Expert: Conrad T. Jalowski - 8/22/2008

Question
hi, i have a question that i hope you can help me on. I was wondering, what are the eight traits or characteristics that define a civilization. Also, what is the importance of alternative economy. Last, what are the factors that contribute to the development of a civilization and what role does geography play on this development. Thanks conrad. I really appreciate it.

Answer
Thank you for the question even though I have not studied into the abstract form of the defining characteristics of what constitutes a civilization, I will do my best to answer the question at hand. I will utilize the heuristic value as to find the correlation between different points and to find out how they each influence each other wihout eliminating the importance of one or the other.


Civilization is a condition of human society characterized by a high level of cultural and technological achievement, in which the eight general traits or characteristics of civilization are: cities, government, religion, division of labor, social classes, art and architecture, public works, and writing.

An example of alternative economy is 'anarchist economy'. Anarchist economics describe the theories and practices of economic activity within anarchism. Anti-capitalists which are also known as anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists, oppose capitalism because of its characteristics promote and reproduce various forms of economic behavior which they consider oppressive such as private property, hierarchical production relations, collecting rents from private property,taking a profit in exchanges and collecting interest on loans. Such anarchists propose soft propertarianism based on usufruct and possession rather than inalienable ownership.


For the geographical aspect, we must look onto river valley civilizations as an example. The reason for the complex, politically centralized 'autarchies' or political entities was due to the impact of geography. The rivers supplied a continuous flow and supply of water for farming and human consumption. Such rivers alongside with climate, vegetation, geography and topography shaped and formed the developments of the river valley civilizations. Such geographic features inspired new technological, economic, institutional and organizational innovations and developments.

Thank you for the questions,

                          Conrad Jalowski