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The Six Stages of the Creation of the State

November 5, 2010

Tags World HistoryInterventionismOther Schools of ThoughtPolitical Theory

[Excerpted from chapter 1 of The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically]



In the following discussion it should not be assumed that the actual historical development must, in each particular case, climb the entire scale step by step. Although, even here, the argument does not depend upon bare theoretical construction, since every particular stage is found in numerous examples, both in the world's history and in ethnology, and there are states which have apparently progressed through them all. But there are many more that have skipped one or more of these stages.

Stage 1: Looting








What has been said here of Hamites, Semites, and Mongolians may be said also, at least in part, of the Aryan tribes of herdsmen. It applies also to the true negroes, at least to those who live entirely from their herds:


All this has taken place before our eyes. Some of it is still going on. During many thousands of years it has "jarred all Eastern Africa from the Zambesi to the Mediterranean." The incursion of the Hyksos, whereby for over 500 years Egypt was subject to the shepherd tribes of the eastern and northern deserts — "kinsmen of the peoples who up to the present day herd their stock between the Nile and the Red Sea" — is the first authenticated foundation of a state. These states were followed by many others both in the country of the Nile itself, and farther southward, as far as the Empire of Muata Jamvo on the southern rim of the central Congo district, which Portuguese traders in Angola reported as early as the end of the 16th century, and down to the Empire of Uganda, which only in our own day has finally succumbed to the superior military organization of Europe. "Desert land and civilization never lie peaceably alongside one another; but their battles are alike and full of repetitions."

"Alike and full of repetitions"! That may be said of universal history on its basic lines. The human ego in its fundamental aspect is much the same all the world over. It acts uniformly, in obedience to the same influences of its environment, with races of all colors, in all parts of the earth, in the tropics as in the temperate zones. One must step back far enough and choose a point of view so high that the variegated aspect of the details does not hide the great movements of the mass. In such a case, our eye misses the "mode" of fighting, wandering, laboring humanity, while its "substance," ever similar, ever new, ever enduring through change, reveals itself under uniform laws.

Stage 2: Truce




Great is the progress between the first stage and the second. Long is the forward step, both economically and politically. In the beginning, as we have seen, the acquisition by the tribe of herdsmen was purely an occupying one. Regardless of consequences, they destroyed the source of future wealth for the enjoyment of the moment.



We saw how, between the robbers and the robbed, the first threads of a jural relation were spun across the cleft which separated those who had heretofore been only "mortal enemies." The peasant thus obtains a semblance of right to the bare necessaries of life; so that it comes to be regarded as wrong to kill an unresisting man or to strip him of everything.

And better than this, gradually more delicate and softer threads are woven into a net very thin as yet, but which, nevertheless, brings about more human relations than the customary arrangement of the division of spoils. Since the herdsmen no longer meet the peasants in combat only, they are likely now to grant a respectful request, or to remedy a well-grounded grievance. "The categorical imperative" of equity, "Do to others as you would have them do unto you," had heretofore ruled the herdsmen only in their dealings with their own tribesmen and kind. Now for the first time it begins to speak, shyly whispering in behalf of those who are alien to blood relationship. In this, we find the germ of that magnificent process of external amalgamation that, out of small hordes, has formed nations and unions of nations — and that, in the future, is to give life to the concept of "humanity." We find also the germ of the internal unification of tribes once separated, from which, in place of the hatred of "barbarians," will come the all-comprising love of humanity, of Christianity and Buddhism.

The moment when first the conqueror spared his victim in order permanently to exploit him in productive work, was of incomparable historical importance. It gave birth to nation and state, to right and the higher economics, with all the developments and ramifications that have grown and that will hereafter grow out of them. The root of everything human reaches down into the dark soil of the animal love and art, no less than state, justice, and economics.


Here is one of the principal forces of that "integration," whereby in the further development, those originally not of the same blood, and often enough of different groups speaking different languages, will in the end be welded together into one people, with one speech, one custom, and one feeling of nationality. This unity grows by degrees from common suffering and need, common victory and defeat, common rejoicing and common sorrow. A new and vast domain is open when master and slave serve the same interests; then arises a stream of sympathy, a sense of common service. Both sides apprehend, and gradually recognize, each other's common humanity. Gradually the points of similarity are sensed, in place of the differences in build and apparel, of language and religion, which had heretofore brought about only antipathy and hatred. Gradually they learn to understand one another, first through a common speech, and then through a common mental habit. The net of the psychical interrelations becomes stronger.

