population pressure, agriculture & the state

Paul-

Relying on Stephen Sanderson's "Social Transformations" (Blackwell/1995),
which summarizes the literature and then settles on a synthesized
position, I will present what seem to be two key points relevant to the
issue:

1)
definitions, and an evidentiary claim

Sanderson (whose book, by the way, is dedicated to Gerhard Lenski, Marvin
Harris, and Immanuel Wallerstein, who Sanderson claims as the  principal
influences on his evolutionary materialist theory) presents a chapter on
the Neolithic Revolution, and another on the Origin of Civilization and
the State.  Population pressure is a leading variable in numerous theories
of both the rise of agriculture and the rise of the state.

Sanderson focuses on Mark Cohen's theory of population pressure ("The
Food Crisis in Prehistory"/1977) as responsible for the Neolithic
Revolution, a theory based on Boserup ("The Conditions of Agricultural
Growth"/65).  

The key point I want to make is that Cohen seems to define population
pressure differently than you.  I'm not saying which definition is
correct, but rather that perhaps what you mean by population pressure
is different, and thus may not be contradicting these other theories.

Here is Cohen's definition (from Sanderson p. 37, Cohen p. 50):

Population pressure is "...nothing more than an imbalance between a
population, its choice of foods, and its work standards, which forces the
population either to change its eating habits or to work harder (or which,
if no adjustment is made, can lead to the exhaustion of certain
resources)"

Also crucial to the argument of the population pressure theorists
(following Boserup) is the assumption, based on evidence I am not familiar
with, that there was a very small, gradual, nearly imperceptible increase
in the population of the world's gathering & hunting populations
throughout the Upper Paleolithic, and that this eventually resulted in the
nearly simultaneous adoption of agriculture in several overpopulated
areas, which became the first "civilizations."


2)
crystalline purity of theory, or a less parsimonious compound

In his chapter 3, Sanderson summarizes and analyzes Carneiro as well as
the authors you mentioned, Haas and Johnson & Earle (whose 1987 book "The
Evolution of Human Societies"/Stanford) I am familiar with.

I will cut to the chase here -- in response to Haas' categorization of
theories as either functionalist (which includes Johnson & Earle) or
conflict (which includes Carneiro), here is Sanderson's conclusion (p.
86):

"...while population pressure theories of state formation often have a
strong functionalist cast, and while I favor population pressure as a
major cause of the emergence of the state, this does not lead to any
theoretical contradiction.  Population pressure theories can just as well
be conflict theories, as indeed Carneiro's is.  [KEY POINT COMING!!  HERE
IT IS...]  In conflict versions of population pressure theories, elites
and the state arise through a struggle over scarce resources in which the
participant groups are actively pursuing their own interests, not because
of a higher-level form of management of the affairs of society as a
whole."

Sanderson also supports a proposed combination of Carneiro and Marx
(someone's version of Marx, of course) that places greater emphasis on the
economic benefits gained by the elites than does Carneiro, whose more
Weberian theory emphasizes the coercion of the state, and its development
through war.

But this is more than enough for one post.

What do you say?

Richard