The Law of Civilization and Decay - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Law of Civilization and Decay is a book written by
Brooks Adams

Brooks Adams

Peter Chardon Brooks Adams , was an American historian and a critic of capitalism. He graduated from Harvard University in 1870 and studied at Harvard Law School in 1870 and 1871....

in 1895. His intention was to prove that history revolves around a cycle. This cycle was one of centralization and decay. Mr. Adams outlined this theory by sketching major epochs in western history, concentrating on economic and social patterns. It is the examination of these patterns that caused him to conclude that there is a cycle to history, especially regarding the rise and fall of civilizations.

Rome

Adams starts fairly early in his history: ancient Rome. In the Roman Republic, Adams concentrates on one aspect of Roman life. This is the economic facet. The wielders of government under the Republic were landowning farmers and husbandmen. These men were the famed “citizen soldiers” which would conquer an empire. The landowners, however, spent time away from home, and “…were ill-fitted to endure the strain of the unrestricted economic competition of a centralized society. Consequently their conquests had hardly consolidated before decay set in." This “decay” is described as the rise of slavery within the Republic, and especially in the Empire. The landowners hired free men to work their land. These free men were the economically poor, and so their debts to the landowners increased dramatically throughout the years, with sons taking on their father’s debts. The debts became so large that perpetual bondage to a landowner (called usurers by Adams) was the result. The entire system, judicial and fiscal, was structured around first creating the debt of the plebeians, and then keeping them there forever. Usurers, through the courts, could buy, sell, and execute the debtors, just as any slave would be treated. This system had the result of slowly annihilating economic capital and undermining the ability of the landowner to pay for taxes, and thus ruining the best source of income in the Republic. Another source of income was needed, and this was found in conquest. But military expansion could only delay, never alleviate, the decline. It is a great irony, perhaps, that Rome could only bring peace by being at war. Adams then states that increasing centralization through conquest and the rise of the Emperors exacerbated the rift between plebian and publican, slave and free. As more territory was taken over, so too did the number of foreigners reduced to slavery in Italy increase. A distinct hierarchy had formed in the Roman Empire. This source of cheap labor doomed, rather than saved the economy. Capital was increased in the hands of a few, and landowners had barely enough to subsist in good times. At the slightest disaster, bankruptcy and debt occurred. As Adams states: “The Roman husbandman and soldier was doomed, for nature had turned against him; the task of history is but to ascertain his fate, and trace the fortunes of his country after he had gone.” Another factor in the decline of Rome was the devaluation and centralization of currency. Especially under the Emperors, coins were steadily increased, causing inflation and devaluation. This combined with a refusal to put mints in places other than Rome, helped speed the economic decay. The killing blow, as it were, for Roman power and influence occurred in AD 325 with Constantine moving political, military, and economic power to Constantinople, the “New Rome”. From then on, the Empire would be dependent on its far holdings for money, supplies, food, workers, slaves, and even emperors. Bankers and the monied elite would replace the citizen-soldier landholder, and mercenaries would replace the once-great Roman legions. Rome itself would decline until conquered in the fifth century AD by barbarians.

Middle Ages

Brooks Adams proceeds from Rome to the Middle Ages, in which the nomadic barbarians (mostly from Germany) traveled the length and breadth of the Empire and eventually settled in Gaul and Italy. This resulted in a mixing of Roman and barbarian blood, and small kingdoms that warred with each other. These kingdoms, unlike the Empire, were able to support themselves. Yet, the cost was a loss of technology, and a temporary return to barbarism during what we call the “Dark Ages”. Christianity, still a power directed from Rome, gained much prestige during this time, and came to wield enormous power in the Middle Ages. The Church received huge amounts of wealth through various means, and monasteries and convents became increasingly wealthy as the Middle Ages went on. The Pope in Rome, by AD 1200, wielded far more power than kings and emperors. The Middle Ages were a period of decentralization slowly coalescing into nation-states bound together by oaths of loyalty (feudalism and manorialism), rather than a national identity. Superstition and the “imaginative mind” gained preeminence, along with religious fervor. By 1095, there were recognizable nations, controlled, not willingly, by the Catholic Church. Still, kings and lords attempted to curry favor with Rome. “Until, the mechanical arts have advanced far enough to cause the attack in war to predominate over the defence, centralization cannot begin…” The First Crusade represents the point at which Western Europe made a huge leap toward centralization. Europe had become thoroughly self-sufficient, yet stagnation was not far off, and an infusion of capital was needed. Not that anyone thought in those terms, perhaps, for the reasons for the Crusades were as many as there were crusaders. Not only was the economy stagnating, but culture was too. The classics had been lost, and superstition and religious fear predominated over science and philosophy. The “opening” of the Holy Land through the means of the First Crusade is significant to Western culture for three reasons: economic capital, cultural renaissance, and trade. When the four Crusader kingdoms were set up following the sack of Jerusalem in AD 1099, large amounts of wealth were discovered and sent back to Europe. This cured the immediate fiscal problems, although those had not yet become apparent. Also, the classics were rediscovered, including Aristotle, which led to a widespread, if limited in scope, renaissance. West European culture was much enhanced because of the Crusade. Finally, and most importantly, trade was resumed between the East and the West. This allowed new imports to Europe such as silk and spice, and a new market for European exports. The economic push provided by the Crusades encouraged centralization, but also fueled tension between Church and government. If the monarchs of Europe wanted increased power, they would have to take it from the Catholic Church. Both power and money would have to come from this source, and a long struggle broke out. The money was taken from the monasteries. These monasteries and convents had become very rich through the centuries of Church power. They worked hard, and were rewarded with much wealth. Yet, their vow of poverty prevented the monks from using the majority of the money. Consequently, monasteries and churches were among the richest buildings in the Middle Ages. By closing the monasteries, the secular monarchs gained their wealth. The power that the monarchs took from the Church came when the church split during the Reformation. The early signs of this breakaway came under Henry VIII in the early 1500s. This severing of the ties with Rome spelled disaster for the Catholic Church, a disaster that was fulfilled with the formation of Protestantism and Rome’s loss of monopoly upon Christianity. Kings were now the highest authority in Europe, not the Holy Father.

Modern Age

From this point on, modern centralization – the period we are now in – begins as monarchies, which later transform into democratic style governments, gather increasing power unto themselves. This increase in power is seen in how economics was used to intensify a nation’s centralization. Under economy, Adams looks at two subjects: colonization and the industrial revolution. Both of these things caused centralization to increase by exponential measures. The colonies set up by Britain, France, Spain and others allowed their home nations to wield great power over satellite locations. Trade with colonies invariably benefited the mother country, and control over the colonies was absolute. The industrial revolution increased centralization by moving mass amounts of people into the cities, thereby concentrating the labor force and easing the transition into democracy. Still, Adams shows how these empires fell through economic decay. As centralization and industry increased, so too did bankers and the "self-interest" competition of the free market. This economic system could not support these overseas empires indefinitely, and they were slowly dismantled. Some fell through revolution, like America, and some were intentionally disbanded, such as India, but all nations eventually let their colonies go. Adams has much to say about the rise of the banker and how this is the apex of the centralization seen today (or in 1895, when Adams wrote): “Such signs point to the climax of consolidation. And yet, even the rise of the bankers is not the only or
the surest indication that centralization is culminating. The destruction, wrought by accelerated movement, of the less tenacious organisms, is more evident below than above, is more striking in the advance of cheap labor, than in the evolution of the financier.”

Rome

Middle Ages

Modern Age

Further reading