On the Origin of the State

Main ideas and concepts

• Common historical explanation (productivity/surplus theory):

  • A traditional view (associated with thinkers like Adam Smith and earlier) argues that states and complex hierarchies emerged because farming increased food production.
  • Higher output supposedly generated a surplus, which then enabled:
    • a tax-levying elite,
    • social classes that did not directly produce food.
  • Under this view, regional differences in land productivity explain why states emerged in some areas but not others.

• Paper’s counter-argument (appropriability theory):

  • The paper argues that the state did not arise from increased food production itself.
  • Instead, state formation depends on a transition to reliance on cereal grains, due to their distinct economic properties:
    • Cereals are easy to store.
    • Because cereals are harvested seasonally, they must be stored to survive year-round.
    • This makes cereals highly appropriable:
      • stored cereals can be confiscated and transported to support an elite.
    • By contrast:
      • Roots and tubers don’t require seasonal reaping in the same way,
      • are fairly perishable once harvested,
      • are harder to confiscate and nearly impossible to transport over long distances for distant control.
  • Therefore, societies growing cereals are more likely to develop hierarchies and states because cereal production creates both:
    • a demand for protection (to secure stored food),
    • and a means to finance protection via taxation (since elites can seize/manage stored calories).

• Key prediction of the theory:

  • Hierarchies should depend more on a region’s suitability for cereal cultivation (appropriability) than on overall agricultural productivity.

Evidence and methodology (as presented)

Dataset 1: Pre-industrial societies “snapshot”

• What it includes:

  • A snapshot of 1,200+ pre-industrial societies (mainly 18th–19th centuries).
  • For each society:
    • measures of hierarchical complexity,
    • identification of the major crop cultivated.
  • Additional data:
    • potential crop yields to estimate land productivity and identify areas naturally favorable for cereals.

• Tests performed / comparisons:

  • Compare hierarchy levels among societies cultivating cereals vs those cultivating roots and tubers.
  • Check whether land productivity independently predicts hierarchy.

• Findings:

  • Societies cultivating cereals in advantageous climates/geographies show higher hierarchical complexity.
  • No positive effect of land productivity on hierarchy.
  • Societies based on roots and tubers show similar hierarchy levels to non-farming societies.

Dataset 2: Long-run state emergence via modern-country boundaries

• What it includes:

  • Measures of hierarchical complexity mapped onto the boundaries of 159 modern-day countries.
  • Observations taken every half-century from AD 50 to 2000.
  • Focus includes whether regions were organized as states in AD 450 (right before Roman collapse).

• Proxy for domestication:

  • Geographic presence of wild relatives of domesticated cereals (used as a proxy for cereal domestication likelihood).
  • Also considers wild relatives associated with roots/tubers.

• Findings:

  • State presence in AD 450 tracks the distribution of wild cereal relatives closely:
    • regions with states: several wild cereal relatives,
    • regions without states: none (or fewer) roots/tubers relatives.
  • Land productivity and the presence of wild roots/tubers relatives are uncorrelated with state presence.

Dataset 3: Columbian Exchange (crop transfer between worlds)

• Logic of the test:

  • The Columbian Exchange changed crop distributions and altered which crops were more productive in many regions.
  • The theory predicts hierarchy impacts only if they affect cereal appropriability, not just general productivity.

• Findings:

  • Changes in land productivity and cereal productivity advantages occurred.
  • Only the changes related to cereals affected hierarchical complexity.

Dataset 4: Ancient cities and crop domestication centers

• What it includes:

  • Locations of ancient cities (urbanization signals of early civilization).
  • Locations of centers of crop domestication.

• Test:

  • Whether proximity to domestication centers increases urbanization,
  • and whether this depends on whether those centers domesticated cereals.

• Findings:

  • Proximity increases urbanization only if the domestication center involved cereals.

Dataset 5: Neolithic transition using radiocarbon-dated sites

• What it includes:

  • A database of radiocarbon-dated prehistoric sites.
  • Counts of pre- vs post-Neolithic sites by region.

• Test performed:

  • Whether the Neolithic transition increases signs of complex hierarchies,
  • specifically depending on whether agriculture likely began with cereals.

• Findings:

  • The Neolithic transition led to greater evidence of complex hierarchies only where agriculture likely started with cereals.
  • Again, there is no evidence supporting the conventional productivity theory.

Overall conclusions/lessons

• The paper’s combined results from multiple historical datasets support a single mechanism:
  • Cereal cultivation causally supports the emergence of complex hierarchies and states.
• Land productivity does not independently explain state emergence in the tests described.
• This reframes explanations for:
  • the origin of the state,
  • modern patterns of low state capacity and underdevelopment.

Sources / speakers featured

• Adam Smith (mentioned as associated with the traditional productivity/surplus explanation; no other specific speaker is named in the subtitles).
• The authors of the paper (referred to as “the authors,” but not identified by name in the provided subtitles).