In this second stage of the formation of states, the ground work, in its essentials, has been mapped out. No further step can be compared in importance to the transition whereby the bear becomes a beekeeper. For this reason, short references must suffice.

Stage 3: Tribute

The third stage arrives when the "surplus" obtained by the peasantry is brought by them regularly to the tents of the herdsmen as "tribute," a regulation that affords to both parties self-evident and considerable advantages. By this means, the peasantry is relieved entirely from the little irregularities connected with the former method of taxation, such as a few men knocked on the head, women violated, or farmhouses burned down. The herdsmen on the other hand, need no longer apply to this "business" any "expense" and labor, to use a mercantile expression, and they devote the time and energy thus set free toward an "extension of the works," in other words, to subjugating other peasants.


Stage 4: Occupation


This territorial union may be caused by foreign influences. It may be that stronger hordes have crowded the herdsmen forward, or that their increase in population has reached the limit set by the nutritive capacity of the steppes or prairies; it may be that a great cattle plague has forced the herdsmen to exchange the unlimited scope of the prairies for the narrows of some river valley. In general, however, internal causes alone suffice to bring it about that the herdsmen stay in the neighborhood of their peasants.



In case the herdsmen are dealing with utterly unwarlike subjects, they carry on their nomad life, peaceably wandering up and down and herding their cattle among the perioike and helots. This is the case with the light-colored Wahuma, "the handsomest men of the world" (Kandt), in central Africa, or the Tuareg clan of the Hadanara of the Asgars, "who have taken up their seats among the Imrad and have become wandering freebooters. These Imrad are the serving class of the Asgars, who live on them, although the Imrad could put into the field ten times as many warriors; the situation is analogous to that of the Spartans in relation to their Helots."






If Frants Buhl reports correctly, that was the beginning of the rule of the Israelites in Canaan. Abyssinia, that great military force, though at the first glance it may appear to be a fully developed state, does not, however, seem to have advanced beyond the fourth stage.

At least Ratzel states,






Stage 5: Monopoly

The logic of events presses quickly from the fourth to the fifth stage, and fashions almost completely the full state. Quarrels arise between neighboring villages or clans that the lords no longer permit to be fought out, since by this the capacity of the peasants for service would be impaired. The lords assume the right to arbitrate, and in case of need, to enforce their judgment. In the end, it happens that at each "court" of the village king or chief of the clan there is an official deputy who exercises the power, while the chiefs are permitted to retain the appearance of authority. The state of the Incas shows, in a primitive condition, a typical example of this arrangement.

Here we find the Incas united at Cuzco where they had their patrimonial lands and dwellings. A representative of the Incas, the Tucricuc, however, resided in every district at the court of the native chieftain. He

had supervision over all affairs of his district; he raised the troops, superintended the delivery of the tribute, ordered the forced labor on roads and bridges, superintended the administration of justice, and in short supervised everything in his district.

The same institutions that have been developed by American huntsmen and Semite shepherds are found also among African herdsmen. In Ashanti, the system of the Tucricuc has been developed in a typical fashion; and the Dualla have established for their subjects living in segregated villages "an institution based on conquest midway between a feudal system and slavery."

The same author reports that the Barotse have a constitution corresponding to the earliest stage of the mediaeval feudal organization:



Stage 6: State

It is only a very small step from the Incas to the Dorians in Lacedaemon, Messenia, or Crete; and no greater distance separates the Fulbe, Dualla, and Barotse from the comparatively rigidly organized feudal states of the African Negro Empires of Uganda, Unyoro, etc.; and the corresponding feudal empires of Eastern and Western Europe and of all Asia.

In all places, the same results are brought about by force of the same sociopsychological causes. The necessity of keeping the subjects in order and at the same time of maintaining them at their full capacity for labor leads step by step from the fifth to the sixth stage, in which the state, by acquiring full intranationality and by the evolution of "Nationality," is developed in every sense.

The need becomes more and more frequent to interfere, to allay difficulties, to punish, or to coerce obedience; and thus develop the habit of rule and the usages of government. The two groups, separated, to begin with, and then united on one territory, are at first merely laid alongside one another, then are scattered through one another like a mechanical mixture, as the term is used in chemistry, until gradually they become more and more of a "chemical combination." They intermingle, unite, amalgamate to unity, in customs and habits, in speech and worship.



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