Understanding and Defining Human Civilization

[Editor’s note: This article is a section of The Fiat Dollar Standard: Its Uncivilized and Destructive Nature. This version has been expanded]

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The term “civilization” is often used in two distinct contexts. It is used narrowly to describe a specific culture, including a particular people or nation’s features, ways of life, and norms. For example, when one refers to the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, one indicates their societies’ social, economic, political, cultural, and religious aspects within a timeframe. The term is also used in a broader sense to represent a more standardized and universal understanding of civilization as it pertains to humanity rather than focusing on a specific culture or civilization.

Civilization is a contentious topic that remains improperly understood and defined. Given its significance and impact on humanity, it is essential to establish a sound and universally applicable definition of human civilization and its fundamental elements. This clarity is crucial for promoting a more peaceful, prosperous, and civilized world. The current understanding of civilization shaped by the Western perspective is flawed and detrimental to civilization.

The Western viewpoint focuses on material aspects of human societies, such as institutions, economic development, and technological advancements, and emphasizes Western features as benchmarks for a civilized society. The prevailing conception of civilization is Eurocentric, presenting Western culture as superior and the pinnacle of human civilizational progress. This perspective is typically framed as a progression through advanced institutional, economic, democratic, and technological development stages.

One crucial contextual fact pertinent to this discussion that must be noted is that Western imperial states have established the current racial and statist global order, leading to the widespread belief that Western ways and culture represent the ideal standard of human civilization. This publication challenges the prevailing conception of civilization and provides a principled and more beneficial understanding of human civilization.

Contrary to the predominating consensus, the current Western global order is statist, characterized by coercive, centralized, and repressive government socioeconomic management rather than capitalist market economies with sound currency systems. As first pointed out in The Scale of Statism, one of our time’s most significant and detrimental misconceptions is the (scholarly and popular) view that the United States and other Western economies are capitalist systems with market economies. The West has depicted itself as the stronghold of free-market capitalism while only partially adopting free-market economic principles. The United States, other Western countries, and the current global order are statist systems that lean more toward a socialist system than a free-market capitalist one.

Civilization is understood as a human society characterized by established standards and practices, including writing and language, a money-based economy instead of barter, cultural norms, artistic expressions, mechanized agriculture, urbanization, legal frameworks, and governance structures. Civilization is also often contrasted with barbarism, which denotes aggression, cruelty, or brutality. This implies that a civilized society or conduct avoids engaging in barbarous acts of violence, aggression, and cruelty. While not incorrect, this understanding is inadequate as it does not clearly define human civilization or provide a civilizational standard for which human societies should strive.

Human civilization should not be defined exclusively by material aspects, such as the level of institutional, economic, and technological development a society has achieved. This understanding is superficial and dangerous, with destructive implications as it fails to promote truth, justice, and peaceful human relations. A nation may reach high levels of economic and technological advancement while acting viciously, characterized by deception, fraud, oppression, and injustice within its borders through its socioeconomic structures or abroad, through a belligerent imperial foreign policy. Such a society may engage in ruthless aggression, plundering, and destroying other nations for domination, similar to barbarian groups of the past. This illustrates the need for a sounder and more beneficial understanding of human civilization.

The fundamental issue with the current conception of civilization is its blatant disregard for morality and justice considerations. It focuses on material aspects, leading to unethical models, policies, and practices that undermine human peace, prosperity, and civilization. Looking beyond material aspects as civilizational benchmarks can foster more humane, just, and peaceful human relations. The prevailing (Western) conception of civilization, which mechanistically focuses on institutional, economic, democratic, and technological advancements while neglecting morality, ethical principles, and justice, significantly hinders human civilizational progress and perpetuates uncivilized and destructive practices.

Indeed, the state of the current world, characterized by widespread institutional corruption, fraud, oppression, economic instability, social strife, geopolitical conflicts, war, violence, death, and destruction, underscores that human societies can attain a relatively high level of material development while remaining fundamentally uncivilized due to the predominance of and reliance on uncivilized methods such as deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression in human relations within and among societies.

