Inducción

There is little dispute among archaeologists that the Neolithic revolution brought about agriculture, permanent settlements and major technological discoveries. However, there is pronounced disagreement on whether the inven-tion of, and mass reliance on, agriculture has directly influenced the birth of urban life as claimed first by Childe (1950) and many others, or if it was the

other way around – that agriculture only ‘helped to stabilise patterns that were already in the making’ (Mellaart 1975: 277). Whichever came first it is clear that there was what Weber would call ‘elective affinity’ between the birth of agriculture and settled life. However, what is crucial here is that both agricul-ture and urban living emerged in the context of military revolution – through fortification and weaponry production. As Ferrill (1985: 28) puts it, ‘the mas-sive fortifications of various types led to, indeed required, the discovery of agri-culture and the domestication of animals’. The walled settlement of Jericho (c.

8000 BCE) and the fortifications of Çatalhöyük (c. 6500 BCE) in Anatolia are often invoked as examples of the first ‘militarised’ architecture indicating the presence of and need for defensive structures that would repel potential violent invaders.³ Although these early settlements suggest the possibility of warlike activities, one still has to wait until about 3000 BCE to find reliable evidence for the existence of warfare as a fully fledged social institution.⁴ As Eckhardt’s (1990, 1992) detailed statistical studies confirm, there was little, if any, warfare before the origin of civilisation. Thus, it is the early Bronze Age that is both the cradle of civilisation and the cradle of war. It is here that one encounters large-scale violence operating as a politically motivated organised social practice.

The great river valleys provided impetus for the emergence of the first civilisations in southern Mesopotamia (Sumer), ancient Egypt, Indus Valley (Harappan) and ancient China. Although Wittfogel’s (1957) concept of the hydraulic-bureaucratic society clearly and wildly overstates the case, as the level of centralisation and bureaucratisation was still rudimentary, there is a lot of truth in his stress on the importance of major rivers that supplied almost limit-less water for irrigation. As the provision of regular irrigation requires func-tioning systems of control, co-ordination and the division of labour, it acted as one of the key mechanisms that gave birth to social organisation and pol-itical and religious bureaucracy, underpinned by embryonic proto-ideological doctrines. The availability of storable food provided further impetus towards establishing long-term settlements – city-states – which became densely popu-lated and hence provided a large-scale labour force and contributed further to economic, political, religious and military specialisation and the development

3 It is important to note that there is an ongoing debate on whether these early walls should be inter-preted in military terms as fortifications or as a simple device for flood control (see Bar-Yosef 1986;

Otterbein 2004).

4 Despite many important organisational developments such as elaborate religious practices, trade net-works, sophisticated architecture and potent new weaponry the populace of these two settlements was still lacking some crucial ingredients of durable social organisation: writing, social hierarchy, a significant population density and rudimentary elements of statehood (Ferrill 1985: 24–31; Mann 1986: 41; Keegan 1994: 124–5).

of social stratification (see Chapter 8). Although the overwhelming majority of the population were peasants, regular access to stored food created a situation whereby some peasants could also act as soldiers when the need arose. Most of all, the operation of bureaucratic organisation necessitated reliable record-keeping, which eventually generated the practice of writing.

Obviously this was not a simple, evolutionary, one-way, march forward, but a highly contingent set of processes and events that involved periodic reversals, historical ups and downs and ‘hybrid’ models of social organisa-tion. However, what is most important here is the steady rise of administra-tive, organisational power which in time became a key component of early statehood. Mann (1986: 42–4, 112–14) articulates this historical development by using the metaphor of the social cage. Social caging came about as a grad-ual process through which the population at large acquired military pro-tection, economic and material resources and a sense of security and safety while simultaneously trading off their individual liberty and political control.

This long-term process also enhanced social stratification and administra-tive centralisation by creating institutional power often monopolised by vari-ous political or military and religivari-ous elites. In other words, civilisation was born through the imposition of external constraint, since an organised polity proved to be militarily and economically superior to loose ‘tribal’ kinship networks typical before the formation of city-states. Institutional innovation, complex administrative capacity, cultural advancement and technological progress were all born through coercion.

What was also important for the long-term success of this process was a degree of societal solidarity enhanced by shared religious tradition.

