The State

For some time now there has been a movement to abolish the word "state," at least
from the works of political scientists. David Easton (1953, p. 108) says, "The word
should. be abandoned entirely." He says that if the word is scrupulously avoided,
"no severe hard�ship in expression will result. In fact, clarity of expression
demands this abstinence." Gabriel Almond and James Cole�man, to offer another
influential example, echo and enlarge upon this point of view:
[The] rejection of the "state and non-state" classifica�tion, which is found
throughout the anthropological, sociological, and political science literature is
not merely a verbal quibble. It is a matter of theoretical and operational
importance. Such a dichotomous classi�fication could come only from an approach to
politics which identifies the political with the existence of a
specialized, visible structure, and which tends to re�strict the political process
to those functions performed by the specialized structure ... Indeed, it is this
em�phasis an the specialized structures of politics which has led to the
stereotyped conception of traditional and primitive systems as static systems,
since the political systems most likely to be differentiated are executive-
legislative and adjudicative structures. The mechanics of political choice are
there as well, but in the form of intermittent political structures. The rule to
follow which we suggest here is: If the functions are there, then the structures
must be, even though we may find them tucked away, so to speak, in nooks and
crannies of other social systems (Almond & Coleman, 196o, p. 12).
This strikes me as a lengthy phrasing of what the anthro�pologist E. Adamson Ho�bel
stated flatly a decade earlier: "where there is political organization there is a
state. If political organization is universal, so then is the state" (Jebel, 194.9,
p. 376).
The contents of the previous chapters should make it clear that I cannot agree with
these distinguished social scientists. I do agree that the issue "is not merely a
verbal quibble." We must not be confused by the persistence of political functions
in "nooks and crannies" of social sys�tems, that is, in other aspects or subsystems
of the larger social system, even after the emergence of specialized ap�paratus.
Appreciation of the efforts of modern political sci�entists to cast broader nets
and catch important political processes outside the formal institutions of modern
gov�ernment must not lessen our dismay at the implicit emascu�lation of the concept
of force and power as the fountain�head of those institutions designated "the
state."
Furthermore, to press the `nooks and crannies" theory into the analysis of simple
societies, as suggested by Al�mond and Coleman, can have the precise result they
de�plore, the obscuring of the dynamics of political develop�ment. On the other
hand, recognition of the fact that there
was a time, not too long ago by anthropological reckoning, when there were no
states does not obscure anything. Cer�tainly it does not necessarily encourage a
static point of view; for example, the discussion of the instability of strati�fied
society at the end of Chapter 5 shows how dynamic analysis can be if it is related
to the nonstate-state di�chotomy. Nor does use of this dichotomy necessarily
pre�vent broad-gauged analysis that includes, inter dirt, evalu�ation of economic,
kin, ritual, or other relationships. This conclusion, too, should be obvious from
the discussions in our earlier chapters.
Although the question goes beyond the simple prob�lem of definitions, it is
necessary to confront that problem at the outset. Once again it is not a matter of
determining the "true" meaning of a word but of stating clearly what that word is
to mean in our usage and why it is advan�tageous to use it that way.
Admittedly, earlier tendencies to hypostasize the state �to associate the state
with some mystical concept of "peo�ple," . of mass will, or of highest good�did
considerable damage. It is not surprising that such usage would prompt reaction.
But it would be foolhardy to dispense with a use�ful and necessary concept because
it has been improperly refined.
A state is not simply a legislature, an executive body, a judiciary system, an
administrative bureaucracy, or even a government. From the point of view developed
in earlier chapters, a state is better viewed as the complex of institu�tions by
means of w 'ch~iit eRqwe of the society is or-� ganized on a basis superior to
kinshi Note that all the . ower available in a society does not necessarily become
.re�era . t- � . a = . U' course, e state may .e in
volved in a number of contests for major and minor sources of power and it may even
temporarily lose som6 of those contests, although to lose too big a one, or too
often, will invariably lead to a shift in the dde facto Dwer-holarog
When I say that the state is an organization of the power of society I refer to
many different things. Of great importance is the claim of the state to paramountcy
in the
n application of naked force to social problems. Frequently this means that
warfare and killing become monopolies of the state and may only be carried out at
times, in places, and under the specific conditions set by the state. Other
episodes involving killing will draw the punitive reaction of the organized state
force. Sometimes this concern for the control of violence invades the narrowest of
kin groups and even extends to the individual's rights to his own person as in the
frequent prohibition of suicide.