Moral development, which involves adherence to ethical and justice standards in human relations, is the true essence of human civilization. Material progress in institutional, economic, democratic, and technological development are insufficient in defining what it means to be civilized. A society that relies on thuggish and vicious methods cannot be considered genuinely civilized, even if it appears to be more advanced regarding material progress. Such a society can be described as nominally or partially civilized. While it may have achieved more noteworthy material development, it remains brutish, morally underdeveloped, and thus has yet to attain proper civilization.

The West arrogantly asserts that its culture and ways of life are superior, positioning itself as the pinnacle of human civilization that other societies should aspire to emulate. As noted, the prevailing view of civilization positions Western society as the standard by which other societies measure their civilizational progress. Nonetheless, questions must be asked. Are the West’s civilizational claims justified? Does Western culture and ways constitute the pinnacle of human civilization? Should Western culture be the benchmark for evaluating civilizational standards? The historical record of the West suggests that the answer is no, despite its relatively higher level of material development.

Africonomics maintains that the West is unjustified in its claims of racial and civilizational superiority. The West remains fundamentally uncivilized, even as it condescendingly asserts itself to be the most civilized group whose culture and material success represent the pinnacle of human civilization. A fundamental reason why Western culture does not constitute the pinnacle of human civilization, nor should it be viewed as the aspirational standard for human civilizational progress, is the Darwinian nature of the Western worldview, which is animalistic, racial, rivalrous, belligerent, and violent. Its Darwinian worldview makes Western society fundamentally uncivilized and unable to foster a peaceful, humane, and genuinely civilized world.

The predominating Darwinian Western worldview, its disastrous implications for humanity, and the West’s historical record of deception, invasion, aggression, conquest, theft, plunder, slaughter, and destruction of other nations disqualify Western society as a model for assessing human civilizational progress. The animalistic, racial, rivalrous, and violent character of the Western worldview prevents it from becoming the standard bearer of human civilization. The Western worldview has produced a racist, statist, and militarist global order, which continues to lead to widespread corruption, fraud, oppression, conflict, violence, death, and destruction in human reactions. A Darwinian conception of humans is animalistic, promotes conflict, and undermines civilization. It has led to a profoundly immoral, brutal, and atrocious global order.

Bloomberg News recently ran a headline titled Europe Is Almost Out of Time to Defend Its Place in a Brutal World (2024). If the world is indeed brutal and human relations remain brutish, characterized by unethical, thuggish, and barbarous methods underneath the veil of a modern and advanced world, this situation reflects the animalistic, rivalrous, and violent Western worldview that underpins the existing racist, statist, and militarist global order. In other words, if, as Bloomberg News argues, Europe is becoming increasingly unable to “defend” its position in a brutal world, then Europe is simply facing the consequences of its actions and policy choices within a global order that is decidedly racial, Eurocentric, and shaped by Western imperial states.

The West had the opportunity to create a genuinely civilized and fundamentally peaceful world, especially after the fall of the USSR, when the United States emerged as the sole superpower. Instead of fostering truth, peace, and civilization, the West has continued on its path of racism, statism, and militarism, viciously maintaining its global dominance. This uncivilized approach backfires and undermines the West itself. The West's history and ongoing actions reflect a troubling disregard for morality, humanity, justice, and peace in international relations, resulting in widespread corruption, oppression, conflict, violence, death, destruction, and avoidable human suffering.

In his paper, Africonomics: A School of African Philosophical and Economic Thought, the social philosopher and economist Manuel Tacanho discusses the Western worldview and observes:

Western culture is dominated by philosophical materialism, positivism, and a Darwinian worldview. Social Darwinism, an offshoot of philosophical materialism, is a racist and animalistic conception of humans and human coexistence, having imported Darwinian evolutionary theory to the human realm. The Darwinian conception posits that there is nothing fundamentally different about humankind, arguing that people are merely advanced animals who have evolved through an arbitrary process of random mutations and dialectical naturalist selection. Accordingly, the prevailing Western worldview is not only philosophically materialist and positivist but also racist, animalistic, rivalrous, and aggressive. This worldview underpins the current racist, statist, and militarist global order established by Western imperialist states.

