Theory of Origin of State
A Theory of the Origin of the State “Traditional theories of state origins are considered and rejected in favor of a new ecological hypothesis.” Robert L. Carneiro
For the first 2 million years of his existence, man lived in bands or vil-lages which, as far as we can tell, were completely autonomous. Not until perhaps 5000 B.C. did villages begin to aggregate into larger political units. But, once this process of aggregation began, it continued at a progressively faster pace and led, around 4000 B.C., to the formation of the first state in history. (When I speak of a state I mean an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities with-in its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws.) Although it was by all odds the most far-reaching political development in human history, the origin of the state is still very imperfectly understood. In-deed, not one of the current theories of the rise of the state is entirely satis-factory. At one point or another, all of them fail. There is one theory, though, which I believe does provide a con-vincing explanation of how states began. It is a theory which I proposed once before (1), and which I present here more fully. Before doing so, however it seems desirable to discuss, if only briefly, a few of the traditional theories. Explicit theories of the origin of the state are relatively modern. Classical writers like Aristotle, unfamiliar with other forms of political organization, tended to think of the state as "nat-ural," and therefore as not requiring an explanation. However, the age of exploration, by making Europeans aware that many peoples throughout the world lived, not in states, but in independent villages or tribes, made the state seem less natural, and thus more in need of explanation. Of the many modern theories of state origins that have been proposed, we can consider only a few. Those with a racial basis, for example,
For the first 2 million years of his existence, man lived in bands or vil-lages which, as far as we can tell, were completely autonomous. Not until perhaps 5000 B.C. did villages begin to aggregate into larger political units. But, once this process of aggregation began, it continued at a progressively faster pace and led, around 4000 B.C., to the formation of the first state in history. (When I speak of a state I mean an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities with-in its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws.) Although it was by all odds the most far-reaching political development in human history, the origin of the state is still very imperfectly understood. In-deed, not one of the current theories of the rise of the state is entirely satis-factory. At one point or another, all of them fail. There is one theory, though, which I believe does provide a con-vincing explanation of how states began. It is a theory which I proposed once before (1), and which I present here more fully. Before doing so, however it seems desirable to discuss, if only briefly, a few of the traditional theories. Explicit theories of the origin of the state are relatively modern. Classical writers like Aristotle, unfamiliar with other forms of political organization, tended to think of the state as "nat-ural," and therefore as not requiring an explanation. However, the age of exploration, by making Europeans aware that many peoples throughout the world lived, not in states, but in independent villages or tribes, made the state seem less natural, and thus more in need of explanation. Of the many modern theories of state origins that have been proposed, we can consider only a few. Those with a racial basis, for example,