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From group to state
When we look at the world today, it is divided into countries. Land on all continents except Antarctica now falls under the jurisdiction of one state. This concept of political system is not very old.
Humans have spent most of their time hunting and collecting wild food. If you look at the world forty thousand years ago, all human beings lived like this. If you look at the world ten thousand years ago, it was the same in large numbers. Even today we see such a lifestyle in many places, including New Guinea or the Amazon. While Eskimo, Pygmy of Africa, Ab Original of Australia, San of South Africa, or Tiara Dal Figo of America are now integrating into the state culture. The old way of life is disappearing. So how have people historically been politically organized? Although this is a broad generalization, a summary would be something like this.
Band
These were small groups of less than a hundred. Most of the people in the world have been part of such groups. They did not have many institutions that we consider indispensable today. They had no future place to live. Wherever they camped, they stayed until food became available. There was no concept of ownership of land. The land was common. There was no specialized profession. Everyone did everything. Everyone had to find food. There were no concepts like law, police, contracts, etc. Disputes, whether within a group or with another band, had no rules for resolving them. All were equal. If an influential person was in the role of a leader, he would not have any special privileges for this reason. He had to act like anyone else. And that leadership was not inherited. Personality, strength and ability and fighting skills were the qualities required to become a leader. Diseases or food shortages or deaths did not increase the number of people in these groups. In a place where there is an abundance of resources, they would abandon their way of life and move to Seattle. Everyone knew each other by name. No one had any secrets. (This group dynamics has been studied in detail by studying the bands that have existed in the last few centuries and are found today).
Tribe
When agriculture started, people started growing crops. As a result, they had to stay in one place for a long time. Villages began to be built. Hundreds of people lived together in one place. There are tribes in many parts of the world today. In many places, despite the arrival of the central government, tribes are living freely in many areas. This political system can still be seen in the New Guinea Highlander, Malinasia, and the Amazon. Many families live in the tribes, the families have their own importance and influence in it. In general, everyone knows each other by name. Conflict resolution is informal and family relationships play a role because two warriors have their own relationships. There are no regular rules. The political system is generally based on equality. The chief of the tribe has limited power. His words may have an effect but he does not have the decision. There is no bureaucracy, no taxes, no police force, etc.
Chief Dum
A unit of separate populations of thousands. By the beginning of the twentieth century, this method of political structure in the world was gone because they had the land that the states liked and it was taken away from these groups. When the Europeans turned to the United States, the local population was widespread in East America. There were also chief dams in South and Central America, sub-Saharan Africa and all of Polynesia. Archaeological evidence suggests that such political units began in the Fertile Crescent in 5500 BC and in Mesoamerica in 1000 BC.
Thousands and many times tens of thousands of people would join in this way, larger than the tribe. From this political system, people learned that conflicts are resolved without killing each other. Conflict settlement formally began. The hereditary transfer of the chief's post also began at the same time, especially in the large-scale chief dam. The chief did not need hard labor. Usually his clothes were also identified. The people had to respect him. There was a bureaucracy or "minister" to carry out and carry out the chief's orders. The chief often belonged to a large population or large village (such as the state capital), while each village had its own chief who was subordinate to the chief. The chief's right to luxuries was considered. Thousands of years of hard work would have gone into the wings made by the Hawaiian island chief. In archeology, it is easier to distinguish the chief's tomb because of him, but not in tribes or bands. From the gift economy to the formal economy, this political process began.
The chief needed manpower to carry out major tasks, such as digging roads for irrigation, storing food (or building his own large shrine or residence). From here, things get trickier. There have been many types of chief dams with very different rules and methods, but formal politics, laws, public projects, great leaders, etc. were part of this society. Although not everyone is familiar with the family or tribe. Large groups of up to 50,000 people.
State
One major problem facing the central power in the growing political units was manpower. If everyone is equal or knows each other, then who will do the hard work? In a small society, there was no concept of rich and poor because wealth was shared. This method does not work in large groups. Many tasks are collective in nature and require centralized control. Many tasks can be undesirable. Hard physical labor, clearing debris and dirt from large populations, sacrificing one's life for the defense of the state, etc. The elite emerges in them. Strong kings, their companions, and the class system. The lower classes of their society or the slaves captured in wars are used to do the hard work. It is a state system in which the difference between a wise leader and a tyrant cleptocrat is only a degree. To keep the people happy by capturing others and paying tribute to them, to keep the people under control by using force, to keep the people happy by establishing law and order and establishing discipline, the state in the name of ideology. Techniques such as valuing loyalty, etc. have been used for the state. Unlike smaller units, it may have people of different languages and races, who may not know each other at all. They need formal laws and the justice system to settle disputes.
