Power and Its Origins Lecture 27
Power from below can exist without power from above. It doesn’t work the other way around. And what that means is that to explain the slow buildup to institutionalized power over 5,000 years, we must begin by looking at forms of power from below.
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f you study the past using written records you will soon encounter states, empires, and civilizations. This is why the history of these immense, highly institutionalized power structures has been one of the central themes of historical scholarship and teaching from ancient times to the present day, in all literate traditions. States created new forms of oppression as well as new opportunities, and they would dominate the “later Agrarian” era from the moment they ¿rst appeared, about 5,000 years ago. Yet so far, we have not talked much of such things because we have been describing societies in which hierarchies were embedded in personal relationships or the rules of kinship rather than in large institutional structures such as states. Now we must try to explain the emergence of large, institutionalized power structures. We will see that their roots lay in the early Agrarian era. To clarify the nature of the problem, we need to be clear what states are. So we will move forward to the later Agrarian era before returning to trace the roots of institutionalized power in the early Agrarian era. Following Eric Wolf, we will use the terminology of “tribute-taking” states. The word “tribute” is used here to mean resources extracted through the threat of organized force. Tribute-taking states often enjoy the genuine support of many of their subjects because, though they can coerce, they can also provide real services, just as farmers provide valuable services to their domestic crops and animals. The great world historian William McNeill has captured this ambiguous relationship well by describing tribute-taking states as “macroparasites.” Like parasites, they may hurt their prey, but they must also protect their prey if they are to survive. Nevertheless, the de¿ning quality of tribute-taking states is the ability, when necessary, to impose their will by force.
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