the measures which society adopted in order not to be, in its turn,

[keannu]

I can't even get a glimpse of the meaning. This is too abstract, especially the underlined. After reading this, can you conclude what destroyed nineteenth-century civilization?

pr26
ex)Nineteenth-century civilization was not destroyed by the external or internal attack of barbarians; its vitality was not weakened by the devastations of World War I nor by the rebellion of a socialist proletariat. Its failure was not the outcome of some alleged laws of economics such as that of falling rate of profit or of underconsumption or overproduction. It disintegrated as the result of an entirely different set of causes; the measures which society adopted in order not to be, in its turn, destroyed utterly by the action of the self-regulating market. Apart from exceptional circumstances, the conflict between the market and the elementary requirements of an organized social life provided the century with its dynamics and produced the typical strains and stresses which ultimately destroyed that society. External wars merely hastened its destruction.

 

[SoothingDave]

It is saying that "civilization" or "society" was going to be "utterly destroyed" by the "self-regulating market" (by which I assume they mean unbridled capitalism). So society took action to adopt measures in order to not be destroyed by the market. These measures led to the destruction of civilization anyway, but presumably in a different way than the market would have destroyed civilization.

 

[5jj]

In this, and several other things you have posted recently, keannu, the problem seeems to be that you are trying to read texts at too advanced a level. Much that you want explained is not really difficult language. What is difficult is the thought processes of the writer. I doubt if 25% of native speakers could understand the full meaning of that on first, or even second reading. If you are going to work on texts like this, you need to give yourself time.

 

[keannu]

What a great explanation!(I'm writing this in a vacationing area) If it is just a metaphor for the destruction of societal form, not actual collapse of like an empire or a nation, it can make good sense here.
But I can't get what "external wars" means. Does it mean the desruction of societal form was followed by wars that are contrary of the former? And "strains and stresses" don't seem to make sense, either. Your example contains a good direction change, so does "strains and stresses" correspond to "one person amassing a large fortune" as an example?

....produced the typical strains and stresses which ultimately destroyed that society. External wars merely hastened its destruction.

 

[keannu]

It's because I'm a student here, but in a different situation, I have to explain this in detail to others. If I were always a student, I wouldn't care so much about the details like background knowledge about humanities, science, psychology, etc, which native speakers can explain a lot better than I do for English texts.