Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy

In 1979, some missionary friends and I were flying over a remote swampy basin in New Guinea when I noticed some rough huts many miles apart.Somewhere in the swamp below us, the driver explained, a group of crocodile-hunting Indonesians had recently come across a group of New Guinea nomads.Both groups panicked, and the unexpected encounter ended with the Indonesians shooting and killing several nomads. My missionary friends guessed that these nomads belonged to an uncontacted group called the Fayu, known only through the descriptions of their terrified neighbors called the Kirikiri of.The Kirikiri were also nomadic people in the past, but they were converted by accepting the Gospel.Initial contacts between outsiders and groups in New Guinea are always potentially dangerous, but beginnings like this are especially inauspicious.Still, my friend Doug flew in by helicopter, and he wanted to befriend the Fayu.He did come back alive, but with lingering fears, and he told an extraordinary story.

It turns out that the Fayu people usually live alone. They are scattered throughout the swamp and meet once or twice a year to negotiate the exchange of brides.Doug's visit coincided with one such gathering attended by dozens of Fayu.To us, a small gathering of dozens of people was a rare and heart-wrenching event for the Fayu.The murderer suddenly meets the relatives of the deceased.For example, a Fayu man recognized the man who killed his father.The son raised his ax and rushed towards the murderer, but was thrown to the ground by his friends; so the murderer also picked up the ax and came to the son who was lying on the ground, but was also thrown on the ground.The two men were held down tightly, and they shouted loudly until they seemed to be almost exhausted before being released.Others cursed at each other from time to time, shaking with rage and disappointment, and pounded the ground with their axes.There was such tension throughout the days of the meeting that Doug kept praying that the visit would not end violently.

The Fayu were hunter-gatherers, numbering about 400 in four groups that roamed a few hundred square miles.According to their own descriptions, they originally numbered about 2,000 people, but due to cannibalism, their population was greatly reduced.They do not have the political and social institutions that we take for granted to resolve serious disputes peacefully.Finally, because of Doug's visit, a group of Fayu people invited a brave missionary couple to live with them.The couple has lived there for more than a decade now and has worked to persuade the Fayu people to renounce violence.The Fayu were thus brought into the modern world, with an unpredictable future ahead of them.

Many other groups of New Guineans and Amazonian Indians who had never had contact with the outside world were likewise absorbed into modern society through the role of missionaries.After the missionaries came teachers and doctors, government officials and soldiers.The expansion of government and religion has been thus interrelated throughout recorded history, whether by peaceful means (as at the end of the Fayu) or violently.In the latter case, the government usually organizes the conquest, and religion then justifies the conquest.Although nomads and tribal peoples have occasionally defeated organized governments and religions, the general trend over the past 13,000 years has been that nomads and tribal peoples have lost.

At the end of the last Ice Age, a large portion of the world's population lived in a society similar to today's Fayu, and no one lived in a much more complex society.As late as 1500 AD, less than 20% of the world's land was divided by border lines into countries governed by officials and ruled by law.Today, all land except Antarctica is divided into countries.The descendants of some of the first societies to achieve centralized government and organized religion are the last to dominate the modern world.This is how governments and religions work together, and they are one of four major sets of immediate dynamics, the other three being germs, words, and technology, that produced the broadest patterns in history.How, then, do governments and religions arise?

The Fayou group and the modern state represent the two extremes of the entire human society.Modern American society differs from Fayu society in the presence or absence of specialized police, agencies, cities, money, wealth disparity, and many other political, economic, and social institutions.Did all these institutions come together, or did they come first?We can deduce the answer to this question by studying written records or archaeological evidence about past societies and by observing how a society's institutions have changed over time. Cultural anthropologists who try to describe the diversity of human societies often divide human societies into as many as six or seven types.Attempts have been made to identify stages for any evolutionary or developmental continuum—whether in terms of musical styles, stages of human life, or human societies—but any such approach is doubly bound to be flawed.First, since each stage develops from some preceding stage, the boundaries between stages are inevitably of an arbitrary character. (For example, is a 19-year-old an adolescent or a young adult?) Second, the order of development is not static, so examples of being at the same stage must be varied. (Brahms and Liszt would be disturbed in their graves if they knew that they were now lumped together in the category of Romantic period composers.) However, if one bears in mind the caveats given above, the arbitrary phases Provides a useful shorthand for discussing diversity in music and human society.In this spirit, we shall use a simple taxonomy to understand human societies based on four categories: ethnic groups, tribes, chiefdoms, and states (see Table 14.1).

