it was quite likely to confiscate too much grain in a bad year, leaving its subjects on the edge of starvation. That is, quite apart from rapaciousness, the first states lacked the fine-grained knowledge that would have made it easier to modify their appropriation in line with the capacity of their subjects to pay. They were, as a colleague of mine once said, “all thumbs and no fingers for fine-tuning.”25 The results of their misjudgment were also compounded by the inability to monitor the rapaciousness of their own tax collectors on the ground, intent on appropriating for themselves.
