User:Chad the Imperial Meme/sandbox

Population Control: Bondage and War
In Chapter Five, Scott describes early states as population machines. Focused on the productivity and number of it's "domesticated subjects." Operating on the necessity of collecting people, settling them near the center of power, and having them create a surplus in excess of their own needs. One of the main points of this for Scott is that "peasants" if left to themselves will not produce a surplus available for the elites. Thus, they must be forced to stay on the land and produce a surplus for the non working elites.

In early states this often took the form of forcefully settling peoples on fertile land and preventing them from fleeing to avoid bondage and labour. One piece of evidence Scott cites is the earliest legal codes, stating that they were "filled with such injunctions" intended to "discourage and punish flight." One code that Scott cites specifically is the Code of Hammurabi. Which contains six laws intended to discourage the flight and escape of slaves.

The end product of this system was that the states with the most people were often the most powerful. Thus, creating compelling incentives for early states to try and increase their population and prevent the "leakage" of said population through bondage and war.

The Golden Age of the Barbarians
In Chapter Seven, Scott theorizes that up until 400 years ago humanity was in the "Golden Age of the Barbarians." A era where the majority of the worlds population had never seen a tax collector. Part of this was due to the existence of "Barbarian Zones." Great tracts of land within which the state found either impossible or prohibitively difficult to extend it's rule. Places like "mountains and steppes," as well as "uncleared dense forest, swamps, marshes, river deltas, fens, moors, deserts, heath, arid wastes, and even the sea itself." Not only did this place a great many people out of the reach of the state but also made them significant military threats to the state's power.

The traditional narrative is that some "barbarian" communities became sedentary and then developed into early states and civilization. Meanwhile those who did not undergo this transition remained "barbarian." Scott argues that the history of "barbarians" and the state is much more fluid. That in fact some people "reverted" back to being barbarians precisely because of the failure and excesses of the state. Suggesting that the process of civilization and state making was not the inexorable march of progress but rather a brutal process that was fled and cast off when opportunities arose.