Civilizing Process Shah

8/8/2019 Civilizing Process Shah

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On the Socio-genesis of the State Norbert Elias State Formation and Civilization, Ch. II

1. The First Stage of the Rising Monarchy: Composition and Monopolization within aTerritorial Framework

2. Excursus/digression on some Differences in the paths of Development of France,Britain and Germany

3. On the Monopoly Mechanism

4. Early Struggle within the Framework of the Kingdom

5. The Resurgence of Centrifugal Tendencies: The Figuration of the Competing Princes

6. The Last Stages of the Free Competitive Struggle and the Final Monopoly position of

the Victor 7. The Distributions of the Power Ratios within the Unit of Rule: Their Significance for

the Central Authority: Formation of the Royal Mechanism

8. On the socio-genesis of the Monopoly of Taxation

Presentation bySyed Iftikhar Hussain Shah


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I- The First Stage of the Rising Monarchy: Composition andMonopolization within a Territorial Framework

1. The monarch assumes central functions and a role of a military leader. Like feudal lords heconcentrates on consolidating his own possessions and increasing his powers in the state.

2. Louis VI (1108-1137) was preoccupied with two tasks; a) increase his direct land ownership, b)subdue his rivals. The two tasks reinforce each other. The family possessions form the

economic and military basis of power.3. Problems of communications played important role in relations between feudal lords as they

play today between the modern states.

4. As result of military campaigns and battles, the monarch has emerged as the monopolycontroller of enormous military and financial means flowing from the whole area of thekingdom.

5. In the beginning, the difference between a monarch and a feudal lord is small, in terms of hismilitary and financial assets, as well as the corresponding social status. Thus throughmarriage, purchase or conquest, one of these feudal lords gains preponderance over others.

6. The same differentiation of property among warriors is simultaneously taking place in other places too. In each territory, sooner or later, one family succeeds and attains ascendency.


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I- The First Stage of the Rising Monarchy: Composition andMonopolization within a Territorial Frameworkcontd 2/2

7. The monarch must consolidate his power base in competition with such feudal lords andsubdue even the strongest to maintain his hold on power.

8. The mechanism leading to hegemony has always been the same in history. In a similar waytoday through the accumulation of property a small number of economic enterprises

slowly outstrip their rivals and compete with each other, until finally one or two of themcontrol and dominate a particular sector of the economy as a monopoly.

9. In a similar way by accumulating land and property and thus enlarging their military andfinancial potential - states in recent times struggle for dominance in a particular part of theworld.

10. In modern times, with its higher division of functions, this process takes place in a complexway, with a differentiation of economic, military and political aspects of hegemony; in thesociety of Louis VI, with its predominantly barter economy, these aspects remainedundivided.

11. Once preponderance of one house is fairly secure in the immediate small region, the strugglefor hegemony in a larger area moves into the foreground.


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II- Excursus on some Differences in the paths of Development of France, Britain and Germany

1. The task implied in the struggle for dominance - for both centralization and rule wasdifferent in England and France from that in the German-Roman empire, because the latter was very different in size to the other two, and the geographical and social differences withinit were also much greater.

2. This gave local centrifugal forces greater energy, and made the task of attaining hegemony andcentralization, incomparably more difficult in the German-Roman empire.

3. The ruling house would have needed a far greater territorial area and power than in France or England to control the centrifugal forces of the German-Roman empire and forge it into adurable whole.

4. The scale on which social processes take place is an important element of their structure. It is

also significant in enquiring why the centralization and integration of France and England wasachieved so much earlier and more completely than in the German regions.5. While in France and England, centralization and integration proceeded fairly continuously on

the whole, in the German-Roman incomparably large area, one family of territorial rulers after the other, tried in vain to attain, a really stable hegemony over the whole empire.


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II- Excursus on some Differences in the paths of Development of France, Britain and Germanycontd 2/3

6. The mechanism of state formation has shown to be, in the European era at the time whensociety was moving from barter economy to a money economy, in its main outlines alwaysthe same. It is even more evident in the case of France.

7. In the history of great European states, we find an early phase in which units of the size of territory play the decisive role within the area that is to become a state later. These are smallloosely structured dominions such a shave arisen in many parts of the world where division of labor and integration are slight, their size corresponding to the limits placed on theorganization of rue by the prevalence of barter relationship in the economy.

8. In its schematic outline, the process taking place between the different neighboring territorialdivisions takes a very similar course to the one previously followed within a firmlyestablished territory between the individual lords and knights, until one of them attaineddominance and a rather solid dominion was formed.

