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The Seven Stages of Civilization (C A R R O L L Q U I G L E Y)

4. Age of Conflict

As noted earlier, eventually all instruments become institutions. Once this process has occurred to a substantial degree to a civilization's instrument of expansion, the civilization enters an age of conflict.

This period is marked by four trends:

a decline in the rate of expansion
an increase in class conflicts, especially in the core
an increase in imperialistic wars
an increase in irrationality and general pessimism

As the instrument of expansion becomes an institution in order to preserve the privileges of the elite, the civilization--particularly in the core--becomes more static, bureaucratized and legalistic. This tends to punish innovation instead of rewarding it, and progress in the accumulation of surplus is slowed as a result of the decline in inventiveness.

This does not go unnoticed by a civilization's members. Although it is a decline in the rate of expansion, not an actual decline in expansion (that is, a contraction), an advanced civilization is so accustomed to expansion that it cannot not expand. To put it another way, survival requires accelerating growth, and once such growth has begun, it must continue. (This is one of the primary criticisms against "progress" from both the environmentalist Left and the culturalist Right. Both have a point, but both also fail to realize that the only real-world alternative is no civilization at all.)

The declining rate of expansion pits the entrenched elite against the great mass of the people. When resources are perceived as being limited, competition between classes ensues. "The rich" hang on to their wealth and prerogatives, but, realizing that they are in the minority, divert the attention of the increasingly resentful masses with entertainment, and appease them with token gestures of wealth redistribution.

Meanwhile, resentment at not enjoying the same increase in the standard of living as their parents leads the masses to feel insecure, and this feeling manifests as social disruption and other irrational behavior. As Quigley describes it: "This is generally a period of gambling, use of narcotics or intoxicants, obsession with sex (frequently as perversion), increasing crime, growing numbers of neurotics and psychotics, growing obsession with death and with the Hereafter."

Most prominently, wars of imperialism begin. These are attempts to impose a single political structure on the entire civilization, to achieve economic expansion by political means. These conflicts usually occur from the outside in. That is, wars of imperialism are generally waged by the political entities on the periphery of a civilization against the core. As the core succumbs first to a declining rate of expansion, and as unrest peaks there first, the more dynamic peripheral states conclude (not unreasonably, from their perspective) that "the center is hollow, it cannot stand." Rather than expanding outward, the smaller boundary states first consume each other, then they turn their attention inward, fighting over the remains of the core until one state (usually one of the most peripheral) has imposed its political structure over the entire civilization.

http://www.draftymanor.com/bart/h_quigl3.htm