Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States

by James C. Scott

the direct political cause of state extinction: politicide! Crushing taxes in grain and labor, civil wars and wars of succession within the capital, intercity wars, oppressive measures of corporal punishment and arbitrary abuse may be called state effects, and they can singly or in combination bring about a state’s collapse. The leakage of population away from the grain core and a persistent pattern of “heading for the hills” and pastoralism at a time of trouble might have served, in a state with an overriding concern for manpower, as a homeostatic device. Presumably, informed that numbers of its subjects were absconding, the state might have taken positive measures to lessen their burdens and stem the leakage. The frequency of collapse, however, suggests that the signals either were not received or were ignored.