Clans are the smallest societies, generally consisting of 5 to 90 people, most or all of whom are close relatives by blood or marriage.In fact, an ethnic group is an extended family or several extended families that are related.Today, groups that still lead independent lives are found almost exclusively in New Guinea and the most remote regions of the Amazon, but many others have come under state control in modern times and have been assimilated or exterminated.They include many or most of the Pygmies of Africa, the hunter-gatherer San (so-called Bushmen) of southern Africa, Australian aborigines, the Inuit (Inuit), and some Indians in resource-poor areas such as Tierra del Fuego and northern mountain forests.All of these modern groups are or were nomadic hunter-gatherers rather than settled food producers.Presumably all humans lived in groups until at least 40,000 years ago, and most still did so as late as 11,000 years ago.

Ethnic groups do not have many of the institutions that we take for granted in our own societies.They live in no fixed place.The territory of the ethnic group is shared by the whole group, rather than divided into small groups or individuals.Apart from differences in age and sex, there was no fixed economic specialization within the group: able-bodied individuals were expected to forage for themselves.There are no formal institutions such as laws, police, and treaties to resolve conflicts within and between ethnic groups.Ethnic organizations are often said to be "egalitarian": no formalized social strata with upper and lower classes, no formalized or hereditary leadership, no formalized control over information and Monopoly of decision-making.However, the word "egalitarian" should not be used to imply that all ethnic groups have equal prestige and equal power over decision-making.The term simply means that any "leadership" within the group is informal and is achieved through qualities such as personality, strength, intelligence, and fighting skill.

My own experience with the group comes from a swampy lowland area called the Lake Plain inhabited by the Fayu people of New Guinea.There I can still meet extended families of a few adults with their children and the elderly living in improvised huts by the stream, traveling by canoe and on foot.Why do the peoples of the lake plains still live in nomadic groups when most other peoples of New Guinea and nearly all other peoples elsewhere in the world live sedentary lives in large groups today?The explanation for this problem is that the region had no natively concentrated resources that could enable many people to live together, and (before missionaries brought crops) it also had no native plants that made productive agriculture possible.The main source of food for the group is the sago palm, which produces a starchy pith from the heart of the tree when it matures.These groups live a nomadic life because they have to move elsewhere after they have cleared one area of ​​mature sago palms.Due to disease (especially malaria), due to the lack of raw materials in the swamps (even stones for tools must be obtained by bartering), and because the swamps provide humans with limited food, the number of groups has remained small.Similar limitations on the resources available to humans with current technology are still common in areas of the world not long ago occupied by other groups.

Our closest living relatives—the gorillas and chimpanzees in Africa and the bonobos south of the Congo River—also live in groups.This was presumably true of all humans until improved foraging techniques allowed certain hunter-gatherer groups to establish permanent settlements in certain resource-rich areas.This ethnic group is the political, economic and social organization we have inherited over millions of years of evolution.The development beyond this stage occurred in the last tens of thousands of years. The first of those stages beyond the ethnic group is the tribe.What distinguishes a tribe from an ethnic group is that it is larger (typically hundreds of people, not dozens) and usually has a fixed residence.Some tribes, however, even those ruled by chiefs, consisted of shepherds who moved with the seasons.

