City State or Feudalism? 6-27-10

 I read lots of science fiction since 1987. The Dune series, Robert Heinlein's Future History, S.M. Stirling's Draka series, Drake's Hammer's Slammers, Jerry Pournelle, Gordon Dickson's Dorsai tales, Poul Anderson, and the balance of Issac Asimov's Foundation series.

Most posit some sort of galactic empire threatened by a Dark Age, or emerging from one. (My memory has one great exemption from this: Heinlen. His future America gets overtaken by a religious dictator, but I recall no galactic empire.) 

Those emerging, enter into a feudal age followed by a new galactic imperial state. The stories were almost all written during the Cold War and probably show some anxieties from that period. The Roman Republic and Empire are the predominant templates.

Let me offer the idea that the Western Roman Empire serves such a purpose only when there is a border with underdeveloped groups undergo a mass migration across borders.

Feudalism works with agricultural areas without any extensive urban development. If I overstate my case, it is because I am relying solely on memory. 

I do not recall a Dark Age when Alexander's empire fell apart, or when the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks, or after the fall of the various empires of India, or after the fall of the various Chinese imperial dynasties. They might make more interesting models for our future.

The city-state has lost its prominence to the nation-state. However, it is a human-sized polity. Just as the mind cannot comprehend a mile, the mind cannot encompass the nation-state. For people, the city-state - and the feudal state - lack the confusing abstraction of the nation-state.

If the United States were to collapse, I can see the nation being reconstituted in several ways. What I do not see is the feudal system taking hold outside of urban areas. People live in cities and will cling to them. What does follow in those areas could be very interesting.

sch