Emphasising cultural similarity of in-groups, Gumplowicz (2007 [1883]) referred to this process as syngenism. Although he was right that shared values and practices did matter, he was mistaken in his belief that these were somehow inborn collective sentiments. The key paradox of social caging is the fact that, as the process of state formation develops, it inevitably tends towards the creation of hierarchies and sharper social stratification hence diluting the egalitarian basis of potential cultural resemblance. Nevertheless, it is in the interest of the rulers to maintain or recreate this sense of shared values and practices. While in the modern age, this supposed cultural unity is achieved most efficiently through the operative ideology of nationalism (see Chapter 6), the key social device for in-group cohesion in the pre-modern world was religion. In Sumer, ancient Egypt, Shang China, Mesoamerica and other early civilisations the gradual development of a polity’s organisational power went hand in hand with the proliferation of elaborate belief systems

centred around the emperor who was depicted and perceived either as a god or the deity’s only legitimate representative on earth. Although the histor-ical evidence is largely lacking on how ordinary peasants understood these religious doctrines it seems from the scant archaeological findings that most shared the belief in the divine origins of their rulers (Insoll 1996; Andren and Crozier 1998; A. D. Smith 1986; 2003). The political power of rulers was enhanced as much by military victories as by these shared beliefs in serving the real divine authority.

As indicated in Chapter 1, much of classical sociological theory subscribed to the conquest thesis to explain the emergence of early states. Gumplowicz, Ratzenhofer and Oppenheimer among others held the view that state forma-tion is directly linked to violent subordinaforma-tion and territorial expansion of one group over another. In this view the institution of the state owes its exist-ence to warfare. The typical example is Akkadian Mesopotamia. Starting with the first-known emperor in history, Sargon, who, as the inscription in a temple at Nippur states, won thirty-four military campaigns and destroyed all his enemies and ‘as chief of the gods’ permitted no rivals (McNeill 1982 : 2), the Akkadian dynasty used warfare as a principal means of state expansion and as such created a large empire that was in existence for nearly two cen-turies. Most of the preserved historical documents from Mesopotamia and other early civilisations are records of various military undertakings and wars which can easily create the impression that the pre-modern world was nothing more than a giant battlefield. However, this would be a gross over-simplification. Although coercive power was an important constituent of everyday life, on both macro-structural and micro-interactional levels, it is difficult to argue that people in antiquity were more violent and war prone than in other historical epochs. For example, despite the total religious and political power of pharaohs, which was regularly depicted through militar-istic imagery of successful warlords, ancient Egypt, for most of its early his-tory (Old and Middle Kingdoms), was a stable, orderly and in some respects peaceful empire. As Mann (1986: 109) and Keegan (1994: 130) note, for nearly seven hundred years one finds little collective violence: only ‘few traces of internal militarism, repression of popular revolts, slavery, or legally enforced statuses’ and ‘indifference to external threat’. What made the Mesopotamian Empire more violent than the Egypt of the Old Kingdom was a different geo-political context that had direct impact on the proliferation of city-state war-fare. Egypt’s geographical location (the River Nile and surrounding desert) prevented the emergence of alternative power networks (e.g. tribes, towns, independent lords, etc.) that sprung up quickly in the marches, among

the rain-watered agriculturalists and pastoralists of Mesopotamia (Mann 1986: 78–102, 108–13; Keegan 1994: 130–3).

Contemporary historical sociologists are more careful than their pred-ecessors when making the link between warfare and state creation. Rather than positing a universal law they tend to qualify this link by pointing out cases where warfare did not play a pivotal role. Although war was rarely the only social mechanism of state formation it was, nevertheless, often the central catalyst of this process. The classical sociology of the group struggle paradigm was mistaken in its belief that conquest was the beginning of this process as, for conquest to happen, a substantial degree of social organisation and centralisation had already to be in place. The conquest thesis is more persuasive at the later stage when organised and centralised entities proved themselves more efficient at fighting wars than less organised or disorganised networks based on kinship. However, what is paramount here is that even in cases where war does not appear to be an important generator of state formation, as in ancient Egypt or Andean America, coercion still remains essential in the process of polity development. In both of these two cases, corvée labour was the principal means of forcing peasant masses to work on large-scale state projects such as temples, roads, quarries and canals. The enormous scale of these public works is still highly visible in the remnants of their architecture – the great pyramids and the 15,000 kilometers of paved roads built by Incas. As McNeill (1982: 5) rightly argues: ‘large-scale pub-lic action in antiquity was always achieved by means of command’. These early forms of organised coercion coupled with rudimentary proto-ideology, as will be demonstrated later, were to become indispensable for social devel-opment, since they initiated the two long-term historical processes that have ultimately shaped modern life: the cumulative bureaucratisation of coercion and centrifugal ideologisation.

