• "Descendents of those societies that achieved centralized government and organized religion earliest ended up dominating the modern world.

• The combination of government and religion has thus functioned together with germs, writing, and technology as one of the four main sets of proximate agents leading to history's broadest pattern.

• How did government and religion arise?"

• Bands
• Tribes
• Chiefdoms
• States

Bands

Tiny Populations: typically 5-80 people
Most are close relatives by birth or marriage
All humans lived in bands until 40,000 years ago
In recent history:

• African Pygmies, Bushmen
• Australian Aborigines
• Eskimos

Bands

• Usually nomadic: live in areas where food is scarce
• Land used jointly by the whole group
• No specialization: all able-bodied individuals forage for food
• Economic system: Reciprocal Exchange
• No laws, police, or treaties to resolve conflicts: But being closely related helps

Bands
No stratification into classes: egalitarian
Leadership based on

•  personality
•  strength
•  intelligence
•  fighting skill

Fayu in New Guinea

• Four clans totaling 400 people
• Normally live as single families scattered in swampy area
• Come together once or twice a year to negotiate brides
• Formerly numbered 2,000
• Population reduced by Fayu killing Fayu
• Lacked political and social mechanisms to resolve disputes

Tribes

• Society with hundreds of people, usually settled in many villages
• Few left today
• Shared language and culture
• More than one clan (kinship group)
• Land belongs to clans within a tribe
• Everyone knows everyone else by name and relationship

Tribes

• Conflicts still solved by being closely related
• If two New Guinea Tribesmen were both away from their villages and happened upon one another
• They would engage in a long discussion to determine possible family ties
• Otherwise, no reason not to kill one another

Tribes

• Social System egalitarian
• No upper or lower class
• Each has debts and obligations to many others
• No one can become more wealthy
• Government still egalitarian
• Decisions are made in a group
• “Big Man” would have limited power, may look and live like everyone else

Reciprocity as the Basis of Early Economic Systems

Reciprocity

• Gift giving creates an obligation to return similar gifts
• Feasting improves relations, prevents hostility, is an excellent way to “store” food
• Reciprocity leads to intermarriage
• Villages are connected by multiple ties of kinship
• Reciprocity results in food security, balances inequities
• Political leadership is bestowed on those that give the most

Kerekere in Moala

• Moalans live in 1200 scattered villages in Pacific Islands
• Kerekere is a formal request for a good or service
• Can only kerekere a relative, but everyone  are relatives
• Are duty bound to honor a kerekere if you have what is asked for
• This system evens out inequity
• Prestige comes from giving more than taking

Chiefdoms

Population: several thousand to tens of thousands
Arose about 7,500 years ago with rising populations
In 1492, widespread in

•  N. and S. America
•  Africa
•  Polynesia

No chiefdoms left in 20th century

•  prime land taken by larger state societies
•  chiefdoms consolidated into states

Usually have Public Architecture

• Temples
• Tombs

Most people unrelated to others
People don’t know most others by name
For first time in history, people had to learn how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them
 

Chief

• Held monopoly on right to use force
• Held recognizable, hereditary office
• Wore distinguishing clothes: demanded respect
• Was thought of as a god, or had a hotline to the gods
• Centralized authority:

Chief Joseph

Luxury Goods
Food surpluses generated by common people feed

• Chief
• Bureaucrats & Priests
• Craft Specialists

Redistributive Economy
Chief receives food from everyone, then

• Throws feast to redistribute
• Stores it for later redistribution
• Keeps much of it himself (tribute)
• Chief also claims labor for construction of public works: Irrigation, Lavish Tombs

Redistribution and the Beginnings of Inequity

Redistribution

• Chief receives foodstuffs, goods from many because he has power
• Chief has power because he regularly directs a flow of goods to his followers
• Early city-states operated on this principle
• Traders did not make a profit but were agents of the empire, trading goods on a fixed-price basis
• Did not buy low and sell high

Redistribution
In Mesopotamia, police ensured that farmers contributed
Impersonality of city life ends feelings of obligation of Chief to people or vice versa
Otomi Indians in Mexico have family sponsored Fiestas

• Redistribute food,
• Reduce envy in the community
• Bring prestige to sponsors
• Political leadership is bestowed on those that give the most

Kleptocracies
Good chiefdoms used tribute to provide important services to entire society

• Irrigation
• Religion
• Defense

At worst, chiefdoms were kleptocracies
Transferred net wealth from commoners to upper class

How do kleptocracies keep from being overthrown?

