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Why Civilisations Regress with Out Rivals

Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley
3 min readAug 16, 2024

Welcome back to today’s article, where I will discuss why civilisations collapse if they lack rivals that threaten their survival.

I will use two examples today: the Chinese dynasties and imperial system, which ruled China from 226 BC until the final collapse of China’s last ruling dynasty, the Qing dynasty, in 1911.

Depending upon who you ask, it can be argued that the current Communist Party that has ruled China since winning the Chinese Civil War from 1926 to 1945, China’s current political system, is just a modern interpretation of China’s historical political and cultural norms.

So, it could be stated that communist rule is just another version of the imperial system disguised as communism, that the head of state is no longer hereditary but elective, and that people like Xi Jinping are emperors in all but name.

A monarch is an individual who controls the state, implements laws to maintain national stability, and commands the military.

According to the historian Edward Gibbon, these are all definitions of a monarchy.

Antoninus Pius

Now, let’s get back to analysing why civilisations regress without rivals.

Without a rival who sharpens its civilisation’s military technological development, society would regress and become…

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Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley
Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley

Written by Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley

I have been writing from 2014 to the present day; my writing is focused on history, politics, culture, geopolitics and other related topics.

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