On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:52:56 -0700, Robert Sturgeon
wrote:
Sometimes it doesn't. At the height of the Roman Empire,
Rome had a population of around 1,000,000. By the late
Middle Ages, that was down to less than 10,000, and wolves
were roaming the streets. Various other societies have gone
through collapses that were as bad, if not worse. Contrary
to what we like to think, things can, in fact, go Very
Badly. There is no reason to suppose that we are somehow
immune.
========================
This was addressed at some length in my dissertation in Appendix
A -- THE LINEAR AND ACCRETION MODELS OF ECONOMIC EVOLUTION
I attach the section on empire below as the most applicable,
however W. W. Rostow's observations/comments about "Newtonian
Science" in Stage VI --Renaissance also directly apply.
Note the [short] discussion where technical methodology is
regarded as magic [symbolic manipulation?] and the bad effects
this produced.
If you want to see the entire thing, or scan excerpts goto
http://www.mcduffee-associates.us
references cited are in the bibliography
Enjoy
Stage IV -- Empires
There is no sharp dividing line between a large city state and an
empire, however it can be posited that when a city state begins
to impose its rule on other linguistic and ethnic groups,
especially if it imposes taxes for this "service," it has become
an empire. This stage tends to produce large entities such as
the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Roman and Chinese,
possibly because of the existence of well-trained and efficient
specialists in governance / administration and military science.
It appears that the policy makers of a stage 4 society tended to
engage in and promote activities which cause their society to
become too centralized, too specialized and too highly
concentrated to be sustainable.
Generally considerable technical progress is made in the
pragmatic sense. That is that while certain procedures were
known to produce certain effects, these are regarded more as
magic spells or procedures than as a cause-effect relationship
which can be systematized or integrated. Examples of this are
the conversion of iron into steel and the tempering of the steel
to provide sharp, durable weapons. A major contributing factor to
the decline and destruction of a specific empire may have been
the tendency to regard any technical knowledge as a family or
guild "trade secret" which was to be protected to maximize
profit. Thus while a family or guild knowledge of pragmatic
procedures may allow the production of complex and sophisticated
products, it also tended to restrict the diffusion of such
procedures and products into other areas and thus limit the rate
of change and improvement.
It is unfortunate that in many cases moral and ethical
considerations have been introduced into this discussion as these
tend to produce considerably more heat than light. (For example
Rousseau 1712-1778 and Gibbons 1737-1794 )
What seems to be the general case is that all cultures are
subject to random stresses. These stresses can be an invasion,
an internal revolution, a famine, a plague, a new social theory,
a new religion, etc. Cumulative environmental effects also
appear to be important. For example, some writers have posited
that a major contributor to the decline in some stage III
societies was the depletion of available natural resources such
as arable land for food and timber for building ships and
fortifications. The less developed transportation systems and
technologies would have caused societies in this stage to be more
vulnerable than would societies in the later stages. There
appears to have been little realization of the importance of
using sustainable agricultural techniques, reforestation and the
productivity of and thus the need for the protection of wetlands.
Indeed, some of the major "public works" of antiquity and the
medieval period was specifically the draining of swamps and
marshes. Long term climatic changes could also have a similar
decisive effect.[Wright, K.] Additionally, geographic changes
such as the shifting of the course of a river or the silting of a
harbor are also known to have caused the abrupt economic decline
if not collapse of ancient city-states.
It also seems apparent that the more perfectly an organism, and
by extension a society or culture, is adapted to one set of
conditions the less well it will be adapted to a new or changed
set of circumstances, and it is observed that the older an
organization the less "flexible" it is. A further consideration
is that most societies in stage III historically tend to engage
in behaviors which cause extensive amounts of animosity and
resentment. These animosities include but are not limited to
envy of their flaunted wealth, hatred of their affectation of
political and intellectual superiority or simply a desire for
revenge for military defeat.
While the historical record is not completely clear on this
point, it appears that most stage IV societies succumb, not to a
single factor but rather a combination of simultaneous factors.
That is to say that while an empire may have successfully coped
with famines, plagues, invasions and internal revolutions in the
past, they are unable to cope with all of these at the same time.
This is especially true if their nominal allies and vassals have
been biding their time for the proper moment to obtain revenge.
Each of the characteristics that helped create an empire then
becomes a characteristic that assists in its downfall. The
concentration of governance and military science into the hands
of a few, albeit highly talented, specialists means that if
these few people can be isolated or incapacitated then the entire
society is paralyzed. The specialization by large numbers of the
population in specific trades means that they are extremely
vulnerable if the demand for their specific knowledge/skill no
longer exists as they no longer have the means or knowledge to
feed themselves and their families in the sense of subsistence
agriculture or hunting. Economic devastation of large numbers of
people, what ever the cause, generally results in revolution.
Responsible or not, the existing social structure and leaders are
held answerable for the disaster. The concentration of people
into large cities, while promoting trade and generally improving
the perceived quality of life means that to control the city, all
that must be done is to control the food (or water) supply and as
there is no need to breach the fortifications, advanced
technologies such as siege engines and catapults are not required
for their capture. This means that a stage IV society or economy
is vulnerable to organized and warlike peoples such as the Huns,
Goths and Mongols even though they may lack "technology" or
"culture." The separation between the "thinking" and "doing"
classes tended to grow more pronounced over time. In most
empires slave holding tended to become more pronounced, thus
further debasing the status of labor, gainful employment and
useful physical (other than military and sports) activity.
Another factor may also be that the specialization of occupations
has resulted in the development of a large mass of people with no
more military capability or "will to resist" than a flock of
sheep. Slaves, almost by definition, are forbidden to own arms
or even learn the "arts of war ," thus making this segment of the
population useless in the military sense. This means that as
soon as the "professional" military segment of the culture is no
longer available, for what ever reason, the culture is instantly
vulnerable to even small para-military groups, even if these are
not particularly well armed, trained, or led.
Unka George
(George McDuffee)
....and at the end of the fight is a tombstone white
with the name of the late deceased, and
the epitaph drear:
“A Fool lies here, who tried to hustle the East.”
Rudyard Kipling The Naulahka, ch. 5, heading (1892).