What should I call this book?
From the first, I wanted to call this book 'From Barbarism to Civilisation'. This title will inevitably be provocative: but too provocative? I seek advice on this! In the mean time, here is an introduction I wrote nearly a year ago - AS, 19th April 2006 What do we mean by civilisation? What are the criterion by which we distinguish it? To me, ultimately it is something connected with freedom, a society where individuals are enabled to ‘do their own thing’, where ideas flow from the periphery to the centre and where the role of the centre is that of coordination rather than that of rule. The antithesis of this is barbarism, by which I mean a society that is centrally organised, whether a simple kin-based tribal society, or the more sophisticated empires ruled by a centralised hierarchical power structure. This definition can lead to some awkwardness in dealing with the past, for by my definition civilisation only begins with freedom, and freedom only begins with the Greeks - carried to a considerable extent by the Romans. However, it means that Egypt for instance is not ‘civilised’ for Egypt was above all a centralised society that depended on central rule by the pharaoh. The trouble is that we tend to confuse civilisation and urbanism. When we see the great urban societies of the past, we tend to call them civilisations: indeed any successful society tends to be called a ‘civilisation’ - I have even found myself calling the society that produced the cave paintings at Lascaux a ‘civilisation’. But what do we call a society that is complex and successful, but which is centrally organised ? I tend to use the term barbarian. This in fact agrees with the original meaning of the word. It was a word invented by the Greeks to denote those societies who spoke ‘ bar bar bar’ – that is non-Greeks. For the Greeks, the ultimate barbarians were the Persians who are perhaps the prototype of the sophisticated and successful centrally organised society. I therefore use the term ‘barbarian’ with a descriptive rather than a derogatory sense, to denote those societies that are centrally organised, with tribute being rendered to the centre and then emanating down from the centre. I divide them between what I call the ‘lower barbarisms’ which are essentially chieftain societies’ which are non urban’ and then what I call the higher barbarism which are essentially urban. Egypt, the great cities of Mesopotamia, the Minoans, the Hindus, the Maya and the societies of China and the Far East, are all fine examples of higher barbarisms. Many of them were powerful and successful, but they lacked what I consider the core element of freedom which is what makes civilisation. For the modern world my definition is far more effective. I think it will be generally agreed that societies such as Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany were barbarians and here we use this as a term of abuse. Equally we would call ourselves in the western world ‘civilised’ and we rejoice that so many parts of the world especially in the Far East are joining us: but the essence of this civilisation is surely that we consciously aim to keep the central core small – to encourage what Hayek so memorably called ‘The Constitution of Liberty’ so we are freer and therefore happier societies. And there is of course one further consideration. When power is diffused away from the centre, then individuals are encouraged to ‘do their own thing’. They are apt to innovate; they are constantly seeking new ways of doing things better. This is one of the great sources of advance and prosperity, and thus civilised societies should in the long run prove themselves far more dynamic and successful than the barbarisms around them.
or, on to the first chapter in the book, on How primitive economics work: the Trobriand Islands 2nd May 2005, First draft |