The gradual expansion of coercive power, whether directly through war successes or indirectly through large-scale public works, was simultaneously driven by and a driving force of social organisation. The key obstacle to fur-ther expansion in antiquity was the availability of food. To maintain and feed a standing army the rulers had to embark on periodic raids of neighbouring societies, hence utilising warfare as a form of organised robbery. A lack of food and water, as well as the ruler’s absence from the capital city, could limit the extent of military expansion as there was no certainty that food would be available or that the ruler would stay in power if absent for more than three months (McNeill 1982: 8). It is interesting that social analysts in antiquity interpreted war largely in terms of profit-making and plundering. Both Plato

and Aristotle understood warfare in economistic terms. In The Republic war is viewed as pleonexia – a desire for more territory, goods and power (Plato 1996; Frank 2007: 443). In Politics the art of war is described as ‘a natural art of acquisition’ (Aristotle 2004: 14)

Military historians emphasise the technological changes which are seen as decisive in transforming the character of warfare in antiquity, among which the most important were the introduction of bronze weaponry, the invention and spread of war chariots, the composite bow and, later, the proliferation of iron weapons. Whereas these technological changes had a direct impact on how wars were fought, they also had profound implications on the patterns of social stratification in societies affected by these changes. As bronze was scarce and the labour involved in its extraction and production, as well as the production of chariots, was expensive, these high-status items were available only to a very small proportion of the population. In consequence, societies that relied heavily on their use became rigidly stratified and hierarchical with a clearly differentiated warrior caste – highly skilled soldiers who, through the monopoly they had over skills, weapons and military vehicles, imposed themselves on the rest of the society. Most social orders of the Bronze Age, from Sumer to China and India, followed this pattern. In contrast, the dis-covery of iron, which is easily obtainable and cheap to manufacture on a large scale (and easy to maintain – one iron blade could last lifetimes, whereas bronze was quite weak and prone to breakage), led to the breakdown of social hierarchies and a general change of social order.

It is no historical accident that the ideas of political democracy and par-ticipatory citizenship were born in a society that relied on self-armed and self-equipped farmers – ancient Greece. Although much of the historical depictions of this world stress the urban character of Greek city-states (polees), with the image of town squares (agoras) acting as spaces for public delibera-tions, democratic politics and trade, more than 80 per cent of its population were small country-based landholders (Hanson 1989: 6). The famous Greek hoplite phalanx, a heavy infantry, were citizen militias armed with iron-based spears, swords and shields and composed almost solely of farmers.

They were constituted as a close-packed heavy armoured infantry trained to fight at close quarters. There were no formal army ranks as ‘military posts were as elective as civilian’ (Wheeler 1991: 150–4; Keegan 1994: 246). The military superiority of the phalanx came primarily from its organisational structure, as the phalanx formation kept soldiers in line, hence not allowing the possibility of escape from the battlefield. The focus was on pushing for-ward and breaking the enemy’s front line rather than on mass killing. The

broken phalanx and fleeing enemies were rarely chased and war casualties were generally very low, rarely exceeding 15 per cent (Hanson 1989: 3–10;

Keegan 1994: 251; Sidebottom 2004: 35–43). The key strength of the phal-anx was its shock potential, as one side would push forward attempting to break the line of the other side with the pressure of massed ranks and files.

When an enemy phalanx broke down, this created shock and panic and a chaotic retreat, which became an indicator that a battle had been won (Ferrill 1985: 103–4). As Hanson (1989: 4) summarises: ‘Greek hoplite battles were struggles between small landholders who by mutual consent sought to limit warfare to a single, brief, nightmarish occasion’.

