Second in a series on Civilization
One of the fascinating challenges of writing science fiction is “world-building,” the creation of a realistic society to surround and underlie the story. Over the years, I have often been surprised to find sci-fi books—even Hugo award winners—
that fail to create a realistic society. Authors create just enough background to make the story interesting, but leave me wondering how “that” would work, whatever “that” is. This is part of my interest in civilization as a system. In my stories, I use the current and past societies here on Earth as a basis, and I try to include the societal breakdowns that have actually happened.
In my first essay, I simply marveled at the connectivity of our society: how individuals and businesses cooperate with each other through free enterprise to create all the marvelous benefits we have.
But before I can write about system issues, what is this thing called “civilization”?
That question is not as easy as it seems, because civilization can be relative. Many cultures throughout history have viewed themselves as civilized, while treating other cultures as uncivilized. The concept of “civilized” changes with time—and also with academic sociological study.
The English word “civilization” first appears in its modern meaning only in the late 1700s. Classical Latin had no such word or concept. The etymology comes from related Latin words “civilis” for civil behavior, “civis” for citizen, and “civitas” for city.
Apparently, living in cities requires civil behavior. When we put too many of us together in close quarters without agreed rules of behavior, we—like rats—attack each other.
Today, the basic concept of civilization defines a complex society with seven characteristics that have developed to enhance the people in that society.
- Stable food supply – the ability for people to eat without spending their entire existence seeking food. Agriculture is an underlying basis for civilization.
- Complex social structure – people living in different hierarchies with varying levels of status and power.
- Government systems – a key hierarchy is agreement on a form of government that provides structure and enforcement.
- Written language – record-keeping necessary for government requires the ability to keep long-term complex ideas.
- Urban centers – with food supply available, people gather in large groups to allow the complex interactions that support different interests.
- Technology advances – individuals apply themselves to making life better for themselves and others by creating tools and technologies.
- Higher culture – freedom from basic wants allows the development of art, music, literature, and other cultural expressions.
One classification of societies breaks them into four overlapping groups of increasing complexity based on their demonstration of the above characteristics
- Hunter-gatherer societies lack most of the above. The individual exists by putting most of their effort into finding food (and preserving it for winter). All participants take part in aspects of this, leading to an egalitarian relationship.
- Pastoral societies provide enough organization (government) to create a more stable food supply. People largely divide into the governors and the governed, the chief and the commoner.
- Stratified societies occur as technology provides the necessity for multiple roles that contribute to the whole, often leading to several inherited social classes: king, noble, freeman, serf, slave.
- Civilizations develop as an extension of stratification into too many vocations for direct control, leading to complex social hierarchies and organized institutional government
With these concepts, I immediately see systems aspects.
A system is made up of component parts that work together to fulfill a purpose. Civilization has component parts, the individuals and organizations within it. It has a purpose, the life and comfort of its citizens. Of course, “life” and “comfort” are very broad words with many meanings—yet they have meaning to the participants in each society. As the societies become more complex, those twin goals become more varied in meaning at the same time the participant roles also become more varied.
In a hunter-gatherer society, the individuals are all similar components performing similar roles to contribute to the system. There may be only a handful of roles: hunters, gatherers, nurturers. Component interactions are relatively simple.
In the pastoral society, additional roles may include horticulture, smithing, construction, chiefdom, shaman. Each of these roles might embrace different meanings of “life” and “comfort,” though they likely share many concepts. Component interactions often happen through bartering skills and goods; each member offers something other members want. The concept of money can smooth the interactions while introducing new complexities.
The stratified society offers too many roles to list. Cities begin in such societies, typically among nobles and freemen, with creative humans defining a wide variety of activities that contribute to the whole. “Comfort” can include higher goals such as “the appreciation of what I contribute.” Interactions of the system components—the individuals—take part through economic structures that create additional roles.
And finally, the “civilized” society is what we see around us. Life and comfort change to mean whatever each individual deems important at the moment. For most (but not all), the basics of life—water, food, shelter—are a given, though the level of comfort can vary widely, causing resentment and conflict. Interactions are so complex that most of us do not understand many of the interactions in which we take part.
This will likely do as a working definition for now. In systems engineering terms, I’ve written of the civilization system operational goals (life and comfort), the characteristics of the system, and a quick exploration of its architecture in terms of components and interactions. This is hardly sufficient to begin any form of modeling effort, but it portrays top-level concepts.
I can use these concepts in my world-building for my next novel. What will make them interesting, from a fiction viewpoint, is to explore the aspects that don’t work well. Of such things comes the tension that makes a story unstoppable.
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Doc Honour
July 2025
Doc Honour Books 
Great article, brings together some interesting synthesising concepts. I’m not sure you’ve justified your comment on ‘free enterprise’, plenty of arguments that say a feudal, strict heireichical monarchy, or religious-obligation control systems can be ‘civilised’ (ref. ancient Egypt, medieval Japan, etc.). Also plenty of arguments that the modern concept of free enterprise is actually indentured servitude by the back door (when the choice is work for the bossman or starve).
A civilisation also requires a commonly recognised and transferable proxy for value — a medium through which abstract utility, effort, or obligation can be measured, stored, and exchanged.
This proxy underpins not only economic transactions, but also social contracts, trust, and coordination at scale.
It might be:
Which system of value recognition & transfer is prevalent helps define how the civilization can operate. How structured and stable the system is helps define the size the civilization can reach.
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Thanks for your comments, Tom. I agree with both of your points.
Depending on how you define “civilized,” many different structures can fit the bill. I’ll be exploring these different definitions in further posts.
A “proxy for value” also does seem to be essential. The problem with barter systems is defining the relative value of things that are completely different. When value can be established to a common standard, that helps the trade of goods and services. A rather unusual version was the stone money used on the island of Yap. https://mantaray.com/discover-yap/the-history-of-stone-money/
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I look forward to your further posts on these topics, it has certainly been interesting reading your thoughts on developing a believable future civilization as background for a sci-fi(/fantasy?) tale.
As well as trade of goods and services, I think a proxy for value is vital as a societal glue enabling transfer of trust, or possibly this should be phrased: “enforcement of social contracts without the need for a trust relationship”. Think of an employer promising to pay a new employee. While this can be thought of as a trade for services, the idea of a proxy for value allows the business customer’s payment to be very remote from the individual employees’ actions, while enabling the employee to still see clear benefits of employment, with no direct connection between what they’re doing and what the end customer is paying. This concept of course includes the ideas of tax and government-as-a-business, where ‘proxy for value’ really comes into its own.
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