Rise of the State
From the Agricultural Revolution to
the Hierarchical State
1
Outline
• 1) Hierarchical state society in art: the stele of
Hammurabi’s code
• 2) Two theories of history: L or U?
• 3) What caused the agricultural revolution?
– Stages
• 4) What caused the rise of the state?
2
3
4
Two works of art
• Compare the artworks:
– Hunter-gatherers
– Civilization
• How do these works express the differences in
the outlooks of the people?
– Relation to nature?
– Relation between people?
– Beliefs, ideas about life?
5
Shamash and Hammurabi
• Which is which? (Spodek, 59)
• Gods look like kings (and vice versa)
– Anthropocentric or regicentric?
• Separation of ruler from ruled
• Separation of divine from human
• God-given laws cement human divisions
– Rich and poor
– Men and women
6
Threefold approach to society
•
•
•
•
Relation to nature – technology
Relation between people – social structure
Belief system – form of consciousness
Harmony between these levels (normally)
7
Historical “fall” (summary)
• On technological level
– from dependence on independent nature
– to control over nature
• On social level
– from family-based, egalitarian society
– to class-based, male dominant society
– rulers are all powerful
• On consciousness level
– Animist oneness > Gods/priests are all powerful
8
L Theory of History
• 110,000 years of kinship society
• 5,500 years of “civilization”
– Growing technology
– Increasing social inequality
– Plus growing environmental destruction
9
U theory of history
• 190,000 to 110,000 years of kinship society
with primitive technology
• 5,500 years of inequality and oppression
– But also, creation of advanced technology
• Future: global kinship with advanced
technology
10
End of “civilization”?
• Social changes: Growth of democracy, equality
– Continued inequalities or new equality?
– Political rights for free men: 240 years old
(American revolution)
– Civil rights for slaves: 151 years old (Civil War)
– Political rights for women: 96 years old (Women’s
right to vote, 19th Amendment, 1920);
– end of segregation in the US south: 51 years old
(Voting Rights Act of 1965)?
11
New global kinship?
• Nature, technology and consciousness
– Continued domination over nature or
– New ecology movement > consciousness of our
oneness with nature, with the earth (film
“Avatar”)
• Tech: Transportation and communications:
one world family (global kinship)
– Or are we now slaves to the Internet?
12
What caused the agricultural revolution?
• 1) Discovery of new technology?
• 2) Population increase?
• 3) Climate change?
13
Explanations: why agriculture?
• (1) New technology, discovery?
• What did women gatherers know?
• How much work is needed? (Spodek, 43)
– Hunter gatherers: 800-1000 hours
– Agriculturalists:1000-1300 hours
• Which work is harder?
• Who is healthier?
14
(2) Population increase?
• H-G: 0.4 sq km: 9 people (S., 41)
– Bands of 25 people each, loosely related > 500 in
exogamous tribe (Spodek, 26-7)
• Agriculture: 200-400 people for the same area
• Biology of reproduction
– Lactating H-G mothers carrying infants up to four
years
– Sedentary agricultural mothers
15
(3) Climate change
• Ending of last ice age 15,000 years ago (S, 41)
– plains > forests
– = dwindling of ecology of great herds
– Plus: hunting continues as before
– > Ecological disaster
16
Difference between Eurasia-Africa and
the Americas
• In Americas:
– Early extinction of domestic animals: cattle, sheep, horses,
pigs
– Why no wheel in “New World”?
– What caused defeat of Aztecs, Incas, by Cortes, European
invaders?
– Technological lag? Vulnerability to European diseases?
• In Eurasian/African land mass
– Larger land mass
– New technologies developed before extinctions
17
Paradox of Paleolithic ecological
catastrophe
• Respect for nature of early animistic peoples
– Descent into caves, rituals for renewing animal, plant
species (magic)
• >Destruction of nature
– New circumstances (climate change, global warming)
– Hunter/gatherers didn’t know what they were doing
– Gilgamesh & Enkidu kill the Humbaba (spirit guaardian of
the forest) (See film Princess Mononoke)
18
Is technological “control” bad for
nature?
• What saved animal species in Old World?
– More time for changes to take place in larger territory
– Agricultural-herding (neolithic) revolutions: herders,
agriculturalists produce their own means of survival
• = interpenetration, humanization of nature
– From magic to practical activity
– New technology creates possibility of a new, more real
sense of harmony with nature
– But this did not happen. Why not?
