Ancient history

Study challenges conventional theory about the emergence of early states

New research from the University of Warwick, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Reichman University, Pompeu Fabra University and the Barcelona School of Economics challenges the conventional wisdom that the transition from foraging to farming drove the development of complex and hierarchical societies by creating agricultural surpluses in areas of fertile land.

In The origin of the State:The productivity of the land or appropriability , published in the April issue of the Journal of Political Economy -one of the oldest and most prestigious journals in economics-, professors Joram Mayshar, Omer Moav and Luigi Pascali demonstrate that high productivity of the land does not by itself lead to the development of taxing states.

It is the adoption of cereal crops that is the key factor for the appearance of the hierarchy. Professor Moav explains it in this short video:

The authors theorize this is because the nature of grains requires that they be harvested and stored in accessible locations, making them easier to tax than root crops, which stay in the ground and are less storable. .

The researchers demonstrate a causal effect of cereal cultivation on nest emergence using empirical evidence drawn from multiple datasets spanning several millennia, and find no similar effect for land productivity.

According to Professor Mayshar:The theory linking land productivity and surpluses to the emergence of hierarchy has been developed over a few centuries and has become mainstream in thousands of books and articles. We show, both theoretically and empirically, that this theory is wrong .

To support the study, Mayshar, Moav, and Pascali developed and examined a large number of data sets, such as the level of hierarchical complexity of society, the geographic distribution of wild relatives of domesticated plants, and the suitability of the land for various crops. to explore why in some regions, despite thousands of years of successful agriculture, well-functioning states did not emerge, while in others states emerged that could tax and protect lives and property.

Professor Pascali said:Thanks to these new data, we have been able to show that complex hierarchies, such as complex chiefdoms and states, arose in areas where easy-to-tax and expropriate cereal crops were de facto the only ones available. Paradoxically, the most productive lands, those in which not only cereals but also roots and tubers were available and productive, did not experience the same political evolution .

They also employed the natural experiment of the Columbian Exchange, the exchange of crops between the New World and the Old World in the late 15th century that radically changed the productivity of the land and the productive advantage of cereals over roots and tubers in most of the countries of the world.

Professor Pascali stated:Building these new datasets, investigating the case studies, and developing the theory and empirical strategy have taken almost a decade of hard work. We are very pleased that the article is finally published in a journal with the prestige of the JPE .

Professor Moav said:Following the transition from foraging to farming, hierarchical societies emerged and eventually tributary states. These states played a crucial role in economic development by providing protection, law and order, ultimately allowing for the unprecedented industrialization and welfare enjoyed in many countries today . The conventional theory is that this disparity is due to differences in the productivity of the land. The conventional argument is that a food surplus must be produced before a state can tax farmers' crops, and therefore that high productivity of the land plays the key role .

Professor Mayshar added:We challenge conventional productivity theory, arguing that it was not an increase in food production that led to complex hierarchies and states, but rather the transition to reliance on appropriable grains that facilitate taxation by the emerging elite. When the appropriation of crops became possible, a tributary elite emerged that gave rise to the State. Only where climate and geography favored cereals was hierarchy likely to develop. Our data show that the greater the productive advantage of cereals over tubers, the greater the probability that hierarchy will emerge .

The suitability of highly productive roots and tubers is, in fact, a curse of abundance, which prevented the emergence of states and prevented economic development .