Rise of the State

1. Rise of the State From the Agricultural Revolution to the Hierarchical State

2. Outline • 1) Two theories of history: L or U? • 2) What caused the agricultural revolution? • Stages • 3) What caused the rise of the state?

3. L Theory of History • 110,000 years of kinship society • 5,500 years of “civilization” • Growing technology • Increasing social inequality • Plus growing environmental destruction

4. U theory of history • 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

5. End of “civilization”? • Social changes: Growth of democracy, equality • Continued inequalities or new equality? • Political rights for free men: 238 years old (American revolution) • Civil rights for slaves: 149 years old (Civil War) • Political rights for women: 94 years old (Women’s right to vote, 19th Amendment, 1920); • end of segregation in the US south: 49 years old (Voting Rights Act of 1965)?

6. 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?

7. What caused the agricultural revolution? • 1) Discovery of new technology? • 2) Population increase? • 3) Climate change?

8. 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?

9. (2) Population increase? • H-G: 1 sq km: 9 people • Bands of 25 people each, loosely related > 500 in exogamous tribe (Spodek, 25) • Agriculture: 200-400 people per square km • Biology of reproduction • Lactating H-G mothers carrying infants up to four years • Sedentary agricultural mothers

10. (3) Climate change • Ending of last ice age 15,000 years ago (S, 43) • plains > forests • = dwindling of ecology of great herds • Plus: hunting continues as before • > Ecological disaster

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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?

14. 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)

15. 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

16. 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 ??

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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 . . .

20. 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?

21. 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?

22. 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”

23. 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”

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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)

28. 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