9. Just as, in one phase, a number of estates placed in competition experience the need to expandif they are not to be subjugated by expanding neighbors, so in the next, a group of units onedegree larger, duchies or counties, find themselves in the same predicament.

10. In each unit, internal competition for land is intensified with the growth of population, theconsolidation of land-ownership and difficulties of external expansion. For the weaker knights, it was to secure their living standard, for the stronger it was to demand more land.

11. In a society with pressure of competition, one who cannot gain more automatically becomesless. It sets the territorial rulers against one another; and thereby sets the monopolymechanism in motion. The weaker gets eliminated in these elimination contests.


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II- Excursus on some Differences in the paths of Development of France, Britain and Germanycontd..3/3

12. In the case of German-Roman empire, we witness a constant attrition and diminutionaccompanied by a slow shift in the direction of expansion and a drift in its centre of gravity.The trend is visible in the changes in German territory proper:

The German Confederation before 1866 = 630,098 (sq.km.)Germany after 1870 = 540,484

Germany after 1918 = 471,00013. In England and France, the trend is almost reverse. The traditional institutions first develop in

relatively small and restricted areas and then extend their scope. The fate of the centralinstitutions, the structure and development of the whole government apparatus in thesecountries can only be understood by taking into account this process of slow growth fromsmaller to larger.

14. Taking example of the British empire, we see that all the state institutions grow, like Englanditself, from smaller to larger; the institutions of a feudal territory evolve continuously intothose of a state and an empire.

15. Centrifugal forces immediately came into play as soon as the British territory was united beyond a certain point.

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III- On the Monopoly Mechanism

1. The society in the modern age is characterized by a level of monopolization. Free use of military weapons is denied to individuals and reserved to a central authority. Same is the casewith taxation of property and income of individuals. The financial means thus flowing into thehands of the central authority help maintain its monopoly of military force; this in turnmaintains the monopoly of taxation. The two reinforce each other.

2. Control of m

ilitary force and taxation are the two key monopolies on which a state exists. If these key monopolies decay, so do all the rest, and with them the state.3. The question at issue is how and why this monopoly structure arises. We have seen that as

result of the elimination contest, the dominant warrior imposes these monopolies on thesubjects to maintain his dominance and control, to defend or conquer land. These are graduallymonopolized by a central ruler managed by specialists.

4. The monopoly mechanism is summarized as: a large number of smaller social units which,through their interdependence, constitute the larger one, are of roughly equal social power andare thus able to compete freely unhampered by pre-existing monopolies for the means tosocial power, i.e. primarily the m eans of subsistence and production, the probability is highthat some will be victorious and others vanquished, and that gradually, as a result, fewer and

fewer will control m ore and m ore opportunities and more and more units will be elim inated fro m the co m petition , becoming directly or indirectly dependent on an ever-decreasingnumber.


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III- On the Monopoly Mechanismcontd 2/3

5. The human figuration caught up in this movement will therefore, (unless countervailingmeasures are taken) approach a state in which all opportunities are controlled by a singleauthority; a system with open opportunities has become a system with closedopportunities.

6. The course and pace of the shift in favor of the few at the expense of the many depends onthe relation between the supply and demand of opportunities. If relatively independentsocial functions are increasingly replaced by dependent ones in society, the moulding of affects, the structure of drives and consciousness, the whole social personality structureand the social attitudes of people are changed at the same time.

7. In highly differentiated societies, dependence undergoes a peculiar qualitative change at acertain stage of the process. The more people are made dependent by monopolymechanism, the greater becomes the power of the dependent, not only individually butcollectively, in relation to one or more monopolies.

8. This is because of the small number of those who approach monopoly position, and their own dependence on ever more dependents in preserving and exploiting the power potentialthey have monopolized.


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III- On the Monopoly Mechanismcontd 3/3

9. Paradoxically, the more a person accumulates wealth, land and soldiers, the less easily hecan supervise it, and more surely he becomes by his very monopoly, dependent onincreasing numbers of others, the more he becomes dependent on his dependents .

10. Such changes in power and dependence relationships often take centuries to become perceptible, and centuries more to find expression in lasting institutions. The morecomprehensive the monopolized power potential, the larger the web of the functionariesadministering it and the greater the division of labor among them.

