In a static
agrarian community dominated by landlords, war-lords and the clergy,
rigid class lines help to hold the community together. In a community
dominated by business interests, both labor power and purchasing power
must be free to respond to demand and supply. This is as true in a
planned public economy as it is in a private enterprise economy. In
accordance with the same principle, facilities are provided for the
movement of individuals back and forth across class lines.
The specialized, interdependent structure of civilization with its city
control of the hinterland, its products and inhabitants, enabled the
city-centered oligarchy to accumulate and concentrate wealth and
monopolize power, to skim the cream from the available milk, monopolize
the cream, distribute the skimmed milk judiciously and thus perpetuate
its ascendancy through generations and centuries. During periods of
expansion civilized communities develop a dynamism which maintains their
ascendancy. In subsequent periods of contraction form takes over,
imposing conformity on the status quo.
During their periods of expansion civilizations are dynamic. Their
history records growth at home, expansion abroad, exploitation,
domestic and foreign under the pressure of effective motivating forces.
The resulting dynamism leads to the contradictions, confrontations and
conflicts which have studded the internal and external life story of
every civilization.
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