Re: population pressure, agriculture & the state

Richard,

I will try to be brief. On the definition of population pressure: the key 
point is contained in the last "or which" in parens. It needs to be 
explicated. What happens if work habits, technology, use of available 
foods, etc. do not change? The population remains stable or declines 
slightly because mortality matches births or births are limited. This is 
the normal (Darwinian) situation of population stability. Where there is 
an innovation that allows for expansion of available calories, populations 
expand.

After the rise of states and civilizations, agriculturalists continue to 
exist throughout the world in village societies, limiting their populations
in various ways. Harris's writings are full of interesting speculations 
about the role of various cultural practices in limiting populations, 
particlarly practices that involve female infanticide of one form or 
another. 

On the supposed synthesis of "population pressure" and "conflict" 
theories of state origins, I would only repeat what I have said. 
Population pressure is a constant; it is the normal situation where, 
given the lifestyle of an organism, its population cannot expand in its 
environment. So, like citing the presence of oxygen in explaining a fire, 
it is not wrong in the sense that there is no population pressure; 
rather, since it is everpresent except in the immediate aftermath of an 
innovation that leads to an expansion of population (domestication of 
corn, improvement in the productivity of the grain, invention of 
exploitation), it explains nothing. 

What *causes* state formation? Those 
who are excessively determinist think it must have had a cause. I suggest 
another way or looking at the rise of states: societies that can 
encourage or coerce intensified food production will support larger 
populations and, in competition with other societies, tend to dominate a 
territory or region militarily. Big Man systems are somewhat successful 
at this, complex chiefdoms moreso, and states the most of all through 
centralizing and organizing the means of coercion in a way that leads to 
a great lengthening of the work day and a hugely expanded productive 
surplus. 

"Population pressure" does no explanatory work here because it 
does not cite a feature of the rise of civilizations that makes them 
different from any other change in history. In contrast, "the invention 
of the state" explains why monumental architecture, craft specialization, 
palatial residences combined with evidence of malnutrition for some of 
the population, and huge local expansion of the population can occur 
without any innovation in food producing technology. It is this 
constellation of occurrences that characterlized the rise of Shang 
civilization, the city of Cahokia, and many other civiliations. The key 
was the invention of the state, which hugely expanded exploitation 
beyond the limites of complex chiefdoms.

Notice that "the expansion of population" is the *dependent* variable 
here not the independent (if I have the jargon right).

Well, this was not very brief.

Paul

On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

> 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
> 
>  
> 
>