Biology, prestige, and the origin of states

Abstract

The biological goals of survival and reproductive success are promoted by material and human resources like food, shelter, assistance, and marital partners. Access to all of these increases with increasing prestige, so paying attention to prestige makes biological sense for humans. In the political sphere, the ruler of a state has more prestige than a chief because he (not often she) has more followers, so that competition for prestige is bound to result in the emergence of states when nothing prevents it. The question thus to be asked is what prevents their emergence, not what causes it. I argue here that sufficient conditions for the emergence of states are competition for prestige and a high enough population level to produce a large economic surplus which must be under central control. If this population level is to be achieved, the prestige system must be such that ambitious people remain within the group rather than establishing independent groups, as is common in chiefdoms. The emergence of such prestige systems is examined, with examples from ancient Mesopotamia, China, and Peru.