Tacanho further remarks:

The West, led by the United States, has maintained an aggressive, militarist, and imperialist posture rooted in racism and a false claim of racial superiority—per the Darwinian worldview. This has led other countries to acquire means of defense and militarize, considering the possibility of a U.S./Western aggression, resulting not only in a racist and statist world but a militarist one also. This situation reveals a noticeable propensity in the West for relying on force and aggression, causing conflicts, turmoil, and destruction of lives and property across the world. This further reveals that Western society is not as enlightened and civilized as it claims to be by maintaining an animalistic, rivalrous, and aggressive worldview and system. Notice that the West has earnestly developed nuclear technology for mass death and destruction while suppressing the same technology for peaceful and uplifting applications such as nuclear energy.

The African and Western worldviews contrast starkly. The Western worldview and system, rooted in philosophical materialism, utilitarianism, racism, and a Darwinian conception of humans and human relations, is characterized by rivalry, dialectics, statism, militarism, and aggression. In contrast, the African worldview is theist, principled, and nonaggressive. The African worldview and Africonomics maintain that all humans are fundamentally connected, the oneness of humankind, as they originate from the same creator. The African worldview is more ethical, peaceful, and civilized than the Western one.

It takes an animalistic and atrocious system for weapons of mass death and destruction, like thermonuclear bombs, to exist and be kept ready for immediate use against fellow humans. This poses a grave threat, as launching a single one of these bombs would instantly result in a horrific genocide. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the United States has maintained a militarist and aggressive imperial stance, undermining world peace and civilization. The dire state of the current world—facing the possibility of World War III, among many other crises—reflects the fundamentally uncivilized and atrocious nature of the Western worldview and system.

A society can be advanced in institutional, economic, and technological aspects, but if it relies on thuggish and brutal methods—such as deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression—to achieve or maintain its status, it operates on a fundamentally uncivilized level. A society that relies on deceptive, fraudulent, coercive, and violent tactics, oppressing, plundering, and destroying others, acts in an animalistic manner and is thus uncivilized despite any material advancement.

By disregarding moral principles and justice in their actions and policy decisions to maintain global dominance, the West behaves in an animalistic manner, which makes it fundamentally uncivilized. Despite its economic and technological superiority over other human groups, the West remains uncivilized. One must choose between civility and civilization or choose to dominate, deceive, destroy, and dehumanize others. It is impossible to be both civilized and systematically oppress, destroy, and brutalize another. Groups that aggress, oppress, plunder, and brutalize others are animalistic and barbarous, not civilized.

One cannot claim to be civilized, much less the pinnacle of human civilization, while relying on vicious methods and acting animalistically. Suppose a group possesses greater economic, technological, and military capabilities and uses that material superiority to aggress, conquer, steal, loot, slaughter, plunder, and brutalize other nations through military force. In that case, it cannot be considered civilized. Such actions demonstrate aggression, destruction, malice, and violence toward fellow humans for power, resources, territorial expansion, or other reasons. The systematic use of deceptive, coercive, and violent methods reflects animalistic conduct and is inherently uncivilized.

Western nations have indeed achieved economic and technological superiority, which has been primarily used to exert militarist dominance over other nations. This does not mean that Westerners are intellectually superior, nor should Westerners perpetuate the belief that Europe's emergence from the Middle Ages was exclusively due to its merit. The advancements in Western philosophy, culture, arts, science, governance structures, economic development, technology, and military power are not isolated or solely Western achievements. They stem from thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge, a shared heritage of all humanity. The ancient Greeks, for instance, who laid the foundation for Europe's rise, lived near Africa's Nile Valley, where some of the world's earliest kingdoms and civilizations thrived long before the Greeks and Romans.

Highlighting this fact is not meant to discredit Western contributions and achievements. It aims to dispel the myths of racial and intellectual superiority that have muddled a truthful understanding of history. Europe's rise, both ancient and modern (beginning in the late 15th century), was not exclusively based on Western thought. Westerners tend to inflate their intellectual capacity and material accomplishments while overlooking their atrocities and crimes against humanity.

