Page 182 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

159 Historical Materialism

access to the means of production. There is no argument showing why
functions of domination had to emerge from the constrast of interests
rooted in vocational specialization. There was a social division of labor
within the politically ruling class (the priesthood, military, and bur-
eaucracy) as well as within the working population (e.g., between
farmers and craftsmen).
c. The inequality theory traces the emergence of the state directly
to problems of distribution. With the productivity of labor there arose
a surplus of goods and means of production. The growing differences
in wealth resulted in social differences that a relatively egalitarian kin-
ship system could not manage. The distribution problems required a
different organization of social intercourse. If this thesis were correct,
it could explain the emergence of system problems that could be solved
by organization in a state; but this new form of social integration itself
remains unexplained. Furthermore, the assumption of an automatic
growth of productive forces is incorrect, at least for agricultural pro-
duction. The Indians of the Amazon, for example, possessed all the
technical means for producing a surplus in foodstuffs; but only contact
with European settlers provided the impetus to use the available po-
tential.6° Among stock farmers there were, it is true, considerable in-
equalities, since herds can be enlarged rather easily.
d. The irrigation hypothesis® explains the merger of several village
communities into a political unity by the desire to master the aridity of
the land through large-scale irrigation systems. An administration was
a functional requirement for the construction of such systems, and this
administration became the institutional core of the state. This assump-
tion has been empirically refuted since in Mesopotamia, China, and
Mexico the formation of the state preceded the irrigation projects.
Moreover, this theory would explain only the emergence of system
problems and not the way in which they were resolved.
e. The theory of population density®? explains the emergence of the
state chiefly through ecological and demographic factors. One can as-
sume an endogenous population growth that led normally to spatial
expansion of segmentary societies, that is, to emigration to new areas.
When, however, the ecological situation, adjoining mountains, the sea
or the desert, barren tracts of land, or the like, hindered emigration or
flight, conflicts were triggered by population density and the scarcity
of land. This left no alternative but the subjugation of large segments
of the population under the political domination of a victorious tribe.
The complexity of densely populated settlements could be managed
only through state organization. Even if population problems of this