Alex's response 2

Several people in the course of our readings and discussions have brought up fundamental questions concerning the concept of the state, then endeavored to answer them in various ways. I would like to address some of these questions on a broad scale, and in doing so will probably be ineffective, but hopefully will give some guidance (for criticism if nothing else) toward answering them. Questions like what is a state? Does it exist? How is it formed? How do we break it down? have dominated much of our reading and discussion. The initial reaction to difficult, endlessly disputable questions like this may be to simply acknowledge that one will not find a perfect answer, but I think we can benefit from fleshing them out (if for no other reason than to find the wrong answers).

What is a state and how do we know it exists? I think we would all agree that a state is generally a concept we use to describe governmental institutions in complex societies, both ancient and modern. Clearly, based on the thousands of pages that have been written on the subject, this isn’t satisfactory. If it is just a concept, however, and we can’t seem to agree on how to define it, how can we say that it exists? Again, I think it is largely undisputed that an institution such as the state has power and uses it in various capacities, therefore exists. Examples of these activities would include lawmaking, law-enforcement, international relations, etc. A simple example of a the state applying its influence in real life, hence demonstrating its existence: if Tom robs a liquor store he is violating rules established by the state and so when he is arrested is punished by the state (jail and deportation) for violating its rules. In discussing the nature of the state, I find it interesting that, like all organizations, the state can be broken down into the groups and (most basically) individuals that constitute it. All organizations of people are fundamentally made up of and driven by individuals, acting for a variety of possible reasons. Individuals can be motivated by want of power, morality, or any number of things, but an individual’s ability to convince others to want what he or she wants is what leads to groups being formed with goals in mind, namely control of a system. When different groups/individuals compete for power within the context of a state (or forming a state), it is the same thing going on, just on a grander scale. Oversimplified to be sure, but I think this at least illustrates that most actions of human society can be broken down to the individual.

To consider this problem of the state archaeologically, then, and get at how a state is formed, how can we look back to what individual actions and desires served as the initial impetus for this type of social development? Clearly, we are not going to be able to pinpoint the individual with whom state formation started. This also raises questions about whether we can pinpoint the origins of anything, since it seems that everything can be traced back to influence or development from something else. What we can do, however, is consider possible motivations for individuals at the time the changes that we call state formation processes started to take place. What would drive someone in control to begin making changes in the ruling structure, or what would drive someone not in control to organize an effort to make drastic changes? But is this even a relevant question, given the subject of much of our discussion? When we talk about characteristics that we call preconditions for state level society, things like production of surplus, social stratification, establishment of long-distance trade networks, craft-specialization, writing systems, are these all things that happened independently, or were they organized by the state, or something playing the same role, beforehand? It seems like the creation of the state lies in the integration of some of these aspects of society to control and exploit them for their own gain. So how do we get back to the individual from here? It doesn’t seem we can, given the nature of the archaeological record, but we can certainly see how the state maintained power through demonstrations of legitimacy and authority. The question is, how did the ruling groups get there and establish the system, in the first place? Given the individual nature of this, I don’t know if any specific model can be broadly applicable. Unfortunately I think I've asked more questions than I've answered in this response, but if anyone has any thoughts or capabilities of making sense of this better than mine, please help.