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Agrarian Societies

Agrarian Societies. SOC 370: Social Change Dr. Kimberly Martin. Agrarian States. Characteristics of Agrarian States Two classes: Nobility (5%) & Peasantry (95%) 2. Peasants exploited by threat of force from organized military force

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Agrarian Societies

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  1. Agrarian Societies SOC 370: Social Change Dr. Kimberly Martin

  2. Agrarian States Characteristics of Agrarian States • Two classes: Nobility (5%) & Peasantry (95%) 2. Peasants exploited by threat of force from organized military force 3. All surpluses extracted from producers in the form of rent, taxes and/or tribute 4. Production for use economy rather than production for exchange/trade (Some merchants who may be wealthy, but have low status)

  3. Agrarian States Characteristics of Agrarian States, con’t 5. Class interest but no class struggle (nobles like the status quo and changes in productivity would not have benefited the peasants, but would go to nobles) • Militarized societies focused on internal repression and external conquest 7. Most in equilibrium with no or very slow social and economic change

  4. Why Equilibrium Now? Why such slow change?? After the neolithic revolution change was rapid and accelerating. Hort/Pastor to Agric to State to Civilization/Empire Why more than 4000 years until next major change (to capitalism)?

  5. Kinds of Change in Agrarian Socieites • Extensive growth – increases in economic productivity that only provides for the subsistence of a growing population • Intensive growth – increases in economic productivity that exceed the subsistence needs of a growing population = increase in economic output per capita • Social growth – a quantitative change in social organization (more of the same) • Social evolution – a qualitative change in social organization (development of new forms)

  6. Reasons for Equilibrium • No incentive to change • Instability of rule by nobility (infighting over wealth and power, wars and dynastic change) • Since all surplus was taken by nobility, there was nothing to invest in improved means of production • Capitalism (the next stage) requires extensive markets that take time to build up (both foreign and domestic) – and that time appears to be approximately 4,500 years

  7. Social Growth in Agrarian Societies Four forms: 1. Population growth 2. Political growth (size of empire and increase in complexity) 3. Technological growth (economic and military) 4. Economic growth (increase in size and density of trade networks)

  8. Population growth experiences a burst of change after 1000 BC

  9. Growth in the size (and corresponding complexity of empires, with 3 periods: 3000 – 2000 BC, 1 500-600 BC, and from 200 BC on

  10. Growth in urban population and number of large cities with a jump in the number of large cities between 650 BC and 430 BC Enlargements

  11. Improved Technology • Discovery of iron smelting (1800 BC) • Chinese inventions and discoveries through diffusion

  12. Expansion of Trade Networks Maps show a huge jump in the number of cities involved in trade across the old world. Large empires had necessary comunication and transportation systems for long distance trade Increased trade impacted changes in technology through diffusion Most diffusion was from China to other parts of the old world.

  13. World Systems Theory and Agrarian Societies • Empires conquer and exploit the resources and labor of other cultures • WST divides societies into Core and Peripheral categories • Core societies exploit and raise their standard of living through the use of the resources and labor of others • Peripheral societies have their resources and labor drained off by Core societies • WST was developed to explain global capitalism; does it work for agrarian states? • Did the core societies benefit more from the relationships or did the peripheral societies? • Some instances show the peripheral societies benefited more

  14. Problems in Agrarian Societies Problems with expansion of empires and trade: • Transport of goods shifts from water to land (slower, less efficient). • Much larger military to support (parasitic population). • Local elites competing for piece of pie. • Unconquered “barbarians” nibbling at edges of empire. • Internal conflict among empire’s elites.

  15. Devolution/Collapse 3000 BC to 1500 AD saw the growth and collapse of agrarian-based empires not just Rome, but all over the world. • Breakdown of centralized control • Small states emerge from single centralized state • Monumental architecture and public works stop • Palaces and central storage abandoned • Shift from centralized to local control of subsistence • Simplification of technology for local use • Reduction of population rapidly • Settlements abandoned

  16. Explanations for Collapse 1. Resource depletion 2. Natural catastrophes • Insufficient response to problems because of limited political, economic, military capacity • Competition with other complex societies • Foreign intrusions by less complex peoples • Class conflict and elite mismanagement • Conflict due to a lack of understanding about systems by peasants • Loss of vigor, decadence • Chance • Declining advantages of complexity, increasing cost of complexity

  17. Sanderson’s Choice? Increasing cost of complexity Decline in ability to acquire slaves because everyone had already been conquered Growing power of merchant class -- Outcasts, but growing richer, more organized, technologically advanced, etc. “collapse then is not a fall to some primordial chaos, but a return to the normal human condition of lower complexity . . . It is an economizing process” Tainter (1988)

  18. Study Guide • Agrarian states Technological growth • Nobility Economic growth • Peasantry Trade networks • Extensive growth Merchant class • Intensive growth Trade networks • Social growth World Systems Theory • Social evolution Core societies • Political growth Peripheral societies • Population growth Merchant class

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