The reality is that Western philosophical, economic, political, scientific, cultural, and technological development has been significantly influenced by human knowledge and earlier cultures that existed before the Greeks and Romans and later with the rise of the Portuguese and Spanish empires during the late 15th century. The prevailing Western narrative, which attributes its philosophical, scientific, economic, technological, cultural, architectural, and institutional achievements entirely to Western thought and asserts intellectual superiority, is dishonest and needs to be revised.

Figure 1: The arrogance and audacity of a racist looter. The foundational structure of Western civilization is not entirely Western.

The current understanding of civilization, which focuses on material elements and disregards the essential and guiding role of morality and ethical standards, hampers human peace, justice, prosperity, and civilization. Despite reaching a relatively advanced level of economic, scientific, and technological progress, human relations within and among nations remain predominantly characterized by fraud and force. This unjust and tragic reality highlights the flaws in the existing conception of civilization, which continues to lead to destructive outcomes. The technological capability to send somebody to the moon is meaningless when human relations and coexistence are beset with deception, coercion, oppression, aggression, and destruction.

Another pertinent example is the United States, along with other nuclear-armed nations, which permanently keep submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ready for launch. These submarines hold many ICBMs, such as the Trident II, which carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) with thermonuclear warheads. While the technology behind nuclear-powered submarines and their ability to launch multiple thermonuclear bombs from a single ballistic missile is impressive, the rationale for developing and maintaining these weapons of mass death and destruction is deeply troubling. It reflects a mindset and system that is animalistic, genocidal, and profoundly uncivilized.

The most transformative change the world needs is philosophical rather than technological and technical. In the current racist, statist, and militarist world, technological advancements are increasingly used for corrupt, coercive, oppressive, and destructive purposes instead of fostering justice, prosperity, and peaceful human relations, which are the true essence of civilization.

Techno-optimists and technocrats are mistaken in believing that a substantially better world can be achieved through technical means without a fundamental philosophical shift. The core issue is philosophical, not technological or technical. Philosophy provides humanity with a sound and transformative path forward. A fundamental philosophical shift is necessary to create a humanized and better world that is more stable, just, peaceful, and civilized. This shift involves moving away from the Darwinian Western worldview and the ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) approaches in economics and other social sciences.

The focus must shift from material measures of civilizational progress to moral development and justice considerations in scholarly discussions. This shift should be grounded in a new, human conception of humans and a principled approach to economics and other social sciences. This approach can foster a more just, peaceful, and genuinely civilized world.

Cultivating just, peaceful, and civilized nations involves recognizing the flaws in the current understanding of civilization and rejecting the focus on material progress that disregards moral development. Civilization should not be defined solely by Western standards, emphasizing higher economic, technological, military, and other material aspects. A worldview and system that relies on deception, coercion, aggression, and other thuggish methods cannot be considered civilized. It lacks morality, humanity, and decency. Such a system tends to be violent, rapacious, and destructive toward others in its ruthless quest for domination, rendering it inhuman, atrocious, and uncivilized.

Figure 2: Can systems based on fraud, coercion, oppression, and violence be considered civilized? Fraud and force contradict the core principles of human civilization—truth, justice, and nonaggression.

Nations may take pride in their history of invasion, violence, plunder, slaughter, and destruction of others; that is their prerogative. However, a group that has acted—or continues to act—in such an animalistic manner, without morality, decency, and humanity, cannot claim to be civilized, let alone the epitome of human civilization. The West cannot claim to be the standard of human civilization while systematically relying on deception, coercion, aggression, and often brutal violence to maintain its power and global dominance. The pervasive use of these methods is uncivilized, thuggish, and barbaric. Those who rely on such unethical and inhumane methods should not claim to be civilized, much less the benchmark of human civilization.

A society that disregards the universal moral principles of truth, justice, and nonaggression and systematically dehumanizes, oppresses, and destroys others cannot be considered civilized, even if it has achieved a higher stage of economic and technological development. Any system that relies on deceptive, coercive, oppressive, and violent methods is unethical, unjust, and uncivilized.

