Human Cultures: Chapter 11 presentation
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Transcript of Human Cultures: Chapter 11 presentation
The Evolution of Political Systems
There is a strong positive relationship between population growth and socioeconomic complexity
Population has 2 key consequences for the subsistence economy:
As resources are depleted, people turn to more costly alternatives that modify the environment and improve productivity through technology and resource management
As landscape becomes crowded, there is constant potential for food shortages and aggressive competition over the most desired resources. (To overcome threats, careful management of food redistribution and defense is required.)
A Surplus (or Tax) is mobilized from the subsistence economy in order to finance:
Economic
Military
And Religious Institutions
Intensification
Political Integration
Social Stratification
With intensification, political integration functions to coordinate production, distribution, and defense in multifamily settings. The services rendered by leaders afford opportunities to control production and allocation of resources, which leads to the emergence of stratification.
HEADMEN OFTEN FUNCTION AS INTENSIFIERS OF PRODUCTION
AND AS REDISTRIBUTORS:
They get their relatives to work harder, they collect and give away the extra product
A village may have several headmen
“Big Men” emerge where technological and ecological conditions encourage intensification and leaders living in the same village become rivals
Size of the population – chiefdoms are associated with larger communities
Leadership – chiefdoms are based on stratification, with a hierarchy of offices at the regional and community level
Chiefdoms: are regional systems integrating several villages under an elite class of leaders. These leaders control and manage local resources, from which they derive obligatory payments. These payments are used to establish the chief ’s rank and prestige.
“BIG MEN” MUST ACHIEVE AND CONSTANTLY VALIDATE
THEIR STATUS BY RECURRENT FEASTS
CHIEFS HAVE ASCRIBED STATUS AND HOLD THEIR
OFFICES EVEN IF THEY ARE TEMPORARILY UNABLE TO
PROVIDE THEIR FOLLOWERS WITH GENEROUS
REDISTRIBUTIONS.
Ascribed Status: is determined for a person at birth
The evolution of chiefdoms – and later states – depends on the leader’s ability to control production and exchange and to mobilize resources to finance various institutions.
A CHIEF TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONTROL
RESOURCES BY MONOPOLIZING THE MANAGEMENT OF
PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE AND EXTRACTING A SURPLUS
THAT BECOMES THE BASIS OF HIS POWER
4 KINDS OF CONTROL:
Risk Management
Capital Investment
Warfare
Large-scale Trade
THE STATE IS A FORM OF POLITICALLY CENTRALIZED AND
STRATIFIED SOCIETY, WHOSE GOVERNING ELITE HAVE THE
POWER TO COMPEL SUBORDINATES TO PAY TAXES, RENDER
SERVICES, AND OBEY THE LAW
Stratified Society: arranges statuses or subgroups according to socially superior and inferior ranks that reproduce inequality
Chiefdoms first transformed into states when dense populations came to subsist on intensifiable forms of agriculture, especially on the cultivation of staple grains such as:
Rice
Wheat
Barley
Maize (corn)
Early state formation occurred when the dissatisfied factions of stratified chiefdoms who sought to flee from the growing power of paramount chiefs found themselves blocked by similarly stratified chiefdoms in adjacent territories or by features of the environment that required them to adopt a new and less efficient mode of production and suffer a drastic decline in their standard of living, known as circumscription
The significance of circumscription is that factions of discontented members of a chiefdom cannot escape from their elite overlords without suffering a sharp decline in their standard of living
Population increase
Intensive agriculture with storable staples
Circumscription that restricts migration
As the governing elite compels subordinates to pay taxes and tribute, provide military or labor services, and obey laws, the entire process of intensification, expansion, conquest, stratification, and centralization is amplified
Control is continuously increased, or Amplified, through a form of change known as Positive Feedback
Every state, ancient and modern, has specialists who perform ideological services in support of the status quo
Religious ideology imparts an understanding of what is right and what is natural
It is based on real experiences that people have in common, that lie outside the mind
These experiences are derived from material objects such as:
Large public monuments
Ceremonial facilities
Special regalia (fine clothes, a crown, or jewels)
That represent the power of the dominant classes
The Process of Materialization: meaning that ideology becomes transformed from abstract ideas and values into material objects that become public symbols. These public symbols create shared experiences that state rulers can manipulate and use to mold individuals’ beliefs about nature of power dynamics and the universe
These powerful ideologies legitimatize and uphold the doctrine of the divine descent of their rulers by sanctifying the belief that the continuity of the universe requires the subordination of commoners to persons of noble and divine birth
A considerable amount of conformity is achieved not by frightening or threatening people but by inviting them to identify with the governing elite and to enjoy vicariously the pomp of state occasions
Today, movies, television, and radio provide states with far more powerful means of thought control
Compulsory universal education is another powerful modern means of thought control