The highlanders of New Guinea are typical tribal organizations.Before the colonial government came, their political unit was a village or a group of villages closely knit together.Therefore, this politically defined "tribe" is usually much smaller than that defined by linguists and cultural anthropologists—that is, a tribe is a group with a common language and culture.For example, in 1964 I started working with a group of highlanders called the Foreys.According to the standards of linguistics and culture, there were 12,000 members of the Fore tribe at that time, speaking two mutually intelligible dialects, living in 65 villages, each with several hundred people.But there is no political unity in some of the villages belonging to the Fore language family.Every hamlet was caught up in a dizzying pattern of wars and changes of alliance with all the neighboring hamlets, whether the neighbors were Fore or spoke some different language. Tribes that were recently independent and are now part of nation-states still occupy large parts of New Guinea, Melanesia, and the Amazon basin.We infer from the archaeological evidence of some settlements that similar tribal organizations existed in the past. Although there are many such settlements, they all lack the archaeological features of chiefdoms, which I will explain below.Archaeological evidence of settlements suggests that tribal organizations began to emerge in the Fertile Crescent about 13,000 years ago and later in other areas.A prerequisite for life in settlements was either food production, or a productive environment with exceptional concentrations of resources that allowed hunting and gathering in small areas.That's why settlements and, by extension, tribes began to proliferate in the Fertile Crescent at a time when climate change, coupled with technological improvements, allowed people to harvest vast amounts of wild grains. Tribes differ from ethnic groups in that they have fixed residences and are larger in number, but also in that tribes consist of more than one formally recognized group of kinship groups called Clans, intermarriage between clans.Land belonged to a certain clan, not to an entire tribe.However, the tribe was still small in number, and every man knew every other man's name and his various kinship relations. The same is true for other types of human groups. If you want to understand each other in a group, the number of people in this group seems to be at most "hundreds of people".For example, in our national society, if a school has only a few hundred pupils, the headmaster may be able to call all his pupils by name, but if the school has thousands of pupils, he cannot.In societies of more than a few hundred people, human government organizations tend to shift from tribal organizations to chiefdoms. One reason for this is that resolving conflicts between people who don't know each other is inherently difficult. As the size of the group grew, the difficulty became increasingly acute.One fact that helps to defuse possible problems in resolving conflicts among members of a tribe is the fact that everyone in the tribe is related to everyone else either by blood, by marriage, or both. There are all kinds of relationships.The ties of kinship that hold all tribal members together make the police, laws, and other institutions of conflict resolution that exist in larger societies unnecessary, since any two villages at odds have many things in common. relatives, who put pressure on both parties so that the dispute does not turn into a violent conflict.In traditional New Guinea society, if a New Guinean happened to come into conflict with another unknown New Guinean, and both were far from their respective villages, the two talked at length about their relatives, Trying to establish some kind of relationship so as to find some reason why two people don't want to kill each other. Despite these differences between ethnic groups and tribes, they still have many similarities.Tribes still had an informal, "egalitarian" system of government.Information and decisions are public.In the highlands of New Guinea, I have watched some village meetings where all the adults in the village are present, they sit on the ground, everyone takes turns to speak, and no one can see that anyone is "chairing" the discussion.Many villages in the highlands do have a person called a "big man", who is the most influential person in the village.But this position is not a formal office held by a person, and it has limited powers.The big man has no independent decision-making power, is ignorant of diplomatic secrets, and can do nothing but try to influence public decisions.Great men acquire this status by their own virtue; their position cannot be