Consistently disregarding morality and ethical conduct in human relations means acting animalistically because morality and ethical discernment are fundamental features that set humans apart from animals and other life forms on Earth. The predominating Darwinian Western worldview, with its animalistic, racist, rivalrous, and violent character, is brutish and antithetical to civilization.

In his elucidating work on fractional reserve banking, Fractional Reserve Banking Is Fraudulent and Ruinous, Tacanho points out:

Unlike other creatures, humankind has innate morality and ethical discernment capacity. This allows humans to distinguish right from wrong, ethical from unethical, and good from evil. This shared understanding of moral principles and ethical discernment constitutes a universal standard for justice in human relations and coexistence, setting humans apart from animals and other life forms on Earth. Unlike animals, humans have moral obligations in their actions and interactions. Theories that lack ethical grounding and whose policy implications result in fraudulent, confiscatory, and oppressive practices can be considered primitive, animalistic, and uncivilized. Such models are pseudoscientific, even if lauded for their apparent scientific rigor.

To achieve optimal outcomes, jurisprudence, economics, and other social sciences must be rooted in natural law ethics to prioritize justice, minimize injustice, and foster peaceful human relations. As the sciences of humans, their [rights, responsibilities, and] actions, economics, and other social sciences need ethical foundations based on the universal ethical principles and moral obligations humanity shares.

In an article discussing ethics and economics as a “value-free” science, Tacanho notes:

From the Western perspective, objective and universal moral principles may seem implausible. However, it is crucial to recognize that a universal moral order exists, and it is a fundamental characteristic of human nature and existence. This fact, which is one of the fundamental features distinguishing humans from animals, underscores the need to reevaluate the ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) approach of Western economics and other social sciences. The lack of sound ethical foundations in these disciplines has led to profound confusion and distortions, causing incessant economic turmoil, destruction, and avoidable human suffering.

The Western worldview lacks morality and humanity due to its animalistic conception of humans and their relations. This has resulted in the current racist, statist, and militarist global order, marked by structural injustices, widespread corruption, institutional fraud, oppression, conflict, death, and destruction. The unprincipled, animalistic, rivalrous, and violent nature of the Western worldview prevents the West from being able to foster a genuinely civilized nation and world.

The Western worldview regards humans as merely advanced animals, fails to recognize the existence of universal moral principles, and assumes that human relations are inherently rivalrous and conflict-driven, similar to the animal kingdom’s notion of “survival of the fittest”—where it is essentially “hunt or be hunted” and “kill or be killed.” This unprincipled and animalistic human conception is evil and continues to cause widespread aggression, conflict, death, and destruction in human relations. In other words, the Western worldview is inhuman, uncivilized, and atrocious.

According to the established Darwinian conception of humans and racial hierarchy, Westerners, who have self-labeled as white people, are the most advanced or genuine humans. In contrast, others, particularly those further away from the Europeans in resemblance, have been categorized as subhuman, savages, and such malicious expressions. In reality, the case can be made that it is the West that is savage, by its animalistic worldview, concepts, and history of acting animalistically, going around the world, deceiving, dehumanizing, aggressing, plundering, looting, slaughtering, and ruthlessly destroying others. With a long record of depravity, criminality, and barbarity, Westerners have no basis to categorise anyone as subhuman or savage.

It is worth noting that savages or uncivilized are not necessarily those who live in huts or tents or have low economic or technological development. Actual savagery is characterized by unethical, thuggish, and violent actions and systems that rely on deceit, fraud, dehumanization, aggression, oppression, and the destruction of others, regardless of whether the perpetrators reside in humble abodes or towering skyscrapers.

The Western characterization of some human groups as subhumans, a fifth or a fourth of a human, does not make these groups subhuman. The West’s vile dehumanization of fellow humans as subhumans is a reflection of the West’s own animalistic, racist, and genocidal nature. This characterization and the atrocities it has led to were fraudulently promoted as scientific, like scientific racism, to justify the invasion, occupation, subjugation, brutalization, and destruction of other nations under the self-contradicting banner of a civilizational mission. Fraud, force, theft, slaughter, and plunder are antithetical to civilization. Perhaps before setting out to “civilize” the world, the West should have undertaken to civilize itself genuinely.

