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.
This is a problem of intermediate surplus (surplus extracted from farmers) and final surplus (surplus after the state apparat, or commercial costs, has been paid for). Taxation enables, and is required for, the (subsistence of) the state apparat to be supported. Including priests, administrators, soldiers.
But even if you just take final surplus, that is overwhelmingly dominated by the state. See Great Pyramids, all the Walls of China, Angkor Wat, and monumental architecture more generally. See roads, bridges and fortifications. See the demand for luxury goods which dominated long distance trade. And so on.
The level of surplus in state societies is orders of magnitude greater than in non-state societies. The state also dominates how surplus is extracted; who gets access to it, how and why; what it is used for.
Even the benefits to commerce of pacification by the state is a product of the state’s ability to extract surplus.
Dominated by the state, but not caused by the state. Your examples of the pyramids and Angkor Way are good examples of that: no surplus is created by building those monuments, but quite a bit is dissipated thereby. Likewise, while states do often lead to increased peace and thus trade, they just as often lead to increased conflict and excessive taxation of trade that cuts it off. The trade history of the Rhine is a good example of the latter.
Overall, I think you are mistaking correlation of more surplus and more state for a causal relationship, more state therefore more surplus. Crediting a state for increasing surplus is akin to crediting a large saddle for making a horse grow large; the saddle can be big because the horse is big, but had little to do with how the horse got big in the first place.
You need to re-read what I wrote. Of course the surplus is used. Yes, there is some storage of wealth for future use, but overall, it is used. And the state controls it to use it. But the surplus that comes from the taxing actions of the state would not otherwise exist. Which, in most state societies in most times, was the largest source of surplus.
There is a reason why stateless societies produced far less surplus. The taxing power of the state created surplus. Which was then used in various ways.
Nor am I claiming that there is a one-to-one correlation between state action and surplus. Hence my pointing to highly mercantile societies.
Moreover, we can see from the genetic record that, overall, the pacification effect of the state is greater than its own violence. Indeed, prior to the C20th, the greatest death tolls in wars came from the collapse of the pacification by the state.
What you just wrote is exactly what I took away, actually. "The surplus that comes from the taxing actions of the state would not otherwise exist." That is what I understood you to say, and is exactly what I am arguing against. Also "The taxing power of the state created surplus." If that were true, why not just create more surplus? Why stop taxing?
The answer is because the state doesn't create surplus, it just moves it from one use to another. You have the causation wrong. Producers (typically farmers, but also tradesmen and merchants) create surplus, and the state takes some and moves it to other ends. Sometimes ends that are a net positive and lead to more production, and often to ends that are net negative. You can't have a state until you have producers than can support it with their surplus. Stateless societies do not have states because they don't generate enough surplus to support one, not because they simply haven't gotten around to having a state yet.
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.
This is a problem of intermediate surplus (surplus extracted from farmers) and final surplus (surplus after the state apparat, or commercial costs, has been paid for). Taxation enables, and is required for, the (subsistence of) the state apparat to be supported. Including priests, administrators, soldiers.
But even if you just take final surplus, that is overwhelmingly dominated by the state. See Great Pyramids, all the Walls of China, Angkor Wat, and monumental architecture more generally. See roads, bridges and fortifications. See the demand for luxury goods which dominated long distance trade. And so on.
The level of surplus in state societies is orders of magnitude greater than in non-state societies. The state also dominates how surplus is extracted; who gets access to it, how and why; what it is used for.
Even the benefits to commerce of pacification by the state is a product of the state’s ability to extract surplus.
Dominated by the state, but not caused by the state. Your examples of the pyramids and Angkor Way are good examples of that: no surplus is created by building those monuments, but quite a bit is dissipated thereby. Likewise, while states do often lead to increased peace and thus trade, they just as often lead to increased conflict and excessive taxation of trade that cuts it off. The trade history of the Rhine is a good example of the latter.
Overall, I think you are mistaking correlation of more surplus and more state for a causal relationship, more state therefore more surplus. Crediting a state for increasing surplus is akin to crediting a large saddle for making a horse grow large; the saddle can be big because the horse is big, but had little to do with how the horse got big in the first place.
You need to re-read what I wrote. Of course the surplus is used. Yes, there is some storage of wealth for future use, but overall, it is used. And the state controls it to use it. But the surplus that comes from the taxing actions of the state would not otherwise exist. Which, in most state societies in most times, was the largest source of surplus.
There is a reason why stateless societies produced far less surplus. The taxing power of the state created surplus. Which was then used in various ways.
Nor am I claiming that there is a one-to-one correlation between state action and surplus. Hence my pointing to highly mercantile societies.
Moreover, we can see from the genetic record that, overall, the pacification effect of the state is greater than its own violence. Indeed, prior to the C20th, the greatest death tolls in wars came from the collapse of the pacification by the state.
What you just wrote is exactly what I took away, actually. "The surplus that comes from the taxing actions of the state would not otherwise exist." That is what I understood you to say, and is exactly what I am arguing against. Also "The taxing power of the state created surplus." If that were true, why not just create more surplus? Why stop taxing?
The answer is because the state doesn't create surplus, it just moves it from one use to another. You have the causation wrong. Producers (typically farmers, but also tradesmen and merchants) create surplus, and the state takes some and moves it to other ends. Sometimes ends that are a net positive and lead to more production, and often to ends that are net negative. You can't have a state until you have producers than can support it with their surplus. Stateless societies do not have states because they don't generate enough surplus to support one, not because they simply haven't gotten around to having a state yet.