Against the Grain
A Deep History of the Earliest States
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Against the Grain
Narrateur(s):
Eric Jason Martin
Acheter pour 31,26 $
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Narrateur(s):
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Eric Jason Martin
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Auteur(s):
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James C. Scott
À propos de cet audio
An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family - all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction.
Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.
©2017 Yale University (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Agriculture was not in itself a trap - by starting to farm, humanity did not inevitably start down the path towards states, which, for most people, meant a life of drudgery, exploitation, and inequality.
For thousands of years early groups of people moved easily and continuously back and forth, and between, different modes of subsistence: hunting, foraging, pastoralism, and farming, based on resource availability, environmental conditions, and choice. The earliest form of agriculture, flood plain retreat farming, required low investments of time and effort, and a minimal commitment: it was simply one of many options available to people settled in resource-rich wetland environments.
Grains Make States. Domestication, first of fire, much later of plants and animals, preceded state formation for thousands of years. But as more and more people settled in specific areas, and more people took up farming, especially of cereal grains like wheat and barley, conditions were established for state creation. Cereal grains uniquely provided a source of surplus created through coercion/taxation, being “visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and 'rationable'".
Walls Make States. Early states built walls to keep invaders and raiders out, but also to keep tax payers in. Walls confined the population within the “grain core”, limiting options for escape to alternative lifeways..
Writing Makes States. Writing began as a tool of state, powering bureaucracy, the recording and registering and measuring machinery of the state (tax collection). Later, writing was used for law and business contracts, religious texts and state propoganda (which were often the same thing).
Bondage Make States. Early states were population machines. Epidemic diseases caused by crowding, of crops, domestic animals, and people, were frequent and deadly, feeding the constant need for states to replenish their work forces. States subjugated women (as baby making machines), corerced corvee labour for state projects, enforced debt bondage, and conducted wars of capture: wars were not fought for territory, but to bring back captives, enslaving working age men, and assimilating women and children survivors.
Slavery was an ancient and practically universal practice - states created a demand for slaves on a massive scale. Classical Athens (and Sparta of course); Rome, which made the Mediterranean safe for trade (of grain, and of slaves); early American states; states in Southeast Asia and Africa; the Islamic Caliphate; ancient Egypt… were all built on the backs of slaves. Slaves were useful for domestic work, but were essential for more dangerous and necessary (and mostly invisible) heavy work away from the core: mining and quarrying, logging, plantation farming, canal building, road building, galley rowing. According to Adam Hochschild as late as 1800 roughly three-quarters of the world’s population could be said to be living in bondage
Trade Makes States. Early states were not self-sufficient - they depended on trade with other states and non-state peoples. As overall populations increased, trade exploded in volume and value. Much of this trade was conducted through “barbarians”, the non-state people (often escapees from states) who lived at and beyond the margins of states, trading their own goods (horses, livestock, milk, hides, foraged goods like honey and beeswax) for grain and pottery and textiles, and acting as middle men. Long-distance trade on water (rivers, or maritime trade across seas) became more and more important, because it was so much more efficient and cost effective.
State Collapse as Disassembly. Early gran states were few, fragile, and exceptional, because they had many obvious structural vulnerabilities: Subsistence failure due to over-dependence on one or two cereal crops. Environmental degradation - deforestation, siltation, salinization, soil exhaustion and over-grazing. Epidemiological risks which increased with crowding, war, and the scale/reach of trade. Socio-political failures (politicide) from over-taxing of harvests and labour, and other forms of oppressive mismanagement. Increasing costs and consequences of inter-state war, as populations increased and technologies improved. Internal conflict - wars of succession and other civil conflict.
State collapse and abandonment was inevitable. For the majority of people (outside of the elite), collapse could be positive, a chance to escape to freedom from oppression, taxes, military conscription and coerced labour, an escape from drudgery, and improved health possibilities. Cultural “dark ages” did not necessarily mean the destruction of culture - Scott reminds us not to conflate the culture of a society with the elite culture of a court.
The book ended too soon. Scott doesn’t follow his arguments through to demonstrate how and when state lock-in occurred, except to claim that until around 1600 (why 1600?) most people still lived outside of states. At some point the trap closed for most people for good.
A provocative and compelling examination of how and why early states formed, and the path to how and why civilization developed.
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