The current racist, statist, and militarist global order established by Darwinian Western imperial states marked by widespread corruption, oppression, structural injustices, economic turmoil, social strife, political dysfunction, conflicts, and war, among other ruinous issues, reflect the uncivilized nature of the Western worldview and the tyrannical systems it has produced.

Since 1991, the West, with the United States as the sole superpower, could have led the world toward a fundamentally stable, peaceful, and genuinely civilized state. Instead, like Britain and other empires before it, the United States has become a ruthless empire, spreading corruption, chaos, conflict, destruction, and death across the globe. The West cannot create a fundamentally stable, peaceful, and civilized world, hindered by its Darwinian worldview and desire for unending domination through deception, coercion, and aggression.

For instance, an individual replied to a social media comment about the nilar, a gold-based currency system formulated for African economies, warning that adopting the nilar is dangerous because “the owner of the dollar also has a monopoly on violence, so move away at your own peril.” This reveals that most are aware that the West still relies on thuggish and uncivilized methods such as intimidation, coercion, and violence to maintain its global hegemony, even as it claims to be the pinnacle of human civilization.

The Western system has remained unchanged since the times of the Roman Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, the British, and presently the United States Empire. The modern world, seemingly advanced and civilized, remains brutish. Human relations within and among nations are still characterized by unethical and thuggish methods that systematically involve deception, fraud, coercion, and state aggression. Despite the high global (voluntary) demand for the dollar following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the implicit threat of U.S. military aggression remains attached to its status as a world reserve currency.

Figure 3: Coercion and aggression underpin the fiat dollar standard.

At another time, a commentator used despicable language to describe what was done to Libya and its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, regarding an African gold currency. There is a threat of Western aggression against any African leader attempting to advance the vision of an African gold currency. The assumption that the United States/NATO would subvert or strike any country that decides to move away from the dollar, especially if African nations adopt a gold currency, reveals the West’s entrenched reliance on intimidation, subversion, coercion, and aggression to maintain its artificial superiority and domination.

As the political scientist Samuel Huntington observed: “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” This uncivilized approach highlights a lack of morality, humanity, and civility in human relations, with the West at the forefront of applying barbaric methods.

Genghis Khan and the Mongols are often labeled as one of the most brutally violent groups in the pursuit of empire and domination. The reality is that the West—primarily driven by deep-seated, perhaps even pathological racism—has been more violent, murderous, and genocidal than the Mongols and other atrocious groups. Due to the West's control of media outlets, censorship, and skillful mass deception and indoctrination through various institutions, its crimes and acts of barbarism are typically concealed or overlooked.

The fiat dollar standard is uncivilized in three ways. It is uncivilized because fiat monetary systems are unethical, fraudulent, confiscatory, destabilizing, and destructive. Governments forcefully impose fiat currency systems, resting on the threat of state aggression. It is, moreover, uncivilized because a threat of Western military aggression supports it. The dollar itself, as the world reserve currency, has long been weaponized by the imperial U.S. government and turned into a tool of intimidation, coercion, and punishment in service of the United States' hegemonic interests. This situation further illustrates the fact that the West remains fundamentally uncivilized, aggressive, and violent, relying on thuggish methods to maintain its global dominance.

In his paper, The Fiat Dollar Standard: Its Uncivilized and Destructive Nature, Tacanho writes:

Fiat monetary practices are an odious form of corruption normalized globally by the current statist and militarist Western order. The transition from sound currency systems to the fiat dollar standard between 1914 and 1971 constitutes a crime against humanity perpetrated by the West, led by the United States. This monetary shift reflects a severe moral deficit and profound corruption within Western society. Fiat monetary systems are unethical, uncivilized, and atrocious because they deceive, distort, defraud, dispossess, destabilize, and destroy. The [worldwide] institutionalization of these practices under the fiat dollar standard is an egregious corruption and a structural injustice in existing statist socioeconomic systems, reflecting the still fundamentally uncivilized state of humankind.