19
Civilization: break with nature
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Many things cause terror and wonder, yet nothing
is more terrifying and wonderful than man.
This thing goes across the gray
sea on the blasts of winter
storms, passing beneath
waters towering 'round him. The Earth,
eldest of the gods,
unwithering and untiring, this thing wears down
as his plows go back and forth year after year
furrowing her with the issue of horses. (Antigone, 332-41)
20
So why the passage in Antigone?
• Sense of violation of Nature
– Break from religion of nature
– Sense of guilt and pride
• But not the result of technology per se
– Technology can save nature
• So: need to consider the new social factor: hierarchical
state, division of rich and poor, master and slave
– Control of people over people > break from, control over nature
– What people do to animals and the natural world, they first do
to each other
21
Stages in agricultural revolution
• 1) Slash-and-burn (10,000 BCE)
• 2) Early hoe agriculture on flood plains
– Tigris and Euphrates
– Nile
• 3) Hierarchical irrigation state 3000 BCE
• 4) Iron plow agriculture on rain-watered lands
(1000 BC . . . )
• 5) Next stage: 500 CE in Europe ??
22
Slash and burn agriculture
•
•
•
•
Cooperative social relations
Hoe agriculture, women’s work
Use of ash -- limitations
Nomadic way of life continues
– Life is difficult
• Today: Brazil – Amazon rain forests
23
Flood plains of great rivers
• Simple tools (hoe)
• Natural, regular fertilization of soil by flooding
rivers
• Abundant harvest –> surplus of grain
– Stored in granaries
– Life is easy (easier)
• Social level: Continuation of ancient
cooperative kinship system
24
Hymn to the Nile
• Praise to thee, O Nile, that issueth from the
earth, and cometh to nourish Egypt. . . .
• That maketh barley and createth wheat, so
that he may cause the temples to keep
festivals. . . .
• If he be sluggish . . . millions of men perish.
• Offer is made to every other god as is done for
the Nile . . .
25
Location of Garden of Eden
• “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward
in Eden. . . . And the fourth river is Euphrates.”
Genesis 2:8
• From slash-and-burn poverty to abundance of
paradise?
26
What caused the “fall”?
• Rise of the hierarchical state
– 1) requirements of large populations?
– 2) military necessity?
– 3) requirements for organizing irrigation systems?
– 4) exploitation of the majority by a minority?
27
1) Large Populations without States
• Difficulties of uniting different kinship
societies. But not impossible
• Hunter-gatherer assemblies of local groups
• Tiv people in Africa united 1 million
• Iroquois Federation united separate tribes
• Hence: large populations can be organized
without a “state”
28
2) Military necessity?
• 1) Traditional system of military: armed men
of the kinship group
– American Indian military power: not separate
army
• 2) “State” = military power over the people
(Gilgamesh)
• Hence: defense is possible without a “state”
29
3) Social problems of organizing
irrigation
• Separate villages multiply along river
• Population growth > move away from river
• > need for cooperation between kinship
groups
• It is possible to have cooperation without a
“state”
– Iroquois voluntary union of five nations
– Maintains democratic constitution
30
Problems with Kinship Groups
• First stage of history: kinship groups
• Basic problems of this stage
– Separation of groups
– Sporadic wars
• Second stage: uniting of separate kinship groups
– Growing populations
– More frequent interaction, conflicts
• Two methods of unification
– cooperation
– force: hierarchical state
• Hence: a choice between two methods
31
4) Exploitation of surplus
• 1) Production of surplus
– based on higher productivity of simple labor
– Due to natural fertility of flooding river
• 2) Surplus as target
– From the outside > military protection needed
– From within the village > from the military
protectors themselves
• 3) Chief chosen by people > rules over them
32
Rise of the hierarchical state
• 1) Traditional system of community control
– Military leader is subordinate to community
– Iroquois: women elders in charge
• 2) Conquest of the community
– From within the community: the military leader seizes
control, overthrows the old kinship order (Legal state of
the West—positive law replaces kinship traditions)
– From outside the community: another kinship community
takes over, conquers the first (neo-kinship state of the
East)
33
State as System of Inequality
•
•
•
•
•
State as class-divided, hierarchy
Power in hands of a few
Standing army under rule of elite
Women subordinate to men
Slavery
34