hereditary. Tribes, like ethnic groups, had an "egalitarian" social system without hierarchical families or classes.Not only is status not hereditary, but in traditional tribe or group membership no one can become too rich by his own efforts, since each has obligations and responsibilities to many others.It is therefore very difficult for an outsider to guess from his appearance who is the big man among all the adults in the village, because he lives in the same hut, wears the same clothes, and wears the same The same decorations, or the same nakedness as everyone else. Like ethnic groups, tribes have no administrative system, police department, or taxation authority.Their economies were based on peer-to-peer exchanges between individuals or families, not on redistribution of tribute to some central authority.The degree of economic specialization was negligible: there were no full-time craft specialists, and every able-bodied adult (including the big men) participated in growing, gathering, and hunting food.I remember once walking through a garden in the Solomon Islands when I saw a man who was digging in the distance waving to me, and I was surprised to find that it was a friend of mine named Phaledo.He's the most famous woodcarver in the Solomon Islands, and an ingenious artist - but that didn't stop him from growing sweet potatoes himself.As tribes were so short of economic specialists, they also lacked slaves, since there were no special menial jobs for slaves to do. Like the composers of the classical period, from Bach to Schubert, and thus the whole genre from composers to Romantic composers, tribes evolved from one extreme group to another extreme chiefdom land.In particular, the role of the great man in distributing the pork when the tribe slaughtered the pig for a feast foreshadowed the chieftain's role in collecting and redistributing food and goods—now reinterpreted as tribute—in his jurisdiction. Role.Similarly, whether there are public buildings is probably one of the differences between chiefdoms and tribes, but some large villages in New Guinea often have houses for worship ceremonies (known as the drum house on the Sipik River), They are the predecessors of the temples of the chiefdom. While some ethnic groups and tribes still survive today in remote, ecologically poor areas outside of state control, fully independent chiefdoms had disappeared by the early 20th century, as they often occupied the best lands that the state coveted. soil of.However, until 1492 AD, chiefdoms were still prevalent over a wide area of ​​the eastern United States, in the productive areas of South America, Central America, and sub-Saharan Africa that had not yet been classified as sovereign states, and in all of Polynesia . The archaeological evidence discussed below shows that chiefdoms arose in the Fertile Crescent no later than about 5500 BC and in Mesoamerica and the Andes region no later than about 1000 BC.Let us consider the salient features of chiefdoms that were quite different from modern European and American states and also from ethnic groups and simple tribal societies. In terms of population, the population of chiefdoms is much larger than that of tribes, ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands.Such a large population poses a serious potential threat of internal conflict, since to any one person living in a chiefdom, the vast majority of other people in the chiefdom are neither closely related by blood or marriage. Can't even call them by name.With the emergence of chiefdoms some 7,500 years ago, for the first time in history, people had to learn how to deal with strangers on a regular basis without wanting to kill them. Part of the solution to this problem was to give a single person, the chief, the exclusive right to use force.Unlike tribal grandees, chiefs hold a recognized office and have hereditary rights to that office.Unlike the decentralized anarchy of village councils, the chief is the permanent center of power, making all major decisions and monopolizing important information (such as what threats individual chiefs pose from neighboring chiefdoms, or whether the gods what harvest may have been promised).Unlike big people, chiefs have eye-catching signs that can be recognized from a distance, such as the chief on Renal Island in the Southwest Pacific Ocean with a large fan stuck behind his back.A commoner who met a chief was required to make a customary gesture of respect, such as (in Hawaii) prostrating himself to the ground.The chief's orders could be conveyed through one or two ranks of officials, many of whom were themselves junior chiefs.However, unlike state officials, chiefdom officials do everything without specialization.In Hawaii, the Polynesian islands, these officials (called konohiki) collected tribute, managed irrigation, and organized corvee work for the chiefs, while the state society had no tax collectors, water district managers, and recruiters, respectively. The large population of the chiefdom in a small area requires a large amount of food, which is obtained through food production in most cases, and obtained through hunting and gathering in some particularly rich areas.For example, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest coast of America, such as the Kwakutel, Nootka, and Tlingit Indians, lived under chiefs in villages without agriculture and livestock because The rivers and seas there are rich in salmon and halibut.The surplus food produced by those who were relegated to commoners was used to feed chiefs, their families, officials, and skilled professionals who worked as canoes, hatchets, or spittoons, or as fowlers or tattooers . Luxury goods include those specialized handmade products or rare items traded with distant places, all of which belong to the chief.For example, some chiefs in Hawaii had feather cloaks, some of which were woven from tens of thousands of feathers over many generations (by civilian cloak weavers, of course).This concentration of luxuries made it possible to identify chieftains in archaeology, since some tombs (of chiefs) contained much richer funerary objects than others (of commoners), which One thing is different from this previous egalitarian burial in human history.Some ancient and complex chiefdoms can also be distinguished from tribal villages by the remains of elaborate public buildings (such as temples) and by the hierarchy of settlements within the area, with a settlement (the residence of the supreme chief) Apparently larger than the other residences, with more offices and artifacts than the other residences. Like tribes, chiefdoms consist of multiple hereditary families living in one settlement.However, the families in the tribal villages were clans of equal status, whereas all members of the chieftain's family in a chiefdom enjoyed hereditary privileges.In fact, this society is divided into hereditary chiefs and civilians, and the chiefs in Hawaii are further divided into 8 hierarchical families, and each family can only intermarry within the family.In addition, since chiefs not only need skilled craftsmen, but also servants who do rough work, another difference between chiefdoms and tribes is that the former does not have many jobs that can be performed by slaves, and these slaves are generally outside the country. Captured during raids. The most striking characteristic of the economy of chiefdoms is that they have come to change from relying entirely on the method of reciprocal exchange peculiar to ethnic groups and tribes, according to which A gives B a gift and at the same time expects B to be in A gift of similar value is given to A at an unspecified time in the future.The inhabitants of our modern state do so only on birthdays and false tongues, but most of our commodity circulation is accomplished by buying and selling money according to the laws of supply and demand.While continuing to practice peer-to-peer exchange and no marketplace or currency, the chiefdoms developed another new system called a redistributive economy.A simple example is: the chief received wheat from every farmer in his jurisdiction during the harvest season, and then feasted everyone to eat bread, or stored the wheat, and then gradually distributed the wheat to the farmers in the days before the next harvest. Everyone.If a substantial portion of the goods received from commoners were not redistributed to them, but left for consumption by the chieftain's family and artisans, this redistribution became tribute, the precursor to taxation that first appeared in chiefdoms .Not only do the chiefs demand money from the commoners, but they also ask them for labor to build public works, which again may benefit the commoners (such as an irrigation system that helps feed everyone) otherwise it would benefit the chiefs mostly (such as extravagant tombs). We had a general discussion of chiefdoms and it seemed like they were all a pattern.In