In an article discussing the definition and purpose of economics, Tacanho remarks:

The prevalence of autocratic government systems in the present, supposedly advanced, democratic, and highly civilized world is staggering. Research from the V-Dem Institute and similar think tanks paints a grim picture that the world is autocratizing, with much of the progress made in global levels of democracy and openness over the past 30 years erased. This trend means existing socioeconomic systems are becoming more statist as they lean further toward centralization, coercion, and repression.

For instance, V-Dem’s 2023 Democracy Report reveals that in 2022, 72 percent of the world’s population—5.7 billion people—lived in autocracies. This is a tragic reality and a startling revelation that tyrannical government systems and oppression are the norm rather than the exception in a seemingly civilized and advanced world. The widespread oppression, corruption, economic turmoil, stagnation, social strife, and other issues under current statist socioeconomic systems are grievous consequences of the West’s superficial adoption of individual rights and market economies. Ethics-free Western economics and other social sciences have crucially contributed to this unjust and brutish condition of the modern world.

The prevailing understanding of civilization heavily emphasizes material aspects, mainly due to the ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) nature of Western economics and other social sciences that have shaped it. As noted earlier, the current interpretation focuses on material elements such as institutional, economic, and technological advancement as standards of civilizational progress. While these aspects are undoubtedly beneficial, they should not be considered the ultimate measures of human progress or civilization. Nor should they be regarded as the aspirational benchmarks of civilization for which humankind should strive. The essence and pinnacle of human civilization is moral development, reflected in upholding truth, justice, and nonaggression in human relations within and among nations.

A fundamental question that social science scholars must address is whether deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression should continue to characterize human relations within and among societies indefinitely. Such a world is not only inhuman, animalistic, and uncivilized but also atrocious, perpetuating a destructive cycle of injustice, conflict, death, and destruction. Africonomics affirms that the answer is no; there is a more principled and civilized approach to structuring human relations and coexistence. It is possible and imperative to foster a predominantly stable, just, and peaceful world. Failing to pursue such a world is a crime against humanity and reflects humankind’s still fundamentally uncivilized state.

A more just, peaceful, and civilized world cannot be achieved with the Western worldview and system, which is Darwinian (animalistic, racial, rivalrous, and violent). The prevailing Western global order is inherently incompatible with a fundamentally peaceful, just, and civilized world, as it is based on racism, statism, and militarism. Due to its nature, the Western worldview and system cannot foster a structurally just, predominantly peaceful, and genuinely civilized world.

With Africonomics, Africa can liberate, transform, and empower itself, inspiring a more just, peaceful, and civilized world. Africonomics is a principled and more beneficial approach to economics and other social sciences. The Africonomics approach can more effectively foster justice, prosperity, and peaceful human relations within and among nations, leading to a structurally just, fundamentally stable, predominantly peaceful, and genuinely civilized world.

Cultivating a more just, peaceful, and genuinely civilized world centers on establishing fundamentally ethical and structurally just socioeconomic systems within nations. The world is a combination of societies, and human societies are a combination of families, which in turn are formed by individuals. Hence, nations are a combination of individuals, and individuals process natural rights by virtue of their humanity. Thus, a fundamentally ethical, structurally just, and civilized socioeconomic system is one whose legal and governance structures uphold people’s natural rights to life, liberty, and (self and property) ownership. These fundamental rights are inherent and come from God, the transcendental creator, not from the state’s benevolence.

While democracy has been elevated to a godlike status in the present statist world, it is crucial to recognize that democracy and its processes are not ultimate goals, nor should democracy be the foremost priority regarding socioeconomic structures and political systems. Truth, justice, liberty, and nonaggression precede democracy and should be the guiding principles. Indeed, in today's world many democracies are oppressive autocratic regimes disguised under democratic processes. Similarly, countries like the United States, Britain, France, and others illustrate that a nation can have well-established democratic institutions while simultaneously being aggressive, exploitative, and atrocious imperial states.

Figure 4: Contemporary nation-states are statist systems with varying degrees of government coercion, repression, and technocratic socioeconomic management.