11. The monopoly ruler can acknowledge this fact and impose on himself the restraints that hisfunction as the central ruler of so mighty a formation demands; or he can give his owninclinations precedence over all others. In the latter case, the complex social apparatusdeveloped along with this private accu m ulation of power, sooner or later shall lapse intodisorder and make its resistance, its autonomous structure, all the more strongly felt.

12. The more comprehensive a monopoly position becomes and more highly developed itsdivision of labor, the more clearly and certainly does it move towards a point at which itsone or more monopoly rulers become the central functionaries of an apparatus composedof differentiated functions, more powerful than others.


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On the Socio-genesis of the State

1. The First Stage of the Rising Monarchy: Composition and Monopolization within aTerritorial Framework

2. Excursus on some Differences in the paths of Development of France, Britain andGermany

3. On the Monopoly Mechanism

4. Early Struggle within the Framework of the Kingdom

5. The Resurgence of Centrifugal Tendencies: The Figuration of the Competing Princes

6. The Last Stages of the Free Competitive Struggle and the Final Monopoly position of

the Victor 7. The Distributions of the Power Ratios within the Unit of Rule: Their Significance for

the Central Authority: Formation of the Royal Mechanism

8. On the socio-genesis of the Monopoly of Taxation

A Flashback


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IV- Early Struggle within the Framework of the Kingdomcontd2/2

4. Crusades and wars of expansion, to begin with, reduce the internal pressure to some extent,this grows all the more intense once the chances of outward expansion have diminished.The mechanism of free competition operates from now on within a more confined circle,namely between those warrior families which have become central houses of territories.

5. This is not yet a struggle between states and nations. The whole history of later monopolyorganizations, of nation states, remains in comprehensible until the special character of this

preceding social phase of this private initiative has been understood. This is a struggle between competing houses which, following a general movement of this society, driveeach other, first as small and then as larger and larger units, to expand and strive for more

possessions.


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V- The Resurgence of Centrifugal Tendencies:The Figuration of the Competing Princes

1. The formation of monopoly of rule is not accomplished as straightforwardly as appears merelyfrom consideration of the accumulation of land. The larger the area becomes that is graduallyunited and centralized by one house, the more strongly does a countervailing movement makeitself felt; and the stronger, once again, grows tendency towards decentralization.

2. A particular social category of people still poses a real threat to the cohesion of very largedominions under single rule, even though their power may have diminished and their mode of action changed. They become the chief exponents of decentralization. And these are theclosest family members of the ruler himself. A dominion and the monopoly of rule within itare not really the possession of a single individual, rather that of a family.

3. The territorial possessions of a ruling house are its private property, and the head of the familyuses it at his own will. He can provide for his sons and daughters as he wishes. Other familymembers also lay a claim to these assets. Splitting of these assets endangers the power and

pre-eminence of the house itself.4. As the royal wealth increases, so is the demand to cater for the needs of all the family

members, even for the younger sons and daughters. The more the royal wealth grows, themore the demand to divide it. Disintegration sets in on a new basis.


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V- The Resurgence of Centrifugal Tendencies: The Figuration of theCompeting Princescontd 2/2

4. The situation of the rivals to the heir apparent may be visualized as: all their life they aresecond or third in the family. They feel that they might be better and stronger monarchs thanthe legitimate heir to the crown and the main possessions. Between them and their goal oftenstand one, two or three persons. And there are examples of dying of such two or three personsin quick succession, opening the way to power for the next in line.

5. Even then, there are often to be hard struggles with their rivals for the throne and a weak

person with secondary lineage can hardly attain the throne. Even if he has the best claim,there would be others contesting his claim, and would win if they happen to be stronger.6. So, those who are next in line to the throne, are preoccupied with creating and extending their

basis of support, increasing their possessions, income and power. If they have no direct accessto throne, their rule would be no less shining than any of their rivals, including the king, whois the biggest of all rivals and competitors.

7. The Franco-English area of that times was an interdependent territorial system and everychange in the social power of one of the houses would effect the other and the equilibrium of the whole system. The hundred years war can be considered as the military encounters of ambitious princes as well as the inevitable discharges within a tension-laden societyconsisting of territorial possessions of a certain size, as the competitive struggle betweenrival houses within an interdependent system of dominions with a very unstable equilibrium.


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VI-The Last Stages of the Free Competitive Struggle and the FinalMonopoly position of the Victor

1. The monopolizing process gets its special character from the fact that social functions whichhave become separated in recent times were still largely differentiated in that earlier phase.

2. Social role of the great feudal lord, or prince, the function of the richest man, the owner of thelargest means of production in his region, is at first completely indistinguishable from that of

being the owner of military power and jurisdiction.

