Civilization

Richard Ostrofsky
(October, 2000)
Sir Kenneth Clark begins his television series on art history with the
comment: “I can’t define [civilization] in abstract terms – yet. But I think I
can recognize it when I see it; and I am looking at it now ” He is speaking
of the classical architecture visible from the Pont des Arts over the Seine,
where it flows through the middle of Paris. He goes on to contrast the
magnificent buildings on either side of the bridge with the hideous dragon’s
head carved on the prow of a Viking ship that might have sailed up the river
some time during the 9th century. His point is that the French architecture
bespeaks a humanistic self-control and self-assurance in stark contrast to the
wild vitality of the carving. The distinction he tries to draw here goes to the
heart of the relationship between society and its governance. The barbarian
Vikings had one kind of government. The civilized (literally, adapted-for-
city-life) society of late-medieval France had government of quite a
different kind. Specifically, the relationship of wealth to power was entirely
different: The Viking raiders went everywhere and took what their long
ships could carry. The French and Norman lords squatted on the land, took
their names from its counties, and organized a system of plunder to shame
the Vikings. By regularizing their demands, cloaking them in the forms of
law, and giving a degree of value for value extracted, they were able to take
more, more often, and for much longer than the Vikings at their fiercest.
Taxation is preferable to plunder for the warriors and peasants alike. With
its invention, theft becomes domesticated, as it were, and civilization
appears.
If we think of society as a network of economic and personal
relationships – an extended conversation – and of culture as a system of
cognitive and material facilities that expedite and give shape to that
conversation, then civilization is a political and economic pattern woven
by the interaction of numerous competing and complementary cultures and
sub-cultures constrained to live in relative peace. The element of constraint
seems to be necessary. Without it, no public goods (beginning with security
against violence) can be produced and life remains, as Hobbes said,
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” From this perspective, the graceful
art and architecture of high civilization is a form of propaganda: The regime
assures everyone, and reassures itself, that all is serene and orderly and
beautiful, and that its demands (like the dimensions of its buildings) are
measured and proportionate to the public goods created.
Still, the very idea of civilization has this irony to it: Civilizations
necessarily are built on kleptocratic foundations – the expropriation of
wealth from its immediate producers. The problem, in every case, is to
divert a measured surplus to the production of public goods. Inevitably, a
portion of this wealth adheres to the elite plunderers who collect and
manage this surplus. Hopefully, their portion is not excessive, as compared
with the public benefits made possible by the funds collected. And yet
corrupting forces are already at work, because the lords, or politicians and
senior officials, who control the allocation of public revenues do not turn
magically into pure custodians of the public interest once their personal
appetites are satisfied. They remain entrepreneurs of a sort, who hope to see
their enterprises grow in wealth and power – not all that differently from
venture capitalists and senior executives in the private sector.
Several myths conceal the real position of any government (however
“democratic”) with respect to the society it governs: The first of these is
that governments have no institutional interests of their own, other than to
respond as best they can to the political pressures brought to bear upon
them. A second is that civil servants are and ought to be passive instruments
of their political masters. A third is that government and business, the public
and the private sectors, stand toward each other in a relationship that is
primarily adversarial. I propose to explore and demolish these fallacies in
my next articles.1

1 The Interests of Governments, Public Service and Government vs. Business.