The city is divided between enterprisers, their
subordinates, owners of country estates and members of the state
bureaucracy on one side and vassals, servants, serfs, and slaves and the
unemployed on the other. The rich and powerful become richer and more
powerful. The poor and dependent grow in numbers--protest, demonstrate,
riot, revolt.
This class struggle dominates public life in the urban centers of every
civilization. The rich offer petty reforms and minor benefits to the
impoverished, semi-employed city masses. At the same time the urban
oligarchy breaks up into rival factions: the Ins and the Outs. The Ins
hold public jobs, spend public money, award contracts and pass around
favors. The Outs wait and maneuver for their turn at the public
pie-counter. Both Ins and Outs appeal for mass support.
Oppositions and confrontations lead to conflicts which have studded the
life of every civilization. Conflicts include wars which may be divided
into six groups: (1) Wars of expansion, conquest, colonization directed
toward the enlargement of the territories included in the civilization.
(2) Wars of survival among adjacent nations and empires. (3) Wars fought
to suppress unrest and revolt in the colonies and dependencies of an
empire or civilization. (4) Wars fought to repel the invasion of
migrating peoples attempting to occupy territory over which an empire or
a civilization claims jurisdiction.
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