Abstract
War and governance have co-evolved across the last 15,000 years, but much remains unclear about the process because historical narratives have not been integrated well into social-scientific analyses. Under the conditions of circumscription/caging that emerged in a few places after the ice age, war became productive, in the sense of producing larger, safer, richer societies. However, the larger states produced by war changed the environment around them, and for more than 1,000 years war turned counterproductive in the places that it had previously been productive, breaking up large states. After about 1400 CE a new phase of productive war began. This too began turning counterproductive in the 20th century CE. The most important question for the 21st century is whether productive war is currently mutating into a new form.
Highlights
In this paper, I suggest that the role of war in the evolution of governance is simultaneously simpler and more complicated than most current theories recognize.Some scholars suggest that war is atavistic, a leftover from the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees some five to seven million years ago (e.g., Wrangham and Peterson 1996; Keeley 1996; LeBlanc and Register 2003)
My guess (Morris, forthcoming: Chapters 1–2), for what it is worth, is that they were closer to the modern than the prehistoric end of this range, most likely in the area of 2–5 percent. This ancient decline in violence was the result of a Productive Way of War, developed all across Eurasia’s lucky latitudes, not a Western Way of War, invented in Greece
Rates of violent death were higher in the outlying parts of the European empires, and in the worst cases much higher; but by the early twentieth century, even outside Europe the rate of violent death in most of the great empires was probably below 5 percent
Summary
I suggest that the role of war in the evolution of governance is simultaneously simpler and more complicated than most current theories recognize. Circumscribed wars produced larger societies, which pacified themselves internally, increasing wealth and population and simultaneously reducing the overall rate of violent death These wars tended to be even crueler and deadlier than the forms of warfare practiced in prehistory, but despite their short-term costs, in the long term the violence made people safer and richer. My guess (Morris, forthcoming: Chapters 1–2), for what it is worth, is that they were closer to the modern than the prehistoric end of this range, most likely in the area of 2–5 percent This ancient decline in violence was the result of a Productive Way of War, developed all across Eurasia’s lucky latitudes, not a Western Way of War, invented in Greece.
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