Agree 100% and glad to meet someone who is developing these concepts so well. I have a series of posts which range from the Anthropology of the Neolithic, through the biology of mitochondrial physiology, to our current obsession with computers. I came to similar conclusions about roots of the deal we made with civilizations. An offer we cannot? refuse. And with the role of the Anatolian farmers in Europe to the demise of the Neolithic there. Difficult to submit these ideas to the kind of serialized and unindexed short pieces we write on SubStack.
This was quite interesting, thanks for writing it up!
I disagree somewhat on the role of the state as a "creator of surplus", however. I think you rather over state the effects. Recall what early states were doing with the food gathered from farmers by taxation: mainly they were plowing it into administrators and troops. In other words, the surplus food wasn't being used to make more farmer babies, but was being used to make more administrator and soldier babies. Now, periodically the state would engage in activities that killed off lots of those soldiers, but fundamentally it was not changing the fertility:food production ratio towards food production. In fact, it was moving it in the other direction, taking the results of fertility and moving them away from food production. Food surpluses lead to supporting more state activity but are not CAUSED by state activity.
This remains true with trade entering the picture on a large scale. Extra food still supports larger population, but the population is specialized in making things other than food, and moving those things around. You still are at the same fertility:food ratios as before, moving some of the fertility away from people making food to people making other things.
Yet, some of those things produced are durable capital goods and knowledge, both of which lead to improvements in production over time. These do cause more creation of food surplus, through improving the ability of farmers to produce more food, through better technology and material capital. E.g. going from hand hoes to plowshares. This allows food production to outpace fertility once the accumulation of knowledge and capital across the population goes quickly enough. Turns out, that takes a rather long time to really get huge, but one can often track the improvements and set backs over time by looking at the non farming population.
Agree 100% and glad to meet someone who is developing these concepts so well. I have a series of posts which range from the Anthropology of the Neolithic, through the biology of mitochondrial physiology, to our current obsession with computers. I came to similar conclusions about roots of the deal we made with civilizations. An offer we cannot? refuse. And with the role of the Anatolian farmers in Europe to the demise of the Neolithic there. Difficult to submit these ideas to the kind of serialized and unindexed short pieces we write on SubStack.
Thanks for this, Lorenzo; will draw people's attention to it when I publish your next essay on my substack.
This was quite interesting, thanks for writing it up!
I disagree somewhat on the role of the state as a "creator of surplus", however. I think you rather over state the effects. Recall what early states were doing with the food gathered from farmers by taxation: mainly they were plowing it into administrators and troops. In other words, the surplus food wasn't being used to make more farmer babies, but was being used to make more administrator and soldier babies. Now, periodically the state would engage in activities that killed off lots of those soldiers, but fundamentally it was not changing the fertility:food production ratio towards food production. In fact, it was moving it in the other direction, taking the results of fertility and moving them away from food production. Food surpluses lead to supporting more state activity but are not CAUSED by state activity.
This remains true with trade entering the picture on a large scale. Extra food still supports larger population, but the population is specialized in making things other than food, and moving those things around. You still are at the same fertility:food ratios as before, moving some of the fertility away from people making food to people making other things.
Yet, some of those things produced are durable capital goods and knowledge, both of which lead to improvements in production over time. These do cause more creation of food surplus, through improving the ability of farmers to produce more food, through better technology and material capital. E.g. going from hand hoes to plowshares. This allows food production to outpace fertility once the accumulation of knowledge and capital across the population goes quickly enough. Turns out, that takes a rather long time to really get huge, but one can often track the improvements and set backs over time by looking at the non farming population.