fact, chiefdoms vary widely.In larger chiefdoms, chiefs have more power, chief families have more ranks, differences between chiefs and commoners are more pronounced, chiefs retain more tribute, officials have more layers, and public buildings are grander .Societies on small Polynesian islands, for example, were actually quite similar to tribal societies with great men, except that the chieftainship was hereditary.The shanty where the chief lived looked like any other hut, there were no officials or public buildings, the chief redistributed most of the goods he received to the common people, and the land was managed by the community.But on the largest Polynesian islands, such as Hawaii, Tahiti, and Tonga, chiefs are instantly recognizable by their decorations, public buildings are labor-intensive, and most of the tribute is left behind by the chiefs , and all lands are also under their control.In a society where families are divided into hierarchies, the political unit is a society of autonomous villages, which further evolves into a society composed of a group of villages in the whole area, and in this group of villages, the largest chieftain with a supreme chief villages control smaller villages with only secondary chiefs. By now it should be obvious that chiefdoms pose a dilemma that is fundamental to centrally governed, unequalist societies.At their best, they can provide expensive services that individuals cannot afford.At worst, they blatantly function as kleptocracies, transferring real wealth from the common people to the upper classes.This dual role of nobleness and selfishness is inextricably linked, although some governments emphasize the one role much more than the other.The difference between kleptocrats and wise statesmen, between robber barons and patrons of the common good, is only a matter of degree: it is only a question of how much of what is extracted from the producers is retained by the upper classes, and it is a question of how much of what is squeezed out of the producers It is a question of the extent to which distributed property is preferred for public purposes.We see President Mobutu of Zaire as a kleptocrat because he appropriated too much (the equivalent of billions of dollars) and redistributed too little (in Zaire I don't have a working phone system).We think of George Washington as a statesman because he spent tax dollars on widely lauded programs rather than enriching the president's own pocket.But Washington was born rich, and wealth is distributed far more unfairly in America than in a village in New Guinea. As with any hierarchical society, be it chiefdom or state, one then wonders why the common people tolerated the fruits of their hard labor to be gifted to kleptocrats?Every political theorist from Plato to Marx has asked this question, and it has been asked afresh by voters in every modern election.Kleptocrats who lack public support are in danger of being overthrown, either by the oppressed populace, or by an outbreak of kleptocrats trying to replace them with promises of better returns for the stolen fruits. Multi-service approach to build public support.For example, Hawaiian history has seen repeated rebellions against oppressor chiefs, often led by brothers of the chief who promised to ease the oppression.This may sound ludicrous to us in the light of Hawaii's past, but we don't if we consider the misery that this struggle has created in the modern world.What can a person at the top do to gain the support of the masses while still maintaining a more comfortable lifestyle than the common people?Thief rulers from ancient times to the present have used a mixture of 4 methods: 1. Disarm the civilian population while arming those in power at the top.This is much easier in the modern age of modern technological weapons than in ancient times of spears and clubs, because modern weapons can only be produced in factories and are easily monopolized by the upper class, while ancient weapons can be easily manufactured at home come out. 2. Use the usual method to redistribute a large part of the acquired property to the masses to win their favor.This principle is as valid for Hawaiian chiefs of the past as it is for American politicians today. 