CHIEFDOMS AND STATES

• Some horticultural societies of the past developed more intensive

agricultural subsistence patterns when their populations grew into the
thousands. As this interrelated economic and populational transition
occurred, they were forced to create a new level of political integration
in order to maintain unity and order. This was the chiefdom and
ultimately the state.
CHIEFDOMS

• Chiefdoms are similar to bands and tribes in being mostly classless

societies. However, chiefdoms differ in having a more or less permanent,
fulltime leader with real authority to make major decisions for their
societies. These leaders are usually referred to by anthropologists as
chiefs. Sometimes there is an advisory council as well, but there is
no bureaucracy of professional administrators. The government is
essentially just the chief.
• Seniority in kin groups is usually the primary basis for individual status
within chiefdoms. The chief is at the top of the kinship hierarchy. Other
people are commonly ranked in terms of their genealogical distance
from the chief. Subsequently, there is a keen interest in maintaining
records of descent from important family ancestors.
• A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-
industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal
leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select
families or 'houses'. These elites form a political-ideological aristocracy
relative to the general group.
• Chiefs and their families generally have a higher standard of living than
ordinary people. What makes this possible is that chiefs usually perform
a society-wide economic redistribution function that, in some cases, is
cloaked in the guise of ritual gift giving. This essentially siphons off
surplus agricultural products from farmers and then redistributes them
throughout the society.
• The larger populations of chiefdoms generally means that the people
have less in common than do those in the smaller societies of bands and
tribes. Disputes inevitably arise that cannot be settled by informal
means based on kinship and friendship. A chief usually functions as an
arbitrator and judge in these cases.
• An important advantage that chiefdoms have over band and tribal level societies
when conflicts arise between them is that chiefdoms are usually more effective in
warfare. This is due to the fact that chiefdoms have two important advantages. They
have larger populations so they can assemble larger military forces. In addition, the
chief can provide centralized direction which potentially allows more decisive
action. Some chiefdoms in Western South America had in excess of 100,000 people.
Chiefdoms cannot go back to a tribal level unless their population drops significantly.
STATES

• State level political systems first appeared in societies with large-scale

intensive agriculture. They began as chiefdoms and then evolved into
more centralized, authoritarian kingdoms when their populations grew
into tens of thousands of people. While chiefdoms are societies in which
everyone is ranked relative to the chief, states are socially stratified into
largely distinct classes in terms of wealth, power, and prestige.
• State has a formal system of written rules and regulation. The economic
system is highly developed and having technology. State societies have its
centralized political structure. State has many social institutions in which
executive, legislature, Judiciary and a large bureaucracy is bureaucracy is
practicing.
• States have at least three: the “upper class” of ruling elites; the “middle
class” of bureaucratic managers and merchants, who are often literate;
and the “lower class” productive base, including most craft specialists and
agricultural laborers. Such social statuses are ascribed; the possibility of
social mobility distinguishes class societies, where mobility is possible,
although rarely easy, from caste societies, where opportunities for
changing one’s social status can be virtually nonexistent.
• States use redistribution to fund the state apparatus or government, but
the dominant economic mode in society is market exchange. This
exchange allows the government to divest itself of the often-onerous
responsibility for the distribution of resources throughout its territory by
encouraging private citizens to move local surpluses to less-favored
regions in hopes of profit.
• States encourage market exchange by recognizing standardized units of
exchange, such as an official currency, and tap into the wealth generated
by this exchange through taxation.