In the final analysis the power of a state can be mani
fested in a re l_p ; 'a -militia, a police
orce, a constabulary, with specialized weaponry, drill, con
scription, a hierarchy of command, and the other para
phernalia of structured control. How different from what
we encountered in exploring political control in egalitarian
and rank society. To the extent that a stratified society
lacks formal and specialized mechanisms of control it courts
disaster, for in the face of weakening bonds of kinship, in
face of the commonplace realization that the web of kin
cannot contain the enlarged population or the increasing
numbers of others, of non-kinsmen in the society, it be
comes a question of developing formal, specialized instru
ments of coercion or reverting to a more easily maintained
system of access rights to basic resources. It is the task of
molutaruin enefal social order that stands at the heart
of the development of the state. And at the heart of the
problem of maintaining general order is the need to defend
the central order of stratification�the differentiation of
categories of population in terms of access to basic re
sources. Undoubtedly, as already indicated, one means of
doing this is to indoctrinate allmembers of societywith the
beliiefrhat the social order is right or good or simply in
evitable. But there has never been a state which survived
on this basis alone. Every state known to history has had a
h si . . - � -.I.:._ or Qtly .� - .�. �.: .:�
`those who failed to get the message.
PRISTINE STATES
All contemporary states, even those that seem to be lineally descended from the
states of high antiquity, like China, are really secondary states; the pristine
states per�ished long ago. The word "perished" is unfortunate. States, despite
several efforts to deal with them as organic entities, are not organic at all, and
although they may come to an end, they certainly do not "die" in anything but an
ana�logical sense. Indeed, few and legendary have been the states which came to
termination by the extinction of their .populations; usually a rather large body of
survivors has ,-carried on under a new political system. Perhaps it would ','be
more appropriate to consider the end of a state to be a 'process more like
dismantling or disassembling, as the com�ponent institutions and their related
social groups or associ�ations break apart and fall individually, or, more
signifi�cantly, fall collectively into disuse.
At any rate, there once were states that emerged from stratified societies and
experienced the slow, autochthonous growth of the specialized formal instruments of
social con�trol out of their own needs for these institutions. Through time the
institutions coalesce and with this unification emerges a power, held and
manipulated perhaps by a priest, a warrior, a manager, or a charismatic madman who
just happens to be the genealogical leader of the largest kin group in the now
heterogeneous social fabric. The power itself represents a quantum leap over
anything pre�viously wielded, but it is a long time before the wielders of the new
power realize its full extent and possibilities. Far from being a conscious
creation of naturally power-hungry psychological types, it is at least as probable
that the power develops more rapidly than the abilities of its handlers. It takes
time for a king to become a god.
When a pristine state emerges it does so in a political
vacuum. That is, there is no_ other more highly developed state present that might
help it toward stateship. A pristine state d5-es �or �ppear as a reaction to
colonial pressures. No outside society is_ manirmbting_the-economy, drawing odor
developing resources, putting in money, drawing off labor, or even supplying a flow
of goods, the motion of which might call forth a new group of entrepreneurs either
native to the society or drawn from abroad. The pristine state does not have models
available to build on or to re�ject. There are no constitutions, legislatures,
bureaucracies, armies, commissariats, or police departments to copy. There -�are
not even full-scale kings but only lineage heads, tempo�rary war chiefs, or big-
men�the private redistributors whose power is as fragile as their last successful
party.
It is not the case, however, that pristine _states grew without company. By the
very nature of the population
distribution in late Neolithic times, the stratified-society
going-pristine-state was surrounded by other societies, some of these, also
agricultural, developing in tandem.
This development is helped by rivalry, trade, warfare, and
communication in sharpening needs for more political spe�cialization, for more
professional organization, and for tighter internal control. There is one thing,
however, that such a society can do in such an environment that is not possible in
a ranking society, much less an egalitarian one.
