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Introduction: There are core components which together enabled the creation and development of an organized power structure with monopoly on rule enforcement, protection and punishment. The concept of a complex society and modern state were born from the need for cohesive organization, and a need for protection from external threats. The emergence of a civilized or complex society is derived from agricultural developments, necessary division of labor, a hierarchical political structure, and the development of institutions as tools for control. Collectively, they create the conditions for a structure governed by a few who hold monopoly on decisions, this in exchange for responsibility to provide necessary protection. The relationship emerging is a dependency between one group providing wealth and food and the other enforcing rules and providing protection.

Division of Labor

A core tenant of complex society is a transition from agrarian and kinship obligations to complex, industrial societies. The transition occurs as a result of specialization in the means of labor, with some people becoming rulers and administrators, while others remaining into food production and agricultural roles. (cite: Complex Society) Division of labor contains market-based connotations, it also entails development of coordinated social networks and interactions for increased access to goods and services. (cite: Division of Labor in the Roman Empire) Full-time labor division and specialization allows better social cohesiveness as one focuses on what they do best. Those seeking leadership and administrative positions specialized in power, as they often act on personal gain and against collective community distribution efforts. (cite: Big Man Big Heart) Hence, the division of labor helps arrange coordinated society efforts to determine means of production and move into complex, specialized roles.

Political Hierarchy

Complex and industrialized societies consist of people divided into different sectors of the labor spectrum. Leaders and administrators are in charge of providing security, safety and coordination of the state activities. Control based on ranking from centralized power first presupposed modern states in the form of chiefdoms. Cite:Heterogeinity, Power, and Political Economy: Some Current Research Issues in the Archeology of Old World Complex issues.

Such rulers possess monopoly on resources, as well as the mechanisms to resolve conflict and deliver punishment. (cite: Complex society) Political hierarchy entails a division between specialization, placing some members in charge of administration and institutions with the highest controls of enforcement. Cite: Studying the Development of Complex Society: Mesopotamia in the Late Fifth and Fourth Millenia. Political hierarchy and organization renders the vast majority of people away from centralized power roles and allocates decisions into a few hands enabling them to pursue policies which might benefit the state or the power holder (Cite: Mesopotamia).

Agricultural Development

The transition to from agrarian, nomadic individuals to industrial and sedentary habits emerged out of the improvements made in agricultural and central food planning. Early sedentary societies have been argued to emerge as early as 1600 BCE along southern Mexico, as there is a correlation between domesticated plant production, sedentism and pottery artifacts. Cite: Sedentism and food production in early complex societies of the Sconusco, Mexico. The establishment of a nomadic society entails an emergence of social relations, affecting the patterns and roles each person is tasked with as means for survival. Farmers often found ways to expand agricultural posts by planting on hills and slopes, finding ways to work around environmental and land challenges. Cite: Intensive Agriculture and early complex societies. Similarly, developments in agriculture enabled societies to focus on central organization, planning and the development of urban centers. Cite: The Rise of a Complex Society: Tel Migiddo

Institutions

The creation and sustainability of civilization and a state entails social, cultural and institutional complexity, otherwise called “ultrasociality.” (Source: War, Space, and the Evolution.) High position holders, through the arm of the state, hold the power to define, enforce and execute rules and violence. States hold unanimous power to resolve disagreement and possess the mechanisms to coerce people as means to achieve order. Cite: First Reading). Institutions assist rulers in the coordination of behaviors and norms, enabling the control of behaviors among large groups of humans Cite: War, Space, Etc). In fact, institutions with flexibility to absorb different polities are crucial to the development and stability of an emerging state. Cite: Quantative, historical analysis.