One of the major benefits of the state system has been law and order. Killings due to conflict in small groups were common, while their numbers in the state have dropped dramatically. Second, people are willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of state ideology. This has never happened in a small group. Because of this, the state system in general has been defeating small groups and spreading successfully.
The concept of the state first emerged in Mesopotamia in 3700 BC, in Mesopotamia in 300 BC. By 2,000 years ago, it had reached the Andes, China, and Southeast Asia, and more than a thousand years in West Africa. States leave more traces of their architecture and traces of cities, so we find them more easily in history.
There were kings in the early kingdoms and this position was inherited. The state system gave birth to powerful kings and royal families. In Egypt, the Pharaohs, Inca or Aztec kings did not set foot on the ground, they were carried everywhere in a palanquin. There was a procession of people in front and behind. In Japan, new words of honor were coined in Japanese to call the king.
They had decision-making, power and information. (Even in today's democracies, vital information is limited to a few). The effect of central control is far-reaching. There is a regular system of taxation. Professions fall apart. They are so isolated today that no profession is self-sufficient, not even a farmer. That is why when the state collapses or collapses, it destroys a lot. Slavery was widespread in the early states. Institutions such as slavery and caste divisions have led to great public projects, magnificent constructions. Fighting to get slaves was also common. Small areas were swallowed up for their land and people and states continued to expand. The bureaucracy kept growing. Ministries also became specialized. For example, a separate ministry for revenue collection and a separate bureaucracy for it. Formal legal system, judiciary and police. All of this required writing to run the system. Writing was available in most of the states and also a condition for joining the bureaucracy. Due to the specialization of professions, science, technology, art, etc. became possible. Ideas were invented to keep the state together. The strength of power and political stability could not come without it. Today, the most popular political ideology in the world is nationalism, in which people gather in the name of a flag, a hymn and the sanctity of the land.
Conquests led to great empires, and then came the time when empires' own leadership became so complex that the method of hereditary leadership began to disappear. Traditions from the tribal system to the Chief Dam began to fade. The idea of a modern state and country began to engulf the world.
For the last thirteen thousand years, the journey from the smallest to the largest unit has not been in a straight line. It doesn't always happen that a small unit turns into a big one. It has been a journey in both directions. It's just that the proportion of people going from small to large units was a bit higher. The division of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia over the last few years is an example of a journey towards a smaller unit, with the disintegration of Alexander the Great's empire 2,000 years ago. Even in wars, large units do not always have to be victorious. The defeat of the Romans or the defeat of the Chinese Empire at the hands of the Mongol chief Zengiz Khan are examples of this, but the long-term trend has been moving from small units to large units and most complex political units have been eliminating simple units.
The main reason for the success of this political structure is central decision making. It can organize resources and forces. Second, because of patriotic sentiments, people can easily be persuaded to give their lives in the name of the state. This does not happen without a state system. (New Guinean tribesmen can't imagine it). This idea has been ingrained in the school and it has been going on for centuries. Britain's "King and Country" and Spain's "Anything for Spain" slogans are popular. Sixteenth-century Aztec warriors descended on the battlefield chanting, "There is nothing better in war than death." This death is a flower bed. My heart longs for it. ” The desire to die in war has mapped the world for the last 6,000 years. The soldiers who fought relentlessly for the sake of the state, indifferent to the consequences under the direction of the central control, have played a major role in this.
Whether it was the pyramids of Egypt or astronomical observatories, the diversion of rivers or the preservation of long trade routes, all this would not have been possible without the state.
The biggest reason for the journey of small to large groups has been war or the threat of war. War has been a constant process in human history. Even in small bands with only a few dozen people, the fight was a constant. The tribal wars and then the proto-state wars have been pushing the human population towards the state system. The fate of the losers has largely been decided by the population density in their areas. If it is less, as is the case with gypsy tribes or bands, the area goes to the winners and the locals move away from the area. If it is moderate as it is with agrarian societies, then all this cannot go anywhere. Winners use defeated women. Men have been killed or enslaved and land has been seized. If this density is high, then many times the land is left for them by getting the slaves of need but political freedom is taken away. The area has to be taxed by the winner. Zulu, Mongol, Spanish, Inca or any other growing state has followed suit.
It is not a condition for states to survive after they are established. The attitude of its elite, its relations with its neighbors, the harmony of its citizens, its standard of living, its way of life, etc., determine whether it will survive or fail and which direction it will take. ۔ History has shown that the heads of sick states do not take long to disintegrate and fall apart.
The careless wheel of history continues to turn.
This is from this book
Guns, germs and steel: Jared Diamond.
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