It can overrun less well-organized neighbors and incorpo
rate them within its own system as an inferior social stra
tum. This is the developmental juncture where conquest
theories of the state fit. The state is virtually born, and stratification is well
established as a fully functioning sys�tem; then warfare can lead to conquest and
the emergence of superstratification on the basis of an already well-elabo�rated
system of stratification.
To discuss fully the identity of the pristine states and to attempt to'describe the
precise nature of their emergence
is not possible in these pages. It may be that the task is ultimately impossible in
any context for the reasons alluded
to earlier: Literacy appears only with the emergence of the earliest states, and
recorded history is much younger. The kinds of evidence we have are essentially
archaeological and inferential. Although the general patterns of emergence may be
discerned, details are fragmentary at best.
How many pristine states have been known? Note first the phrasing of the question,
which deliberately implies that some pristine states may have flourished at least
briefly without leaving behind any clues to their existence. It may well be, for
example, that one or more pristine states may have appeared in Africa south of the
Sahara three or more millenniums ago. As knowledge of Africa is enriched and more
and more archaeology is undertaken, it may be pos�sible to detect remnant
influences that will enhance the probability that one or more such states existed,
only to dis�appear from sight and memory.
In terms of actual empirical evidence the problem of the number of pristine states
remains complex. Should all known examples of pristine state formation be
contracted to two, one center in the Old World and the other in the New? If so,
what are the candidate's for the primary initiat�' ing centers? In the Old World,
to take the earliest known appearances of state organization, the contest for
priority seems in the studies of recent years to have tipped in favor of
Mesopotamia rather than Egypt. Yet to what extent in this very first situation does
the juxtaposition of two cen�ters figure as a crucial aspect of the situation. That
is, it must be asked whether this matter of juxtaposition was itself a necessary
ingredient in the rise of the state in the Near East. Beyond the immediate realm of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, cases can be made for the pristine emergence of the state in
the Indus and Yellow River Valleys. Yet both of these cases, particularly the
latter, are weakened by the relative lateness of state development vis-a-vis the
se�quence of events in the Middle East. Furthermore, the archaeology of the early
Indus civilization reveals elements that certainly originated farther west,
suggesting that some
influences were felt from more complex societies that aI�ready existed. In China
too there is some debate about the independence of its Neolithic foundations and
also of its subsequent development.
Although the question is partly an empirical one that must await further
archaeological contributions, it has sub�stantial theoretical aspects that I
apologize for raising with�out being able to settle. Once pristine states are well
de�veloped and actively pushing out the limits of their popula�tions and areas, the
relations between such states and their less well-organized hinterlands are
relatively simple to fol�low. But what of the earliest periods? Central to the
matter is the question of how much or how little pressure or stimu�lation of a
higher center on a lower one constitutes a case of secondary development? Skipping
over the Indus situ�ation, the problem is most clearly presented in the Chinese
data. At the time of emergence of the earliest known Chinese state, perhaps 3,500
years ago, the Near East bad already known some 1,500 years of state organization.
Furthermore, as Chang Kwang-chih, among others, has noted: "many essential elements
of Chinese civilization, such as bronze metallurgy, writing, the horse chariot,
human sacrifice, and so forth, had appeared earlier in Mesopotamia" (Chang, 1963,
p. 136) . The conclusion was quick to follow: "Many scholars argue that
civilization came to China as a result of stimulus diffusion from the Near
East ..." (Chang, 1963, p. 136). Chang himself does not think that the ques�tion
can yet be resolved, with regard to Chinese civiliza�tion, but he obviously favors
the opposite interpretation, that many of these developments were convergent. Part
of his case rests on the demonstration that if Chinese civiliza�tion did arise
"suddenly," it did not arise without substantial previous foundation. But even
accepting the older hypothe�sis of stimulus diffusion, can such a theory be
extended to embrace the origins of the state? Really there are two ques�tions here.
