10 Features of Empire

The Features of Empires

1: Empires rise and fall as consistently as life and death.

Every empire without exception grows, reaches the limits of its expansion and power, and starts to lose its strength as resistance, corruption and decadence spread. It falls. This pattern of growth, consolidation and decline occurs consistently. Always. No exceptions.

2: Empires are enterprises of conquest.

Empires grow through conquest. They could not have become an empire otherwise. Their size, strength and status result from acquiring land, resources and subjects. The subjects are people who are subordinate to the demands of the rulers; demands that invariably require the people to supply the rulers with labor or products, taxes in one form or another.

3: Violence, death and destruction are functions of an empire.

An empire grows in conflict with competing powers and resistance to its expansion. Internal contradictions intensify among the rulers when the empire weakens and the pressure of external resistance grows. Violence, death and destruction pave the way for the empire’s growth and radiate from its desperation during its decline. Violence, death and destruction on the way up, violence, death and destruction on the way down. This great human tragedy repeats itself without exception throughout history.

4: Empires are pyramid-shaped.

Empires are structured with a tiny group of people in charge who own the resources of their realm and demand a percentage of the labor of the masses within their jurisdiction. The rulers are buffered from the people by an administration of professionals, advisors, spiritual leaders, and enforcers.

The shape of the pyramid varies for different empires and during different stages of an empire, but the percentages shift insignificantly; 1% rule, 4% serve the rulers, and 95% toil. Or there about. A little ruling group at the top with masses of laboring people below has been the typical configuration from the first small kingdoms till today’s globalized empire pretending to be a mere superpower.

5: Empires justify themselves.

Empires always anoint themselves with legitimacy, often using their position of dominance as proof of their superiority. In the early kingdoms and first empires might was right without question. Major rulers claimed to be representatives of God. Today’s dominant empire claims to be a democracy despite a government consisting entirely of the riches people in the empire representing 1% of the population. This pyramidal social structure with the richest members of society packed into the point at the top typifies most of today’s “democracies.”

Names and forms change but the prevailing pyramidal order remains the same. Nobles are now corporate commanders and what used to be scribes glorifying the pyramidal order are now journalists, intellectuals and media producers glorifying the prevailing (money-oriented) order. You get the picture. Whatever they call themselves, a tiny group dictates the conditions for the masses who are generally obedient due to the disinformation pouring down from the heights of power, and generally frightened due to a reality polluted with injustice, insecurity and uncertainty.

6: The empires tend to be bigger and bigger but last for a shorter and shorter time.

The Egyptian empire lasted over 1000 years. The Roman empire never reached 1000 and the present North Atlantic Empire, which stretches to all corners of the globe, will not exceed 200 years.

7: Every empire considers itself exceptional and worthy of lasting forever.

Greed, blindness and stupidity infest the culture of the rulers with increased intensity as the empire declines. Contempt for outsiders, the weak and the desperate is package in psychopathic indifference to the condition of people in general who are regarded as commodities and viewed as statistics.

8: Empires are highly inefficient organizations.

Human and natural resources are wasted in campaigns of conquest and the need to control resistance. The production of weapons demands materials, energy and labor to kill, maim and destroy. The construction of armies causes floods of blood. The rulers typically embrace a decadent culture displaying extravagant ceremonies and vulgar vanities at enormous and wasteful costs while a large portion of their subjects struggle (many unsuccessfully) to survive.

9: When empires fall they leave devastation in their remains.

The fall of an all-encompassing world empire threatens the existence of Homo sapiens.

10: Emperors rule empires

Regardless of their title or visibility, emperors rule. Their policies do not change by voting for a selection of their administrators.

In summary:

Empires rise and fall… violently & Destructively.

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”We need a heart and something called a soul,
a veined river of blood and oxygen I’m told.
Then there’s the mind, sometimes out of control.
They tell me I’m free, it tells me I’m sold.”
Dartwill Aquila

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The West Bank is now the Judea-Samaria area.