ECONOMY

5.1 Demand-driven Explanation
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The first answer stresses the importance of the welfare losses associated with the
lack of political order. These are depicted in Figure 39.1 by the region of desirable
outcomes that remain unattainable, given the constraint imposed by decentralized
political institutions. Historical accounts of state formation in medieval and early
modern Europe document the calls for order that underpinned the popularity of the
Angevin dynasty after the collapse of Norman rule in England (Bartlett 2002; Hyams
2003); the cries for the king’s justice that led to the propagation of instruments of
centralized rule—the courts, the bailiffs, and the rule of law—in medieval England
(Hyams 2003); and the demands for the extension of the king’s peace in the provinces
of France, wherein order had been disrupted by feuds between branches of the
aristocratic families (Duby 1987).
To marshal an additional example: in medieval England, back-country magnates
recruited muscular youths to their households, thereby providing protection for their
domains. These retainers formed liveried companies: bands of warriors bearing the
colors of their lords. But when attending parliament, the very magnates who had
formed these companies called for their disbanding (Hicks 1995). Aware of the violence
and disorder they spread throughout the countryside, the magnates pleaded for
the king to suppress the liveried companies. Their behavior, I would argue, reflects the
nature of the payoffs that confront private citizens in stateless societies. Each magnate,
acting alone, had incentives to create a military band; but because all had the same
incentives, each devoted too many resources to protection and too few to production.
The role of the king was to coordinate the movement toward demilitarization—a
movement that was collectively desirable but privately perilous.
6 The Standard Account
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More common than accounts based on contract are those based on conquest. In
anthropology, the so-called “standard account” of state formation begins with families
clustering in locations that have been richly endowed by nature: in the alluvial
soils near rivers, for example, or in rich volcanic highlands. When the productivity
of the region significantly exceeds that in neighboring regions, then families will be
loath to exit the favored locale. And when those who possess political power seek to
increase their incomes, they therefore can extract tribute and services in exchange for
property rights and, in particular, rights in land. Stratification based on differences
in wealth and power then replaces the rough democracy of kinship (e.g. Feinman
and Marcus 1998). In this way politics is transformed from one of decentralized,
egalitarian interaction to centralized and forceful redistribution. 4
⁴ See Carneiro 1970 and Feinman and Marcus 1998. For a powerful illustration of the use of this
reasoning, see Vansina 2004.