• Disarm the populace, arm the elite
• Redistribute tribute in popular ways
• Use monopoly of force to keep public order
• Construct an ideology or religion that justifies kleptocracy

  Bond between people not based on kinship that keeps them from killing each other
            Gives warriors a motive for sacrificing life in battle: now much more effective in conquest
States

• Populations of 50,000 to 1 Billion
• Usually literate elites
• sometimes literate population
• Arose 3,700 BC in Mesopotamia
• Later in Mesoamerica, China, Southeast Asia, Andes, West Africa

States
True cities, characterized by

• Monumental public works
• Palaces of rulers
• Accumulation of capital from tribute or taxes
• Concentration of people other than food producers

States

• Early states: hereditary leader equivalent to a king
• Democracies today: crucial knowledge available to only a few
• Central control, redistribution of tribute more far-reaching: Even farmers not self-sufficient

• Cereal farmers
• Herders
• Fishermen
• Orchard and Garden growers

State took produce from each group
Redistributed necessary supplies and the other foods not produced
Exchanged wool by long distance trade for other essential raw materials
Paid food rations to laborers who maintained irrigation systems for farmers

Slavery
Many states adopted slavery on much larger scale than chiefdoms because

• More use for slave labor
• More economic specialization
• More mass production
• More public works
• Warfare on a larger scale meant more captives available

Bureaucracies

• More complex bureaucracies
• Formalized laws, judiciary, police
• Laws often written (by literate elite)
• Writing not developed until formation of state societies

Code of Hammurabi, Mesopotamia

Religion

• Early: state religions, standardized temples
• Many kings divine
• Kings often head of state religion
• Mesopotamian Temple was center of Religion, Economic redistribution, Writing, Crafts technology

States

• States organized on political and territorial lines: not kinship and tribe boundaries
• States and empires often are multiethnic and multilingual
• Bureaucrats selected more on ability than heredity
• Modern states have non-hereditary leadership

• More complex societies usually conquer less complex ones
• Advantage of weapons, technology, numbers
• Centralized decision making more efficient in conquest
• Official religions, patriotic fervor make troops willing to fight suicidally: fanaticism

How do chiefdoms become states?

• Aristotle: States are  the natural condition of human society. (Knew only Greek Societies of  400 BC)
• Rousseau: States formed by a social contract, a rational decision of people based on self interest.(Never happened this way)
• Small groups do not give up their sovereignty willingly

• Major civilizations had large-scale irrigation:
• Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica
• Large-scale irrigation requires centralized bureaucracy for Construction, Maintenance, Management

Irrigation Theory Disputed

• States formed to create irrigation systems?
• But irrigation came after states formed
• States did not always have centrally controlled irrigation

• Strong correlation between size of population and complexity of society
• Autocatalysis: population growth leads to social complexity
• Social complexity leads to intensified food production and population growth

• Requires seasonal labor.  After harvest, labor used for public works, wars of conquest
• Stored surpluses permit economic specialization, social stratification:
• feed chiefs, elite, scribes, craftspeople, specialists,
• feed farmers while they are working on public works
• Requires sedentary living, important for possessions, technology, crafts, public works, control of people

Large populations require complex social system

• Conflict resolution needed between unrelated people:  need laws and authority
• Communal decisions impossible:  need structure
• Reciprocal economy impossible:  need redistributive  economy
• Density of population must be organized

• 40 Cherokee chiefdoms joined together,
• American colonies joined together

• Zulu state
• Hawaii, Tahiti
• Aztecs, Incas (before Spanish arrived)
• Rome, Macedonian empire
• Etc.

• survivors can move away

• Need the land
• Territory occupied.
• No need for slaves
• No need for survivors, except women as wives
• Defeated men are killed

• Defeated can be used as slaves
• Or defeated can be exploited
• Left in place to produce food, goods
• Deprived of political autonomy
• Made to pay taxes, tribute
• Amalgamate their society into victorious state or chiefdom

Aztec Empire

Aztec Tribute
Aztec Empire recieved tribute from its subjects and had tribute lists
Spanish wanted tribute from Mexico
Interested in Aztec Empire’s tribute lists
Each year Aztec subjects paid Aztecs:

• 7,000 tons of corn
• 4,000 tons of amaranth
• 2,000,000 cotton cloaks
• Huge quantities of Ccacao beans, war costumes, shields, feather headdresses, amber

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