Chapter Nine - Civilization And So On

Whenever rulers and military classes tolerated merchants and refrained from taxing them so heavily or robbing them so often as to inhibit trade and commerce, new potentialities of economic production arising from regional specialization and economies of scale in manufacture could begin to show their capacity to increase human wealth. -- William McNeill

Looking at ancient history, it seems a perpetual cycle of civilizations rising, prospering, fragmenting and disintegrating. If we take a step back and look over a longer period, however, we see that there is an overall growth in the size and complexity of societies. Instead of dwelling on the differences between societies, it is more instructive to look at the ways in which all civilizations were similar and the overall trends in civilization.

Three Petri Dishes

Although many archaeologists refer to six 'pristine' civilizations in which the tools of agriculture and commerce arose from within (Mesoamerica, South America, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and the Indus Valley Civilization), there was certainly some exchange of ideas between Mesopotamia and Egypt, and possibly between Mesopotamia and the IVC, and between Mesoamerica and South America. Even so, there are three completely independent civilizations -- in the New World, the Near East, and China. And, in each of these cases, societies continued to get larger and more complex over the long term. NZS interactions increased.

One Cradle of Civilization

While not the cradle of civilization as taught to us in grade school, the civilization of Mesopotamia is the oldest. By 4000 b.c. evidence of chiefdoms appear, and by 3500 b.c. the beginnings of writing appear -- cylindrical stamps, tokens, and the bevel-rimmed bowl (for measurement of goods). Between 3500 and 2900 b.c. true writing begins to evolve, and populations become more dense. The number of towns increases, and the size of cities grow. By 2800 the city of Uruk covers 617 acres and sports massive ziggurats. Societies were pushed and pulled together, for defense or conquest and for trade and prosperity. The first large multi-city state in Mesopotamia was the Akkadian empire, formed around 2350 b.c. The ruler, Sargon, conquered several cities, then had the priests bless his conquest, and installed his daughter as a high-ranking priestess. This gave his rule legitimacy, and he declared himself king of the 'Four Quarters of the World'.

Egypt evolved cities more slowly (and never to the same degree), but moved towards a more lasting unification. Writing developed by 3100 b.c., and by 3000 b.c. there was a large political force unified under the pharaohs. The pyramids are a testament to the organization the civilization could produce, and the pharaoh was supported by a large bureaucracy.

Another Cradle of Civilization

China developed agriculture about a thousand years after Mesopotamia, but then moved in the same direction. During the Shang period the civilization began to coalesce, but there is debate whether it surpassed the level of chiefdom. The Chou succeded the Shang, and created a unified body of many city-states, but then disintegrated into factional warfare, from which the Ch'in emerged victorious, unifying most of China for the first time. The story continues as usual -- unification, corruption, disunification, but perpetually on greater and greater scales.

Back in the Near East, the Akkadians were succeded by the Assyrians, then the Persians, then the Macedonians under Alexander the Great -- each larger and more unified than the last. The rise and fall of each is chaotic, but the trend undeniable.

American Civilization

American civilization, though delayed compared to that of the Old World, followed the same tumultuous path towards interdependence and greater social complexity. Lacking real metalwork (what existed was used mainly for decorative purposes) and pack animals, the Mesoamerican and South American civilizations none the less joined large groups of people under a centralized government. Tenochtitlan, the great Aztec city, had 200,000 residents when discovered by Cortez in 1519, more than any European city. The independent arc of the Americas was cut short by Columbus's voyage, but had this not occurred, it is nearly certain that the cultures would have continued to develop along roughly the same lines as their European counterparts had.

In Europe, by the second century AD, a phonetic alphabet and coined money were facilitating more distributed data processing among members of a society, and the ability of the market to outperform the top-down control of a king or chief was already becoming evident.

Nagging Questions

The view of cultures as progressing continuously 'onward and upward' draws complaints from a number of circles. A few of the most prevelant are:

Complaint #1: What about the quirks?

In painting the general trends of societies, the differences are glossed over. There are plenty of books that go into the detailed differences between sociteties, for instance how the Egyptians were able to create a pure theocracy, or how the Chinese were able to hold a huge piece of land under a central government. This book doesn't deny the differences, it only chooses to highlight the commonalities -- something often lost among the details.

Complaint #2: What about the Greeks?

The Greeks are usually thought of as the origin of 'civilization', but at best this is true for European civilization. They indeed hold an important place in our history, but their achievements were not unique, but simply a culmination of existing ideas put into a lubricating framework. The geometric ideas they invented were independently discovered in India, and thier legal codes were direct descendants of their predecessors.

Complaint #3: Where's the chaos? and Complaint #4: You missed the point of Complaint #3.

The examples selected for this book are done so to show the growth of NZS interactions, and therefore skip a considerable amount of setbacks from crumbling empires, pirates, barbarians, war, and so forth. However, the general trend has been for NZS logic not only to survive, but ultimately prevail. When international trade is threatened by bandits, the solution is often international cooperation, expanding the scope of NZS interactions. Therefore the chaos, in the end, can actually increase the interdependence of societies.