Civilization and Beyond by Scott Nearing
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Scott Nearing >> Civilization and Beyond
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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.
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