The moral and civilizational imperative is that any socioeconomic system—whether it operates under a democratic government or otherwise—must be ethical and just in its structure. A civilized socioeconomic system is structurally ethical, equitable, and just. This means that society’s legal framework should be grounded in the universal moral principles of truth, justice, and nonaggression, and governance institutions must respect individuals’ natural rights to life, liberty, and ownership of self and property. Upholding these three fundamental human rights is crucial for creating a more peaceful, prosperous, and genuinely civilized world. This requires a system of free enterprise, free trade, and a completely sound monetary system.

Further in the Africonomics paper (p. 51), Tacanho observes:

A free-market economy excels in raising living standards and creating the broadest economic prosperity. Importantly, it is also the most ethical, peaceful, just, and, therefore, the most civilized socioeconomic system. Competing systems such as socialist and other statist systems cannot match, much less surpass it, as these are based on coercive, confiscatory, and oppressive policies typically under authoritarian or totalitarian government regimes.

As a socioeconomic order, a free-market economy is unparalleled in respecting and upholding people’s natural rights to life, liberty, and ownership of self and property. Hence, It confers a much greater degree of justice, liberty, dignity, economic prosperity, and social harmony than statist socioeconomic systems. A free-market economy is not only the most optimal approach (morally and materially) for structuring human society but also a catalyst for fostering genuine friendship, collaboration, and lasting peace among nations.

The essence of human civilization involves recognizing that a universal moral order exists; therefore, objective ethical standards exist. Moral principles are not just theoretical or artificial constructs but universal and immutable principles that are powerful tools that guide and regulate human choices, actions, institutions, relations, and coexistence. This principled approach is the most effective in minimizing deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression in human relations and cultivating structurally just, fundamentally peaceful, and genuinely civilized nations. They are the foundations of justice, prosperity, and peaceful relations within and among human societies, fostering a genuinely civilized world. To disregard morality, ethical standards, and justice in human relations within and among nations is to act animalistically in an uncivilized, thuggish, and barbarous manner.

In a racist, statist, and militarist world beset and afflicted with numerous economic, social, demographic, political, and geopolitical crises and the increasing possibility of global nuclear annihilation, Africonomics offers a principled and more beneficial approach to economics and other social sciences that is better suited to develop a predominantly stable, just, peaceful, prosperous, and civilized world.

Conclusion

The current understanding of human civilization is flawed and detrimental to civilization. It is materialist, solely focused on material progress, and it has been shaped by the ethics-free (utilitarian, positivist) nature of Western economics and other social sciences. This undermines justice, prosperity, and peaceful relations within and among nations, extensively stunting human civilizational progress.

While material elements such as institutional, economic, and technological advancement are undoubtedly beneficial, they are not the ultimate expressions of human progress and civilization. These factors should not be viewed as the primary standards of civilizational progress, as an economically and technologically more developed nation can systematically use unethical, thuggish, and barbarous methods to deceive, subjugate, plunder, and brutalize others.

A society can progress economically and technologically, but if it disregards morality and relies on thuggish and vicious methods—such as deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression—to achieve or maintain a given paradigm, it acts animalistically and thus remains fundamentally uncivilized. When a group imposes its will through fraudulent and violent methods involving dehumanization, dispossession, and destruction of another, it behaves more like an animal than a civilized human group. More than institutional, economic, and technological advancements, moral development, reflected in upholding the universal moral principles of truth, justice, and nonaggression in human relations within and among nations, are the essence and pinnacle of human civilization.

The pinnacle of human civilization is a world where human relations within and among nations are characterized by truth, justice, and nonaggression rather than deception, coercion, oppression, and aggression. This means a fundamentally just, free, and peaceful world. Such a world can most effectively be achieved with Africonomics and socioeconomic systems that respect people’s natural rights—life, liberty, and (self and property) ownership. Upholding these three inherent rights is essential for fostering a more peaceful, prosperous, and civilized world. This necessitates a system of free enterprise, free trade, and sound money. Statist systems are unethical, uncivilized, and atrocious as they rest on fraud and force—involving deceptive, coercive, confiscatory, and repressive policies enforced through state aggression. Africa must adopt Africonomics to liberate itself from Western subjugation and rise to humanize and civilize the world.