was less surplus for experiment and innovation as more
and more of the social income was devoted to meeting
overhead costs.

Moralists have insisted that the decline and dissolution of Roman
civilization resulted from the abandonment of moral standards.
Undoubtedly this was true. The upstanding womanhood and manhood of early
Rome was replaced by a wealth-seeking, pleasure-loving, parasitically
inclined population. But these features of Roman life under the empire
and during the period of Roman decline were the outcome of political,
economic and social forces that have characterized one civilization
after another. Instead of insisting that Rome declined and fell because
it was immoral, it would be far more accurate to insist that Rome
declined and fell because the objectives which it sought, the means it
employed and the civilized institutions which it developed contained
within themselves oppositions and contradictions which led to decline
and dissolution. Rome declined and fell because the ideas, institutions
and practices upon which it depended--the ideas, institutions and
practices of civilization--could lead to no other outcome.




CHAPTER THREE

THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATIONS


An experiment with civilization presently spans the planet Earth. It is
called "modern," "contemporary" or "western civilization." Its