Despite the prevalent images of the ancient Greek world as brimful of warfare, with Sparta as the epitome of omnipotent militarism, the scale of collective violence was rather miniscule when compared to the wars of the modern era. The territories and populations of Greek city-states were tiny, with the combined occupying territory of the largest among them, Athens and Sparta, only slightly larger than contemporary Cyprus and having less than two thirds of Cyprus’s current population. Hence, armies were fairly small and war casualties mainly low. In general, wars in the ancient Greek world tended to be limited and formalised. Even the pinnacle of military his-tory of the ancient Greek world – the long and exhausting Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) was not characterised by large armies and big battlefields, but had only two or three significant land battles (Sidebottom 2004: xi). Although the Peloponnesian War was a watershed in Greek history as it ruined the economy, devastated a large part of the countryside, destroyed major cities and brought significant human casualties, the scale of devastation was still very small when compared to wars of modernity. For example, the total cas-ualties of 27 years of war on the Athenian side amounted to 5,470 hoplites and 12,600 thetes (manual workers) (Strauss 1987). Similarly, despite fighting numerous wars and conquering much of the known world of his time, in all of his military campaigns Alexander the Great ‘lost only seven hundred men to the sword’. While his enemies had much greater casualties ‘almost all of this occurred after the battle … when the enemy soldiers had turned their backs and began to run’ (Grossman 1996: 13; see also Picq 2006).

Popular contemporary images of ancient warfare are often based on the profoundly inaccurate war narratives produced by the winning side.

For example, the famous battle of Megiddo (fifteenth century BCE) fought between the Egyptian army of Pharaoh Thutmose III and a Canaanite coali-tion of forces led by King Kadesh I, was depicted by contemporaries as involving millions of men and hundreds of thousands of charioteers. In fact

as historical record shows the battle was ‘nothing but a rout, with 83 deaths and 340 prisoners taken’ (Eckhardt 1992: 30).

Even Sparta was not a particularly violent society. It was an unusually militarist social order that became infamous for its rigid ascetic and merci-less lifestyle that originated in the unscrupulous and rigorous military train-ing and education (agoge) of very young healthy male children. However, this militaristic education was restricted to ‘ethnic’ Spartans (Spartiates) – a quite small elite warrior caste that at the peak of its power consisted of only 8,000 and never numbered more than 10,000. As Spartan citizenship was strictly linked to military upbringing, the number of citizens (only Spartiate males) was always decreasing (because of war deaths) so that by Aristotle’s times (384–322 BCE) there were less than 1,000 (Forrest 1963; Cartledge 1979). The rest of Spartan society (more than 90 per cent of its population) was composed of the free non-citizens perioikoi/perioeci and skiritai (traders and dwellers living on the outskirts of Sparta), neodamodes (freed serfs), tro-phimoi (foreigners who underwent Spartan education) and, by far the most numerous, helots, that is, state-owned serfs who regularly outnumbered Spartans ten to one on the most important battlefields (Kagan 1995: 19).⁵ In other words, Spartan militarism was directly linked to the system of helot-age. The Spartiates acted as a permanently armed and vigilant master caste, because they were dependent on the labour and military capacity of helots and others but were overwhelmingly outnumbered by them.

It is ironic that much of European military tradition has modelled itself on the supposed ancient Greek heroism reflected in the so called ‘Western way of war’ while military successes in ancient Greece had very little if anything to do with personal acts of bravery.⁶ Rather than stimulating heroism, the hop-lite phalanxes were invented and deployed as an organisational mechanism to prevent soldiers escaping the battlefield. When the Spartan soldier’s mother proclaims to her son that he can return from the battlefield only with his shield or on it, she is not invoking a sense of personal courage but appealing to the soldier’s collective responsibility, solidarity and (proto-Durkheimian) group morality. The convex shield (hoplon) was the essential building block of the phalanx, since ‘the phalanx in motion tended to slip to its right’ thus

5 Herodotus (1985: IX, 28–9) writes about helots outnumbering Spartans seven to one during the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. Xenophon (2009, Hellenica, III, 3) writing about fourth century BCE about an

5 Herodotus (1985: IX, 28–9) writes about helots outnumbering Spartans seven to one during the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. Xenophon (2009, Hellenica, III, 3) writing about fourth century BCE about an