6. Rise of the State
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Outline
• 1) Possible causes of the hierarchical state
– Presupposes agriculture and its early development
• 2) Causes of the first states:
• 3) Plusses and minuses of kinship societies
and hierarchical states
– L or U theories continued
• 4) Why do people tolerate states?
– geography of the Civilization Trap
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Civilization: break with nature
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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)
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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
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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 ??
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Slash and burn agriculture
• Hunting becomes more and more precarious,
unsuccessful
– due to climate change
• Cooperative social relations continue
• Hoe agriculture, women’s work
• Use of ash -- limitations
• Nomadic way of life continues
– Life is difficult
• Today: Brazil – Amazon rain forests (and hamburgers)
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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
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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 . . .
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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?
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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?
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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”
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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”
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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
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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
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Rise of the hierarchical state
Two paths
• 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)
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Pluses of H-G societies
• 1) relative equality,
– including gender equality
• 2) democratic organization
• 3) harmony with nature
– But recall ecological catastrophe at end of last ice
age.
• Are we returning to these features?
– L theory or U theory?
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Minuses of hunter-gatherer communities
• 1) Small groups divided from one another
– Sporadic wars
– becoming more systematic as territories are
gradually filled up
• 2) Simple technology
• 3) No scientific knowledge of the larger
ecological laws
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Pluses of “civilization”
• 1) Unifies people into larger and larger groups
– Importance of trade
• 2) Development of technology (often through
requirements of warfare)
– Technology can save nature—as in the Global
Warming Catastrophe of 11,000 BCE
• 3) Possibilities of scientific knowledge
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Minuses of Civilization
• Unification also takes place through wars,
– War is systematic, not sporadic
• Social-economic, ethnic, gender inequalities
• The state as instrument of power separated
from people
• Technology as a means of enrichment (of the
few) overlooks destructive effects
• Scientism (exaggerated view of the authority
of science and scientists)
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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 (teleology!)
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Why do people tolerate oppressive
states?
• (1) Religious beliefs
• (2) Military force
• (3) Geographical conditions
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(1) Religious revolution
• Because of religion? Kings are god-like
– Gilgamesh: 2/3 god
– Pharaoh: 3/3 god (Why is Pharaoh more god-like?)
• Animism > Anthropomorphic Polytheism
– Natural evolutionary process of consciousness? Is AP an
improvement over Animism?
– > Old religion of participation in the Life-Force (animism)
had to be forcefully overthrown.
• > Creation of fear-based, slavish religion
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(2) Fight or flight?
• Military: Powerlessness of people to fight
back.
• Gilgamesh has a specialized, standing army
• But people can always run away, right?
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(3) Civilization Trap
• Where to run? Desert, Warrior herders in hills
• Geography of Tigris/Euphrates, Nile river
valleys (S., p. 44)
• Expelled from paradise, or trapped within it? >
“Civilization Trap”
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Kinds of Civilization Traps
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Flood-plains of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Loess soil (air-borne silt) in China
Well water in Mexico (Mayas)
Mountain rivers for Peru
Contrast with sub-Saharan Africa
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Sub-Saharan Africa: history of migrations
to 19th c.
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Location of African kingdoms, 114
= Trading kingdoms
Wealth not based on peasant agriculture
Map 115: Spread of Bantu
Peasants can move away from tyrants! No
civilization trap (except for Egypt)
• > Bantu migrations: kinship, communal
democracies until 19th c. King Shaka
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Governments, not states
• “Could the settlements of the Middle Niger at
Jenne-jeno be an example of early
urbanization without a strong centralized
government? Without a state? It is possible.”
(Spodek 114)
• = No state where there is freedom to move
elsewhere.
• But possibility of trade-based urbanization.
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