inevitable wars, the mounting costs lead to

insolvency and eventual economic and social ruin.

Another overhead cost which plays havoc with civilized nations and

peoples is the support of a bureaucracy. Increased extent and complexity

exhaust the community capacity for voluntary service and lead into an

era where the volunteers who carried on the limited public activities of

a village are supplemented and eventually replaced by a constantly

growing body of public servants. Growing extent and complexity plus the

need for finding safe places for those who are useful to the rich and

powerful, widens and deepens the public crib. In large enterprises,

private as well as public, paper work employs a small army, which must

be fed and housed at a level worthy of "a great nation." Business

machines reduce the personnel necessary for a given social enterprise,

but their high capital and operational costs increase overhead.

Another aspect of overhead costs is the multiplication of parasitic

professions. In simple villages, there are few body servants, no

able-bodied individuals who fetch and carry at the word of command, or

who only stand and wait for the moment when some whim, fancy or real

need may call for their services.

Village life, with its limited area and still more limited resources,

has little economic surplus upon which parasitism can feed. There is

landlordism, of course, but the margin of surplus is small. The city,

the province, the nation, the empire present a different picture.

Parasitic professions abound and proliferate: money changers, money

lenders, realtors, confidence men, gamblers, fortune tellers, priests,

entertainers, artists, thieves, robbers, and prostitutes abound, consume

more than their share of the community income, without making an

equivalent return in production or service. Their support adds to the

social overhead.

Another source of social overhead are the numerous followers of the

"something for nothing" cult who receive unearned income--an income

derived from civilization in its mature and its final stages.

Broadly there are two types of income--earned income and unearned

income. Earned income is something for something--or return for goods

provided or service rendered. Unearned income is something for

nothing--an income derived from some monopoly, privilege, sinecure or

form of property ownership.

Property in persons or things has been a characteristic feature of all

civilizations. Property owners, receiving rents, interest, dividends, in

proportion to the amount of property which they own are not called upon

to make equivalent return in exchange for their property--based income.

This personal parasitism of property owners is aggravated by provisions

of property law under which the owners of property can give, sell or

bequeath these sources of unearned income to family members, friends,

associates.

Eventually, unearned income, handed on through generations, creates a

class or even a caste of citizens who live without rendering an

equivalent of services, on the labor of their fellows, adding a

significant amount to the total of overhead costs.

Wealth ownership, the exercise of power, living in luxury on unearned

income, add to overhead costs, but are accepted as respectable in

civilized communities. Another and far less respectable form of social

parasitism is the manipulation of social forces in a way that will bring

the operator more than a fair share of social income with no equivalent

in service. Such is "politics" or "politicising." "Politics" as a

source of livelihood takes many forms, some less legitimate than others.

The most usual source of office-holding is the humble work of the clerk,

handyman or messenger, responsible for carrying out the nagging routine

of government. Beyond this common labor of public service are public

servants skilled in their several professions. Beyond and above them are

department heads and still higher are the appointed or elected officials

responsible for the success or failure of a given public policy.

Who are the occupants of town, city, state, and national positions of

authority and responsibility? Preferably they are elected or appointed

because of their popularity or are the successful product of civil

service examinations. At worst they are appointed as a return for favors

or else because they are relatives or friends of successful politicians

or their backers.

Whatever its source and however efficient or inefficient its

performance, the body of paid public servants increases with the

expanding life of locality, region, province, state, nation and empire.

With its growth goes corresponding accommodations in wages and salaries,

office space and equipment and other routine outlays. Frequently the

increase of the emoluments of bureaucrats, especially at the higher

levels of authority and responsibility, creates sinecures which are

filled by parasites or by individuals who are engaged in shoring up the

bureaucracy rather than rendering a public service. The outlays

necessary to finance such a top-heavy bureaucratic fabric grow in direct

proportion to the age and rigidity of the bureaucracy, draining off

public funds into private coffers and adding uncompensated elements to

overhead costs. If inflation is a problem, at or beyond the apex of an

imperial epoch or cycle of civilization, financial costs rise

correspondingly.

The chief overhead cost in every civilization is and has been war.

Examine the budget of the United States or any other leading civilized

power. From two-thirds to three-quarters of central government outlays

are for war in the past and preparation for war in the future.

The net result of rising overhead costs appears in the history of all

previous civilizations. They are eating out the vitals of western

civilization while we write and read these words.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE SOCIOLOGY OF CIVILIZATION

Sociology is the science and art of association.

Human associations range from kinship groups like the family, tribe and

clan to larger more complex groups like villages, towns, cities,

nations, empires, to still more inclusive leagues, federations and

civilizations.

In a broad view, sociology includes politics, economics and ideology.

For the purposes of our social analysis, we have divided the field into

four separate categories, beginning with politics, continuing through

economics and drawing our study together under the general headings of

sociology and ideology.

No civilization that we have studied can be regarded as an intentional

or projected or planned enterprise. On the contrary, civilizations have

developed and matured in true pragmatic fashion, taking one step after

another because their predecessors had followed this course or because,

given the human urges and the available natural and social

opportunities, the next step seemed to be determined by previous steps

plus the momentum of the enterprise. In the course of this development

an ideology was built up and modified in such a way as to justify and

strengthen the entire project.

When William Penn received a grant of land from the English Crown, he

was already committed, ideologically, by the Quaker faith to Quaker

methods. Without ever seeing his proposed home across the Atlantic he

drew up a plan for his City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia), and for

the organization and conduct of his enterprise. The entire project was

formulated in Penn's mind and put on paper. This is a good example of an

intentional community.

No civilization so far as I know, has followed such a sequence.

Certainly in the civilizations with which we are most familiar,

political and economic forces, the principles of necessity and

availability have led to the formulation of an ideology that would

justify and promote the interests of the social group which was

controlling and directing the community or communities in which the

civilization was maturing.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that each of the component

elements making up the expanding civilization--each people, city, state,

nation, empire--developed its own total culture pattern, subject to the

pressures mutually exerted by neighboring communities. The aggregate of

these culture patterns, separately and often antagonistically matured,

comprised a lesser totality called an empire and a larger totality

called a civilization. It is with this larger totality that we are

concerned.

We propose to analyse the sociology of civilization under the following

headings: (1) the structure or anatomy; (2) the function, physiology, or

process; (3) motive forces in civilization; (4) contradictions and

conflicts, with a final section on the life cycle of civilization.

The structure of human society consists of specialized economic,

political, administrative and cultural groupings assembled and

maintained in relationships that supply necessities, conveniences,

comforts, luxuries for the individuals, together with capital goods and

services for the social groups composing the civilization.