This is the 3rd installment in my series on the stages of civilisation. The first 2 installments were:
Why do we have nations? Well, nations are just big groups. Why do we have groups? Because groups are beneficial. Groups are stronger than individuals. One group of 20 people will conquer 20 individuals easily. The grouped-up individuals will then benefit from more territory and resources. Thus groups fulfill the principle of self-interest.
Nations are big groups, and empires are just big nations.
Empires are useful and beneficial as long as they are expanding. Growing in strength, gaining more territory and more resources. However, as soon as they stop expanding, its members start to shift their mindset from a group-based one to a more individual based mindset.
Indeed, even if the territorial gain continues, but the gain has merely stopped accelerating, this could be enough to trigger a shift in mindset. Once this shift has occurred, it is virtually impossible to revert. The empire has begun its slow but inevitable decline.
The stages of an empire, according to John Glubb, are:
The age of pioneers (outburst)
The age of conquests
The age of commerce
The age of affluence
The age of intellect
The age of decadence
Using this list, we see that the ages of affluence, intellect and decadence are the declining ages of the empire, and that when the age of affluence is reached, the decay becomes unstoppable.
Therefore, the age of affluence arrives when expansion slows down or stops. The empire is wealthy, but instead of using this wealth to increase its strength, it slowly turns to more individual pursuits.
Glubb says that “the decline in courage, enterprise and a sense of duty is gradual”. He believes the cause is too much money. But how much is too much?
I believe the cause is a halt in growth, either militarily, technologically, territorially or in some other way. This halt renders the empire or the nation less valuable to its members.
From this point onwards, members slowly start to fragment. The group is no longer beneficial, and altruism towards the group is lessened. People become more selfish. The concept of duty loses its persuasiveness. As the spirit of the empire becomes corrupted, so too does the strength. The decline accelerates.
As the nation declines in power and wealth, a universal pessimism gradually pervades the people, and itself hastens the decline. There is nothing succeeds like success, and, in the Ages of Conquest and Commerce, the nation was carried triumphantly onwards on the wave of its own self-confidence. Republican Rome was repeatedly on the verge of extinction—in 390 B.C. when the Gauls sacked the city and in 216 B.C. after the Battle of Cannae. But no disasters could shake the resolution of the early Romans.
Before too long, stricter laws are required to keep the population in check. No longer do people forgive small misdemeanors for the sake of group cohesion. Regulation increases and governments become bureaucratic. Politeness vanishes and people become selfish.
Concerned with personal reputation, vanity increases. Money and fame replace honour and adventure as the objective of young men.
References
Glubb, J. B. (1978). The fate of empires and search for survival. Sidgwick & Jackson.
National decline is caused by entropy....
"The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold....."