It is one thing to imagine or find examples of the stimulus diffusion of an object
or a technique. The idea of
-cultivating plants, of making ceramics, or of using a certain kind of tool can be
envisaged as spreading over vast dis�tances, largely through the actual transport
of the end prod�ucts or the spread of information about them. It is not so easy to
envisage the spread of a collection of institutions comprising a particular form of
the state unless at the same time there is some substantial ongoing revision of the
so�ciety that prepares a climate receptive to the new institu-tions. It is just
such preparation that is lacking in China, ex�cept as a normal indigenous process
that is almost completely contained within the core area of Chinese culture. In the
face of such considerations, then, I personally lean to in�terpreting China as a
case of pristine state formation, and for similar reasons I consider the earlier
Indus valley state
or states?) in the same way. Not so, however, ie growth of the states that appear
in so many nineteenth-century treatments of the origin of the state. Without going
into detail here, I simply state that it seems to me that such fa�mous states of
antiquity as those of Crete, Greece, Troy, and Persia�and certainly Rome and all
the states of western and northern Europe�are secondary.
THE BASIC NATURE OF THE STATE
The state, then,, is a collection of specialized institu�tions and agencies, some
formal and others informal, that mamf-a�s � orrder of stratthc 5i1.-U`s5i 11y rts
point of con-principles of organization: hier�archy, differential d grees of access
to basic resources, obe�dience tofficials and defense of the area. The state m
m itself externally as well as internally, and it at
tempts this by both physical and ideological means, by sup�porting military forces
and by establishing an identity among other similar units.
' The rim as functions of the state, internal and exter4 nal 'maintenance � of a
spec' 'c order of stratincafion, give rise immediately to a number of
characteristic institutions. Here, of course, there is much more latitude in what
any
particular state may develop. The situation can be analyzed in terms of Marshall
Sahlins and Elman R. Service's general and specific evolution: The leap to the
state is of � eneral
evolution. status . � � . I . tess, �oth pristine and sec
on � - ry, have a core of features in common. But the subse�quent development of
particular states, even of particular p�s nee states, is specific, hence
essentially local-adaptive and -divergent. Nonetheless, all must have dealt or must
continue to deal with some combination of the following: Population must be
controlled in a number of senses. The afire should have some means of identifying
its own sub�jects or citizens, of distinguishing members and nonmem�bers. This is
often accomplished by setting boundaries, but it can be done through birth and
parentage. In either case it is necessary to define the unit and, beyond this, to
have individuals identify themselves with this unit. Sometimes this also involves
the construction of a variety of categories of membership or it may require
effective limitation on the physical mobility of the members or of nonmembers, the
latter being forbidden to enter, or admitted in small num�bers under special
restrictions. Sooner or Iater most states are concerned about the size of their
membership, and
Ir censuses are run to discover this. Censuses, of course, re�late to another
common attribute of states to which we shall turn very shortly; they tax or
otherwise make levies upon their memberships, for the activities that the state
carries out must be subsidized.
The state must deal with taroqble cases. Quite early
there appears some statement of norms associated with �,sanctions. Customary
handling of disputes does not auto-i, matically disappear, but customary rules and
procedures
are reinforced by formal iteration and application. Rules i that might have applied
between kin groups are now ap
plied within kin groups by an external force. With the state comes the possibility
that members of a common kin
group can accuse one another, sue one another, and betray one another to a larger
society that stands beyond kin. If
the emergent state defines the limits of interpersonal injury and aggression, it
also is soon required to handle disputes over things and over agreements. Beyond
the growth of Iaw in this sense, there is the necessary growth of procedure, of
courts or their equivalents, of officers of adjudication, officers of punishment,
record keepers and communicators, and varieties of functionaries that differ from
system to system.
The state must establish and maintain sovereignty, which may be considered the
identification and monopoly_
ly_ ..of paramount conirol9_ver � j pulation and an area. When the state is defined
as in this chapter, it follows at its structure must be in a sense cellular, that
is, made up of a variety of different kinds of components, with these com�ponents
being joined into subsystems that articulate with the whole, with the larger
structure of government, only at higher levels. Examples of component cellular
subsystems include family and kin groups, communities and regions, offices and
bureaus, clubs and gangs, and even layers and levels of the administrative
apparatus itself. In the com�munications among these sometimes disparate entities
there is always an understood priority of arrangement of orders and coercive
inducements to decisions, the level of highest ultimate priority is equivalent to
the internal concept of sovereignty. There is also an external aspect of
sovereignty as discrete political units recognize or dispute each other's autonomy.
