has been the chief instrument for
bringing these elements together, the agency responsible for exercising
armed force enjoys priority in a listing of the structural institutions
of civilization.

Land owners, often acting as military chieftains, dominated the
hinterland of a civilization. The city was dominated by businessmen. The
unification of city and hinterland and the complex of cities and
hinterlands composing a civilization established a governmental
apparatus in which all ruling elements were represented. In the earlier
stages of a civilization there may have been assemblies or parliaments
composed of representatives of various interests. As the civilization
was unified by war, representation was replaced by some form of monarchy
in which one supreme commander, emperor or pharoah was the final judge
and arbiter. The monarch set up a network of public authority, regional
as well as universal, provincial as well as central, and garrisoned it
with professional soldiers and sailors paid by the monarch and
responsible to him.

Corresponding with this political structure was an economic structure
consisting of a central treasury, a uniform system of weights, measures
and values, a system of spending priorities, decided by the central
authority, a source of income: taxes, tribute, booty, sufficient to
cover expenditures.

A civilization which ran a chronic deficit--over-spending its
income--moved year by year, through debt, inflation, currency
degradation, and repudiation toward its own disintegration and ultimate
bankruptcy. The historical record is very clear on this point,
especially in Roman civilization and in western civilization after 1870.

Most civilizations have had a body of religious institutions staffed by
a priestcraft, which has shared power with the economic overlords.
During certain periods in the long history of Egyptian civilization the
priestcraft held the balance of power. So great was its ascendancy that
the spoils of war and the gains of peace were shared by the temple
treasury and the royal treasury. In some cases the temple treasuries had
priority.

All civilizations for at least five thousand years have had a
professional military of sufficient consequence to play a leading role
in policy making and to claim a lion's share of the spoils of military
victory. In some cases civil and military authority were merged in one
supreme commander--emperor, pharoah. At other times, notably in Rome,