Mumford - chap. eight - Proto-state, king/priest alliance

We saw how the shift to ag took place and created a surplus of food. The existence of this surplus means that people are freed from the necessity of farming and other professions can come about (social specialization). It also means that when somebody controls the food, the can control society. Mum identifies the 3rd century BCE as the period when the shift from the essentially democratic neolithic village culture to an authoritarian proto-state begins to take place in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India. This new culture unified over large areas in a hierarchical manner what used to be autonomous, loosely organized villages. Again, this shift was not due to tech, it took place in Egypt before the wheels, plows, or written language, but due to the appearance of a more "efficient" type of social organization. (Mumford, 163-165)

Control of agriculture on a large scale is the basis of the new authority. In order to control agriculture an institution was needed to coordinate large-scale irrigation, planting, and harvesting of grains. This institution was the priestly temple and it was here that the first written languages arise to record the production, storage, and distribution of grain. The exclusive control of this technology went along with the priestly knowledge of the cycles of nature, on earth and in the heavens, to give authority to the priest caste. They could predict weather and astronomic phenomenon, and this gave them the appearance of supernatural powers. A shift in religious emphasis takes places here, from plant-gods and animal-spirits, to vindictive omnipotent gods of the heavens.

The roots of the institution and cult of the divine ruler was in the transformation of the "paleolithic hunting chief" into the king. They possessed the necessary quality of ruthless self-confidence and the hunting weapons that could be used to create armed men to enforce the kings will. The new social arrangement was a mutant fusion of neolithic peasant farming with paleolithic hunting culture. The Neolithic villages were easily assimilated by proto-states because they lacked the weapons of hunting cultures and the ability to mobilize under the command of a strong leader. Even so, they contributed the agriculturalists persistence, orderly social life, and food surplus that was necessary to form the armies of the proto-state. (Mumford, 169)

The proto-state also rested on the fusion of the authoritarian hunting chief and the nascent priests, originally tenders of shrines and performers of rituals. The supernatural authority of this group was necessary to legitimize the demands of the king and force submission and consent. "The efficacy of kingship...rests precisely on this alliance between the hunter's predatory prowess and gift of command, on one hand, an priestly access to astronomical lore and divine guidance" (Mumford, 171) The mace or club was the tech symbol of this union, one which lives on in the royal scepter.

A new type of observation is displayed here, one derived from the earlier style that lead to domestication but different in that it utilized abstract symbols to count, measure and quantify. The Egyptian solar calender is symbolic of this new science, which was the occupation of the new priestly class. All of the technological advances follow from this application of mathematical calculation and observance of cyclical, natural phenomenon. The authority of the king is an extrapolation of the knowledge of these ordered and unchanging processes.

A major attribute of this new political institution is its demand for complete obedience. There was a need for this obedience in the larger scale communities of the late neolithic. Many myths of the origins of kings tell of a time of disaster, famine, or other emergency that necessitated the delegation of absolute powers. As kings obtained subservience to their "divine will", they began to come into conflict with other kings equally convinced of their heavenly ordination. This coerced relationship between ruler and ruled is displayed as natural in Mesopotamian folk lore. The belief is expressed that the king is always right, what he commands is like words from god written in stone. The parallels with our current political situation in America are obvious. The problems raised by this unqualified decision making are also obvious, there was no room for common sense or deliberation of ideas and policies by a group.
(Mumford, 175-179)