3. Functions today represented by different people and groups of people connected through their division of labor, e.g. the functions of great landowner and of head of government, from here,inseparably bound together, a kind of private property.

4. The earlier society had primarily a diminishing barter-based economy with land as the premier means of production, whereas in later society, it was supplanted in this role by m oney, theincarnation of the divisions of function.

5. For all warrior societies with a barter economy, the sword is a frequent and indispensibleinstrument for acquiring means of production. Only when the division of functions is very far advanced, a specialized monopoly administration has formed that exercises the functions of rule as its social property; only when a centralized and public monopoly of force exists over large areas, can competition for means of consumption and production takes its course withoutthe intervention of violence; and only then the struggle exists that we designate with term as

economy and competition.


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VI-The Last Stages of the Free Competitive Struggle and the FinalMonopoly position of the Victorcontd 2/4

6. The competitive relationship is a far more general and all-encompassing social fact than itappears, when the concept of competition is restricted to economic structures, usually thoseof 19 th and 20 th centuries. A situation of competition exists when a number of people strive for same opportunities, when demand exceeds the possibilities of satisfaction, whether these

possibilities are controlled by monopolies or not.

7. In free competition the demand is directed at opportunities not yet controlled by anyonewho does not himself belong to the circle of competitors. A free competitive struggle occurswhen land and military opportunities are so evenly distributed among several interdependent

parties that none of them has clearly the best chance , the greatest social power. It arises inthat phase in the relationship between feudal warrior houses or between states, when none of the parties has clearly outgrown the rivalry of others, and when no organized, centralizedmonopoly of power exists. Likewise, a free competitive struggle also arises when thefinancial opportunities of many interdependent people are fairly evenly distributed.

8. In both these cases, the struggle is intensified with the growth of population and demand,unless the opportunities grow at the same rate. The course taken by these two struggles isrelatively unaffected by the fact that, in one case, they are brought about by the threat and useof physical violence and, in the other, only by the threat of social decline, the loss of economic independence, financial ruin or material distress.


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9. In the struggle of the feudal warrior houses, the two forms of violence that we distinguish as physical/ m ilitary and econo m ic force, acted together more or less as one . The feudal conflictshave a functional analogy within modern society both in free economic competition, such asstruggles of a number of firms for supremacy in the same commercial field, and in thestruggles of states for predominance within a particular territorial system, conflicts that areresolved by physical violence.

10. The opportunities open to those engaged in free competition themselves constitute anunorganized monopoly from which all others are excluded who are unable to compete because they have far smaller resources. These others are thus directly or indirectly dependenton free competitors, and are engaged among themselves in an unfree competition for their limited opportunities.

11. In feudal as in modern times, free competition for chances not yet centrally organized andmonopolized, tend through all its ramifications towards the subjugation and elimination of anever-increasing number of rivals, who are destroyed as social units or fall into dependence;towards the accumulation of possibilities in the hands of an ever-diminishing number of rivals; towards domination and finally monopoly.

12. Once a society has embarked upon such a movement of competition struggle, each socialunit in the sphere yet not monopolized, whether these are knightly families, economicenterprises, territories or states, is always confronted by the same choice their actual social

existence is at stake.


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13. The two choices they have are: either they be conquered with or without a struggle andface death and destruction or, they may repel and conquer their nearest rivals and seize thecontested opportunities. The mere preservation of social existence demands, in the situationof free competition, this constant expansion. Whoever does not rise, falls back.

14. However, a victory sooner or later means confrontation and conflict with a rival of a bigger size; once again the situation forces expansion of one, and the absorption, subjugation,humiliation or destruction of the other.

15. The shift in power relationships, the establishment of domination may be accomplished byopen military or economic force, or by peaceful agreement; but however it comes about, allthese rivalries are impelled through a series of downfalls and aggrandizement, rises anddescents, fulfillments and destructions of meaning, in the direction of a new social order, am onopoly order that none of the participants has really intended or foreseen , and whichreplaces free competition by competition subject to monopoly.

16. It is only formation of such monopolies that finally makes it possible to regulate thedistribution of opportunities - and thus the conflicts themselves - in which interests of thesmooth-functioning collaboration to which people are bound, for better or worse.


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VII- The Distributions of the Power Ratios within the Unit of Rule:Their Significance for the Central Authority:

Formation of the Royal Mechanism

1. Two main phases have been distinguished in the development of monopolies: the phase of freecompetition tending to the formation of private monopolies, and the gradual transformation of the private into public monopolies. This movement does not consist of a simple successionof tendencies.