3. Use absolute control over force to maintain public order and stop violence to promote social happiness.This may be a huge, underappreciated advantage of a centralized society over a non-centralized one.Anthropologists used to idealize tribal societies and tribal societies as mild and non-violent societies, because some visiting anthropologists did not find a single murder in a group of 25 people after three years of research.Of course they would not discover that a crowd of a dozen adults and a dozen children, besides the usual causes of death other than murder, must have happened anyway, if, in addition to these deaths, With one of the dozen or so adults killing the other every three years, it is easy to calculate that the population itself cannot survive for long.The much broader long-term accumulation of data on ethnic and tribal societies shows that murder is the leading cause of death.For example, when a female anthropologist was surveying the life histories of Iyau women in New Guinea, I happened to be interviewing the Iyau people as well.When woman after woman was asked to describe her husband, she would name a succession of husbands who had died.A typical response goes something like this: "My first husband was killed by Elopi raiders. My second husband was killed by a man who wanted me, and that man became mine." The third husband. This husband was killed by my second husband's brother when he avenged his brother." Such life encounters are commonplace for the so-called moderate tribal people. Therefore, with the development of tribal society This situation facilitates the acceptance of central authority. 4. The last method kleptocrats use to gain public support is to create an ideology or religion that justifies kleptocracy.Clans and tribes have always believed in ghosts and spirits, just like the modern state religion.But the belief in ghosts and spirits of ethnic groups and tribes cannot be used to justify central authority and the transfer of wealth, nor can it be used to maintain peace among people who are not related.When superstitions of ghosts and gods acquired these functions and were institutionalized, they became what we call religions.Chiefs in Hawaii were representative of chiefs elsewhere in promoting divinity, incarnation, or at least communication with the gods.The chief claimed that in his service to the people he interceded for them with the gods and chanted ritually the spells necessary for rain, good harvests and successful fishing. Chiefdoms each have a distinct ideology, the precursor to an organized religion that sustains the authority of the Chief.A chief may be both a political leader and a priest, or he may support a single group of kleptocrats (the priests) whose job it is to defend the chief ideologically.This is why chiefdoms dedicated so much of their confiscated property to building temples and other public works, since these buildings could serve as official religious centers and visible symbols of the chief's power. In addition to justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, organized religion provided two other significant benefits to centralized societies.The first advantage is that a common ideology or religion helps to solve the problem of how people who are not related should live together without killing each other—by imposing on them a constraint that is not based on kinship.A second benefit is that it creates an incentive in people to sacrifice their lives for others, rather than self-interest.At the expense of a few members of a society dying in battle, the society as a whole becomes more effective at conquering other societies or fending off foreign aggressors. The political, economic, and social system we are most familiar with today is the state system, which today governs all regions of the world except Antarctica.Many early states and all modern states have literate elites, and many modern states also have literate masses.Vanishing states often leave behind unmistakable archaeological signs, such as the ruins of temples of standardized design, settlements of at least four different sizes, and pottery of various styles over tens of thousands of miles.我们由此知道，国家在公元前3700年左右出现于美索不达米亚，公元前300年左右出现于中美洲，2000多年前出现于安第斯山脉地区、中国和东南亚，1000多年前出现于西非。在现代，人们不断看到由酋长管辖地形成国家的情况。因此，关于过去的国家及其形成，我们所掌握的知识远远多于关于过去的酋长管辖地、部落和族群的知识。 原型国家发展了大型的最重要的（由多个村庄组成的）酋长管辖地的许多特点。它们的规模从族群到部落，再从部落到酋长管辖地，不断地扩大。酋长管辖地的人口少则几千，多则几万，而大多数现代国家的人口都超过100万，中国的人口则超过10亿。最重要的酋长居住地可能成为这个国家的首都城市。首都以外的其他人口中心也可能取得真正城市的资格，而这些城市是酋长管辖地所没有的。城市与村庄的区别是城市有重要的公共工程，有统治者居住的宫殿，有来自贡物和税收的资本积累，还有粮食生产者以外的集中的人口。 早期的国家有一个资格相当于国王的世袭领袖，他很像一个超级的至高无上的酋长，对信息、决策和权力实行甚至更大的垄断。即使在今天的民主国家里，至关重要的知识也只有少数人能够获得，他们对信息流向政府的其余部门进行控制，结果也就是对决策进行控制。