Power and Its Origins

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.

If 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.

The appearance of the rst tribute-taking states marks a new level of social complexity. Indeed, though I have not classi ed this as one of our eight major thresholds, one could make a case for doing so. States were larger, more internally varied, and more complex than the village communities of the early Agrarian era or the small, kin-based communities of the Paleolithic era. They all achieved a certain degree of stability (though eventually they all broke down). To maintain their complex structures, they mobilized the resources and energy of millions of individuals. Large projects such as the building of pyramids or the formation of armies demonstrated their power to mobilize energy, resources, and people. Tribute-taking states also generated new “emergent” properties, such as organized warfare, monumental “Power from above” architecture, the management of markets, depends on the capacity and an unprecedented power to coerce. to make credible threats To understand the emergence of tributeof coercion. taking states, we need a clear de nition of institutionalized (as opposed to personal) power. I will de ne institutionalized power as the concentration in the hands of a few people of substantial control over considerable human and material resources. Note that this de nition has two components: control and the resources being controlled. The distinction matters because where there are few people and resources to control, power has limited reach. This is why power structures were less signi cant and less institutionalized in the Paleolithic era. As populations—as well as the goods they produced—multiplied, power began to matter more as leaders gained control over more people, more resources, and more energy. Now we return to the early Agrarian era to trace how power structures became more signi cant and more institutionalized. It will help to imagine two distinct ways of mobilizing power. Though intertwined in reality, we can distinguish them analytically. “Power from below” is power conceded more or less willingly by individuals or groups who expect to bene t from subordination to skillful leaders. People expect something in return for subordination, so power from below is a “mutualistic” form of symbiosis. As societies became larger and denser, leadership became more important

in order to achieve group goals, such as the building of irrigation systems or defense in war. Familiar modern examples of power from below include the election of club or team of cials or captains. When we think of power as “legitimate” (e.g., the right to tax in a democratic society), we are generally thinking of it as power from below, even if it is backed by the threat of force.

“Power from above” depends on the capacity to make credible threats of coercion. That depends on the existence of disciplined groups of coercers, loyal to the leader and able to enforce the leader’s will by force when necessary. In such an environment, people obey because they will be punished if they do not. This aspect of power highlights the coercive (or “parasitic”) element in power relationships. The existence of jails, police, and armies is evidence that such power exists. Yet no state can depend entirely on coercion because maintaining an apparatus of coercion is costly and depends on maintaining the willing support of the coercers. No individual can single-handedly coerce millions of others. In practice, the two forms of power are intertwined in complex ways. “Protection rackets,” for example, offer a service. Yet it is often the racket itself that is the likely source of danger, so does the payment of “protection money” count as a form of power from below or above? Building coercive groups is complex and costly, and the earliest forms of power emerged before such groups existed. That is why the rst power elites depended mainly on power from below.

This lecture has discussed the nature of institutionalized power to help us explain how it rst emerged in human history. The next lecture will ask how this analysis of power can help us understand the simple forms of power that emerged during the early Agrarian era.

Essential Reading

Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 9. Fagan, People of the Earth, chap. 14.

Supplementary Reading

Questions to Consider

Harris, “The Origin of Pristine States” (in Cannibals and Kings). Johnson and Earle, The Evolution of Human Societies.

1. What is power?

2. Is it possible to analyze power relations in today’s world using the categories of “power from above” and “power from below”?