It is not necessary, however, to go more deeply into these difficult matters in the
present discussion (c f. Fried, n.d. ).
Externally oriented maintenance of sovereignty has
t}arough most o_ history-rested_ in .an lysis o. rnilL
tary activities. Yet a moment's pause and reflection will bring many questions
about this sweeping statement. A military establishment is always dependent upon
the gen�eral economy of the state which supports it. It also is liable to
ideological pressures on its morale, and these relate to larger aspects of the
society. It is also evident that history
has known many small states, militarily weak, that have en�dured for relatively
long periods amidst more powerful neighbors. Thus weak sovereignties may be
protected by concatenations having little to do with the small state in question,
as when Thailand remained sovereign between French and British colonial expansions.
Still, the fact has been that even the smallest states have had some military
sting, and this they frequently maximize through combina�tions established by
treaties that retain their sovereignty while promising broader military support.
It is in the maintenance of int ty, how
ever, that some of the most fascinating questions about political organization lie.
As discussed in Chapter i, sover�eignty is tied to legitimacy and that in turn
requires more than naked ower. No state known has ever been devoid of an ideology
that consecrated its power and sanctionedits use. Many states;-b�weyen�h�aV-
u�dergiineshu�tio�s in
which, to use the familiar Chinese phrase, the mandate of
heaven has been lost by a ruling group. Where this has
happened within a social system, or even as the result of
violent overthrow attendant upon invasion, the basic princi
ples of the previous order of stratification have rarely been ,seriously altered.
Instead, a new portion of the population
- ssumes the vacated roles and statuses, and the old order
is resumed with minor alterations.
:(------That analysis of the concept of legitimacy is an ulti�mate problem for the
social scientist is patent from the nature of the phenomenon. As indicated in our
first chapter, even such a crusty proponent of positive polity as John Austin
recognized that physical power alone was not suffi�cient to integrate a state. Yet
growing sophistication brings the realization that power lies not merely in the
ability to direct police or other military force at a specific social ob�ject, but
in such things as control of sources of information and the means of communication.
From what we know of the ancient pristine states, these were matters of great
sig�nificance from the outset. That early ruling elites sometimes
appeared in priestly guise, making the specialized business of government and
management an esoteric art, or that
some nonpriestly ruling classes achieved the same end by - controlling literacy and
making recorded history their per�sonal tool is evidence of this.
A very early complication in the rise of states is the development of a social
sector that stands beneath the rulers but acts as the agency of control. Here is
the inevitable 'bureaucracy thin . some states urgeons and seems to overwhelm all
other aspects of administration. EIsewhere a military establishment may play the
central role, or it may
`�' be the ritualists, or a group whose power stems from cru�k;
'- cial roles in the system whereby goods are produced or k.
otherwise obtained and circulated. Often there is a com-
bination of these, varying through time and with other -` factors that affect the
society at large. Analogists, who de�w:-.
t,~i'tect the functions underlying these roles in simpler societies, i;'often jump
to the conclusion that the state is omnipresent or, 1: what is much the same thing,
that there is no distinctive thing as a state. To the extent that such a view
encourages
it
understanding of the means by which even the simplest so�:cieties are articulated
and integrated it may be tolerated. But such a view has its cost, that is, the
obscuring of great regu�larities in the evolution of society and of the central and
re-'1 current role of the limitation of rights of access to basic resources in the
quantum leap in social structure that has ,,;.attended the emerge�ce of the state.
