Throughout
The Law of Civilization and Decay, Adams observes that as new population centers emerged, the center of world trade shifted in a predictable cycle, from
Constantinople to
Venice to
Amsterdam to
London in a predictable cycle. First, masses of people drew together in large population centers to engage in commerce. As desire for wealth grew, they discarded spiritual and creative values. Greed led to distrust and dishonesty, and the social order eventually crumbled when a new, more economically energetic society took its place. In connecting the history of civilization to relative levels of human activity, Adams developed a complete theory of history incorporating
Darwinist approaches to
war and
race suicide and a binary theory of human nature divided between the spiritual man driven by fear, on the one hand, and the
economic man driven by greed, on the other. In Adams's theory, the two tendencies within human nature would wax and wane as society develops.
Rome form the basis for the historical narrative. In the
Roman Republic, the wielders of government power were landowning farmers and husbandmen. 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. Adams's concept of Roman decay is characterized by the rise of slavery within the Republic and, later, the
Roman Empire. The landowners originally hired free men to work their land, generally very poor, so their debts to the landowners increased dramatically throughout the years. Sons would take on their father’s debts, which became so usurious that perpetual bondage to a landowner was the result. The entire system, judicial and fiscal, was thus structured around creating and maintaining debt. Usurers, through the courts, could buy, sell, and execute debtors, a system which slowly decreased
capital and undermined the ability of the landowner to pay taxes and of the Republican to collect revenue. Income was supplemented through conquest, but military expansion could only delay the decline. Adams then argues that increasing
centralization, through the rise of the Emperors, exacerbated class divisions between
plebeian and
publican, slave and free. As territory was added, the number of foreigners reduced to slavery in Italy increased, forming a hierarchy that had not existed under the Republic. This source of cheap labor doomed, increased the concentration of capital in the hands of a few, and landowners had barely enough to subsist, even in good times. At the slightest disaster, he was reduced to bankruptcy and debt. In Adams's words, "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." Adams also blames the decline of Rome on the devaluation and centralization of the currency. Under the Emperors, coins were minted without real value, causing inflation and devaluation. The death knell for Roman power and influence occurred in AD 325 when
Constantine moved the capital of the Empire to
Constantinople. From then on, the Empire would be dependent on its far holdings for money, supplies, food, workers, slaves, and even emperors. Bankers and the moneyed elite replaced the citizen-soldier landholder, and mercenaries replaced the once-great
Roman Legions. The western half of the Roman Empire itself declined until its last Emperor,
Romulus Augustus, was deposed by
barbarians in the fifth century AD.
Middle Ages Adams proceeds from Rome to the
Middle Ages, during which nomadic barbarians (primarily Germanic) settled and established kingdoms in the former Roman provinces of Gaul, Iberia and Italy. The small kingdoms were soon at war. Initially, these kingdoms, unlike the Empire, were able to support themselves. The cost was a loss of technology, and a temporary lapse of high civilization into the "
Dark Ages". Christianity came to wield enormous power and wealth through the power of priests and the use of miracles until, by 1200, the
Pope had far more power than any secular ruler. Overall, Adams describes the Middle Ages as a period of decentralization in Europe, where
feudalism and
manorialism, rather than nationalism, bound the people.
Superstition and the "imaginative mind" gained preeminence. By 1095, the beginnings of Europe's modern
nation-states could be discerned; controlled, often not willingly, by the
Catholic Church. European society remained stagnant, as defensible fortresses preserved decentralized pockets of authority. The
First Crusade represents the first steps toward centralization in Western Europe, as religious fervor created the means for military innovation and economic invigoration. The "opening" of the
Holy Land brought economic capital, cultural renaissance, and trade to the West. The renewed trade with the East allowed new imports (such as silk and spices) and a new market for European exports, encouraged centralization, and fueled tension between Church and the local governments. The local governments began to target Church wealth in the form of monasteries, which often contained great hoards of tangible wealth. The
Reformation emboldened secular monarchs to intimidate, coerce or abolish the monasteries to obtain their wealth, and this redistribution eventually led to the secular monarchies predominating over the
Holy See. , Adams concludes that
consolidation would, through
global labor arbitrage, result in the "destruction ... of the less tenacious organisms."
Modernity From the Reformation onward, power is centralized in the modern secular state through the exponential processes of
colonization and
industrialization. Trade with colonies invariably favored the mother country, and control over the colonies was absolute. The
Industrial Revolution encouraged a mass movement of people into the cities, thereby concentrating the labor force. Despite these apparent advantages, Adams shows how these imperial states had already fallen by 1895 through economic decay. As centralization and industry increased, so too did the power of bankers and the "self-interested" competition of the
free market. This economic system could not support these overseas empires indefinitely, and they were slowly dismantled as the disadvantages began to outweigh the advantages. Adams concludes that the decentralization of power will lead to the destruction of less economic societies through competition: ==Reception==