2. The French Revolution represents a massive step on the way to the opening-up of themonopoly of taxation and physical force in France. These monopolies do indeed pass into the

power, or at least the institutionally secured control, of broad social classes.3. The central ruler and all those exercising monopoly power, become more unequivocally than before, functionaries among others within the whole web of a society based on division of functions. Their functional dependence on the representatives of other social functions has

become so great that it is clearly expressed in the organization of the society.4. However, this functional dependence of the monopolies and their incumbents on other

functions of society was already present in the preceding phases but was less developed and sonot expressed in a direct way in the organization and institutional structure of society. For thisreason the power of the monopoly ruler had at first the character of a private possession.

5. An opening-up of the monopoly of a single family takes place when its possessions growvery large. Feudalism and action of centrifugal forces is no more than an expression of suchtendencies.


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Formation of the Royal Mechanism contd 2/3

1. Two main phases have been distinguished in the development of monopolies: the phase of freecompetition tending to the formation of private monopolies, and the gradual transformation of the private into public monopolies. This movement does not consist of a simple successionof tendencies.

2. The French Revolution represents a massive step on the way to the opening-up of themonopoly of taxation and physical force in France. These monopolies do indeed pass into the

power, or at least the institutionally secured control, of broad social classes.3. The central ruler and all those exercising monopoly power, become more unequivocally than before, functionaries among others within the whole web of a society based on division of functions. Their functional dependence on the representatives of other social functions has

become so great that it is clearly expressed in the organization of the society.4. However, this functional dependence of the monopolies and their incumbents on other

functions of society was already present in the preceding phases but was less developed and sonot expressed in a direct way in the organization and institutional structure of society. For thisreason the power of the monopoly ruler had at first the character of a private possession.

5. An opening-up of the monopoly of a single family takes place when its possessions growvery large. Feudalism and action of centrifugal forces is no more than an expression of suchtendencies.


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Formation of the Royal Mechanismcontd 3/3

6. This indicates that the functional dependence of a lord on his servants or subjects inincreasing; they lead to transfer of control of land and military power from a single warrior family and its head, first to the hierarchy of its closest servants and relations, and then insome cases to the whole warrior society. This results in transformation of a single largemonopoly into many decentralized smaller monopolies; which again gives rise to competitionfor dominance, resulting in a large centralized monopoly.

7. This rhythm that repeatedly threatens the dissolution of the great monopolies of power and possession is modified and finally broken only to the extent that, with the growing division of functions in society, money rather land becomes the dominant form of property. Only then thelarge centralized monopoly, in passing from hands one ruler or a small circle into the controlof a large circle, not broken up into numerous smaller areas as was the case in each advanceof feudalization; instead, it slowly becomes, centralized as it is, an instrument of functionallydivided society as a whole, and so first and foremost a central organ of state.

8. The central ruler and his apparatus form within his society a centre of interest of its own. His position urges an alliance with the second most powerful group rather than identification withthe most powerful; and his interest requires both a certain cooperation and a certain tension

between societys parts. Thus, his position and strength depends on the nature and strength of the ambivalence between the different formations making up society, to which his ownrelationship is itself is ambivalent.


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VIII- On the Socio-genesis of the Monopoly Taxation

1. The main outlines of the monopoly transformation are: the territorial property of one warrior family, its control of certain lands and its claims to services from people living on his land, istransformed with advancing division of functions and in the course of numerous struggles,into a centralized control of military power and of regular duties or taxes over a far large area.

2. The kings do not wish and cannot afford to provoke excessive opposition; the social power of royal function is clearly yet not strong enough for this. On the other hand, they need for their function and self-assertion, above all to finance the constant struggle with rivals, continualand gradually increasing sums of money that they can obtain through the allied feudal lordsand aides.

3. Growing taxation generates unrest in the society; towns and feudal lords form an allianceagainst the king. Their interests are now on diverging paths, giving rise to the possibility of league between the bourgeoisie and the nobility. In England such an alliance resulted incurtailing the powers of monarchy, but its fate in France was different.

4. Initially, kings wanted taxes to meet their immediate needs and did not plan to increase their fiscal power. No single man created taxes or taxation monopoly by any deliberate plan.5. Taxation is a product of social interweaving. It arises from conflicts of various social groups

and interests until the instrument becomes more and more consciously understood and moredeliberately constructed into an organization or institution.

Civilizing Process Shah

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