5).;, We may conclude this brief consideration of the nature
of the state by briefly noting one function that begins as a derived need and soon
contends for dominance among
- r
the functions. To carry out all the other functions, the spe�ciali7ed apparatuses
of the state must have means of trans�forming basic resources into more fluid kinds
of wealth. There must be a treasury or bursary which can support and underwrite
the activities of state minions whose efforts are
far removed from the daily tasks of subsistence. It is not necessary at the outset
that this wealth be in the form of
media of exchange, but the efficiency of the state is so much increased by the
invention of all-purpose money that few experiments in stateship have long endured
without it. But, whether a state has adopted all-purpose money or not, it must have
means of separating the producers of raw wealth from a greater or lesser onion of
the 4,iut. Taxation has many arms. One of the most interesting is the conscription
of labor which, for all its crudeness, has the advantage of flexibility, enabling
the rulers to concentrate effort on tasks in their own order of priority.
At this juncture the involuted character of the state becomes predominant.
Operation of the fiscal apparatus, though almost an end in itself, feeds back into
every other function already mentioned and creates additional ones. More and more
specialists are needed to operate the sys�tem. More and more devices are needed to
maintain in�creasing exploitation of the population. More than any other form of
human association, the state is devoted to expansion�of its population, of its
territory, of its physical and ideological power. Small wonder that there have been
so few pristine states in history for when such a state ap�pears in a given area of
the world it quickly sets about converting its environing societies into parts or
counterparts of itself. The appearance of a pristine state, then, is the
ri
'gger of a usually vast movement toward state formation_ States that arise due to
such a process, however, do not _, epeat the steps which the original state
experienced. These are the secondary states.
SEC ARY STATES
There is an interesting theory that the evolution of air�reathing life transformed
the earth and paradoxically created conditions under which further appearances of
such life from nonliving matter could no longer take place as a spontaneous
phenomenon on this planet. Whether or not this is a valid picture of an event in
biochemical evolution, some�thing much like it tg 9k_place when pristine states
appeared
in a few places between about 5,000 and 3,00o years ago in the Old World and the
New. While such states did not succeed in transforming all other societies into
parts or counterparts of themselves, they did begin a process of penetration that
seems to be culminating in our own time. More to the point, the appearance of a
pristine state in an area frequently precludes further spontaneous pristine
de�velopment as adjacent 5Rcieties ar,_e_Loreed into secondary molds. _
If the analysis of the previous pages and of the pre�vious chapter is essentially
correct, the appearance of a
pristine state is not a random process but is determined by the presence of certain
finite conditions. It follows from this that those areas in which the state has
appeared most recently, and of course always through secondary processes, are areas
where deficiencies in local conditions have to be made up by pressures and models
and stimuli originating from already established states. In our own contemporary
world colonialism has played this role. It can be shown, for example, that states
that in their expansion, oven-un simpler societies have grave problems in
effectively exploit�ing the areas occupied by those societies, or their labor
potential, unless they make far reaching changes in the social organizations they
encounter. Because the basic insti�tutions of stateship are lacking in the invaded
societies, there is no means by which the intruder can obtain the compulsive holds
it requires. The natives are described as lazy and shiftless, disorganized,
undisciplined and unco�operative. One solution, much favored in the past, is the
extirpation of the entire population. If pressure to occupy the area is not so
great, other means are employed, and
.first among these is the imposition of external organization, rya chain of
command. Where no chiefs exist, chiefs are
,�f�und, usually created by fiat. Such political reformation of ?simple societies
never goes on in a vacuum. Simultaneously,
the native economy is undermined and transformed by the.
y;:
1. ' ! ? uction of money, new commodities, wage labor or
slavery, and a more or less subtle erosion of older patterns of access to basic
resources. At the same time new ideologies are introduced and despite varying
amounts of syncretic maintenance of older belief systems, new religions bring new
ideas of hierarchy and subordination, a new view of labor, and altered ideas of
interpersonal relations.
Secondary states emerge through processes quite dif-ferent from those that give
rise to the pristine states. It is unfortunate that all real examples of state
formation avail�able for first-hand investigation are of secondary type. All too
often, students of such state formation have assumed that, except for the
inevitable unique elements that mark any particular case, the process of developing
stateship they observe is the one that must always transpire. The present book has
been an attempt to controvert that view, and attempt also to sketch a theory of the
evolution of rank�ing, social stratification, and the state compatible with the
information presently on hand and in the spirit of contempo�rary political
anthropology.