例如，在1963年的古巴导弹危机中，开始时肯尼迪总统把关于确定核战争是否会吞没5亿人的信息和讨论，限制在他亲自任命的国家安全委员会10人执行委员会的范围内；后来，他又把最后决定权限制在由他本人和他的3名内阁部长组成的4人小组范围内。 中央控制在国家中比在酋长管辖地更加影响深远，而以贡物（改名为税收）形式进行的经济再分配在国家中也比在酋长管辖地更加广泛。经济专门化进一步走向极端，以致今天甚至农民也无法维持自给自足。因此，当国家的政府垮台时，社会所受到的影响产生了灾难性的结果，就像不列颠在罗马于公元407年至411年撤走军队、行政官员和硬币时所碰到的情况那样。甚至最早的美索不达米亚国家对它们的经济也实行中央控制。它们的粮食是由4个专业群体（生产谷物的农民、牧人、渔民以及果园和菜园的种植者）生产的，国家从每一个群体那里得到产品，又向每一个群体分配必需的日常用品、工具和这个集团所不生产的食物。国家向种植谷物的农民供应种子和耕畜，从牧人那里得到羊毛，通过远方贸易用羊毛交换金属制品和其他必不可少的原料，并向维护农民所依赖的灌溉系统的劳动者发放粮食。 许多早期国家，也许是大多数早期国家，都曾经历过奴隶制，其规模比酋长管辖地大得多。这不是因为酋长管辖地在处理被打败的敌人时更加宽大为怀，而是因为国家经济专门化的发展，更多的大规模生产和更多的公共工程需要使用更多的奴隶劳动。此外，更大规模的国家战争能够得到更多的俘虏。 酋长管辖地原来只有一两个行政管理层，而在国家里行政管理层次就大大增加了，任何人只要见过任何政府的组织系统图就会知道这一点。除了纵向的各级官员大大增加外，还有横向的专业部门。酋长管辖地的官员科诺希基要负责夏威夷一个地区的所有行政事务，而国家的政府则不同，它分为几个不同的部门，分别处理水利管理、税收和征兵等事宜，而每一个部门又都有自己的一套等级系统。即使是小国的行政系统也要比大的酋长管辖地来得复杂。例如，西非国家就曾建立过一个中央政府，光是有头衔的职位就达130多个。 为了解决国家内部的冲突，法律、法制和警察机关越来越正规化了。法律经常得到制订，因为许多国家（也有显著的例外，如印加帝国）都有有文化的上层精英，而文字也已在差不多与最早的国家于美索不达米亚和中美洲出现的同时被发明了出来。相比之下，还没有形成国家的早期酋长管辖地没有一个发明过文字。 早期的国家已有了国家的宗教和标准化的寺庙。许多早期的国王被看作是神授的，并在无数方面被给予特殊的待遇。例如，阿兹特克和印加的皇帝出行都用轿子抢着；仆人们走在印加皇帝轿子的前头清扫地面；而日本语中有特殊形式的代词“你”专门用来称呼天皇。早期的国王本人就是国家宗教的领袖，否则就另外设立一个大祭司。美索不达米亚的寺庙不但是宗教活动的中心，而且也是经济再分配、文字和手工技术的中心。 国家的所有这些特征，把从部落到酋长管辖地的发展引向了极端。不过，除此以外，国家还是从酋长管辖地沿几个不同方向演化的结果。这方面最根本的差别是，国家是按政治和领土而组建起来，不是按照划分族群、部落和简单的酋长管辖地的亲属关系而组建起来的。而且，族群和部落始终是由单一的族群和语族组成的，酋长管辖地通常也是如此。然而，国家——尤其是通过对一些国家的合并或征服而形成的帝国——通常都是包括不同种族和使用多种语言的。在后期的国家中，包括今天大多数国家在内，领导常常变成非世袭的，而且许多园家放弃了酋长管辖地遗留下来的关于正式世袭阶级的整个制度。 在过去的13000年中，人类社会的主要趋势都是较大的、较复杂的单位取代较小的、较不复杂的单位。显然，这只是就一般的长期趋势来说的，古往今来都有数不清的变化：有l000次的统一便会有999次的分裂。我们从报纸上了解到，一些大的单位（例如前苏联、南斯拉夫和捷克斯洛伐克）有时也会分裂成一些较小的单位，就像2000多年前的帝国一样。比较复杂的单位并不总是能征服不那么复杂的单位，有许多反而屈服于后者，就像罗马帝国和中华帝国分别为“蛮族”和蒙古族酋长管辖地所蹂躏那样。但长期趋势仍然有利于最后上升为国家的一些大的复杂的社会。 同样明显的是，国家在与较简单的实体发生冲突时所以能取得胜利，部分原因是国家拥有武器和其他技术方面的优势，同时也拥有人口数量上的优势。但酋长管辖地和国家还有另外两个固有的潜在优势。首先，中央决策者拥有集中军队和资源的优势。其次，许多国家的官方宗教和爱国热忱使它们的军队在作战中视死如归，心甘情愿地为国捐躯。 在现代国家中，乐于为国牺牲的思想由我们的学校、教会和政府大力灌输给我们公民，使我们忘记了它标志着同以往人类历史的彻底决裂。每—个国家都有自己的鼓动其公民准备好在必要时为国牺牲的口号：英国的口号是“为了国王和国家”，西班牙的口号是“为了上帝和西班牙”，等等。同样的思想感情也在激励着16世纪阿兹特克的战士：“战死沙场最最光荣，给我们以生命的神（阿兹特克的民族之神维茨罗波切特里）最最看重这种光荣的死：我远远看见了它，我的内心充满了对它的渴望！” 这种思想感情在族群和部落中是无法想象的。我的新几内亚的朋友们对我谈起过他们以前的部落战争，但在他们的全部描述中看不出有丝毫的部落爱国主义、自杀性的冲锋，也没有任何不惜冒生命危险而采取的军事行动。相反，进行袭击都是采用埋伏或优势兵力的办法，千方百计地把为自己村庄牺牲性命的风险减少到最低限度。但和国家社会相比，这种态度严重限制了部落的军事选择。当然，把狂热的爱国者和宗教信徒变成这种危险对手的，不是这些狂热分子本身的死，而是他们的意愿，即不惜以他们一部分人的死来换取消灭或制服他们的异教徒敌人。在过去的6000年中，在酋长管辖地尤其是国家出现之前，历史上记载的驱使基督教和伊斯兰教信徒去进行征服的那种战争狂热，地球上大概还不曾有过。 小型的、非中央集权的、以亲属关系为基础的社会，是怎样演化为大型的、中央集权的、大多数成员彼此没有密切的亲属关系的社会的呢？在回顾了从族群到国家这一转变的各个阶段之后，我们现在要问：是什么迫使社会产生这样的转变？ 在历史上的许多时候，有些国家独立地出现了——或者，就像文化人类学家所说的那样，“最早地”出现了，就是说，在周围没有任何国家先于它们而存在的情况下出现了。最早国家的出现，除了澳大利亚和北美洲外，在其他每一个大陆上至少发生过一次，也许发生过许多次。史前的国家包括美索不达米亚、中国北部、尼罗河和印度河河谷、中美洲、安第斯山脉地区和西非的那些国家。过去的3个世纪中，在马达加斯加、夏威夷、塔希提和非洲的许多地方，由于同欧洲国家的接触，在一些酋长管辖地不断出现了土邦。在所有这些地区和北美洲的东南部、西北太平洋地区、亚马孙河地区、波利尼西亚以及非洲撒哈拉沙漠以南地区，甚至更经常地出现了一些最早的酋长管辖地。所有这些复杂社会的出现，使我们获得了一个丰富的资料库来了解其发展进程。 在处理国家起源问题的许多理论中，最简单的理论否认有任何问题需要解决。亚里斯多德认为国家就是人类社会的自然状态，不需要作任何说明。他的错误是可以理解的，因为所有他可能认识的社会——公元前4世纪的希腊社会——都是国家。然而，我们现在知道，直到公元1492年，世界上很大一部分地区仍然是酋长管辖地、部落或族群的天下。国家的形成的确需要予以说明。 第二种理论是大家员熟悉的。法国哲学家让—雅克·卢梭推断说，国家是按照一种社会契约来组成的，人们在计算自身的利益时作出了理性的决定，一致同意他们的经济情况在国家中会比在较简单的社会中更好，因而自愿地废除他们的较简单的社会。但我们的观察和历史记载，都没有揭示出有哪一个例子可以证明国家是在表现出冷静的远见的轻松优雅的气氛中组成的。较小的单位不会自愿地放弃自己的主权去合并成较大的单位。只有通过征服或在外部的胁迫下，它们才会这样去做。 第三种理论甚至更能得到历史学家和经济学家的喜爱。这个理论从一个无可争辩的事实出发，认为在美索不达米亚、中国北部和墨西哥，大规模的灌溉系统大概是在国家开始出现那个时期开始兴建的。这个理论还指出，任何大型的复杂的灌溉系统或水利管理，都需要有集中统一的行政系统来予以修建和维护。接着，这个理论只把一种观察到的在时间上的初步联系变成了一种假定的因果关系链。美索不达米亚、中国北部和墨西哥的居民大概预见到大规模的灌溉系统可能会带给他们的利益，虽然当时在几千英里范围内（或地球上任何地方）并没有这样的系统可以向他们证明这些利益。这些有远见的人决心把他们的效率低下的小小的酋长管辖地合并成一个较大的能够使他们有幸得到大规模灌溉的国家。 然而，这种关于国家形成的“水利理论”遭到了一般契约理论所遭到的同样的反对。更具体地说，它所涉及的只是复杂社会进化过程中的最后阶段。至于大规模灌溉有可能出现之前的整整几千年中，是什么推动了从族群到部落再到酋长管辖地的发展，它却只字未提。经过详细研究的历史年代或考古年代，也未能支持关于灌溉是国家形成的推动力这一观点。在美索不达米亚、中国北部、墨西哥和马达加斯加，小规模的灌溉系统在国家出现前便已存在了。大规模灌溉系统的兴建与国家的出现并不是同时发生的，在这些地区兴建重要的灌溉系统还是以后的事。在中美洲和安第斯山脉地区形或的大多数国家中，灌溉系统始终是小规模的，当地社会依靠自己的力量就可修建和维护。因此，即使在的确出现了复杂的水利管理系统的那些地区，这些系统也只是国家形成的间接结果，而国家的形成必定另有原因。 在我看来，能够表明关于国家形成的一个基本正确的观点的，是一个无府置疑的事实，即地区人口的多少是预测社会复杂程度的最有力的唯一根据，这个事实远比灌溉与某些国家形成之间的相互关系更能令人信服。我们已经看到，族群有几十个人，部落有几百个人，酋长管辖地有几千人到几万人，而国家一般都要超过5万人。除了地区的人口多寡与社会类型（族群、部落等）之间的这种约略的相互关系外，在这些类型的社会内部，在人口与社会复杂程度之间还有一种更细微的倾向，例如，拥有众多人口的酋长管辖地证明是最集中统一、层次最分明和最复杂的社会。 这些相互关系有力地表明了，地区的人口多寡或人口密度或人口压力与复杂社会的形成有着某种关系。但这种相互关系并没有明确地告诉我们，人口的各种可变因素在作为复杂社会缘起的因果关系链中是怎样发生作用的。为了勾画出这个因果关系链，让我们现在提醒自己一些密度大的人口是怎样产生的。然后，我们可以研究一下一个大而简单的社会为什么会难以为继。以这一点作为背景，我们最后还将回到一个简单的社会如何随着地区人口的增长而竟然变得比较复杂这个问题上来。 我们已经看到，众多的或稠密的人口只有在粮食生产的条件下，或至少对狩猎采集来说物产特别丰富的条件下才会产生。有些物产丰富的狩猎采集社会已达到了可以组织酋长管辖地的水平，但还没有一个达到国家的水平，因为所有国家都要靠粮食生产来养活它们的国民。这些考虑加上刚才提到的地区人口多寡与社会复杂程度之间的相互关系，导致了关于粮食生产、人口的可变因素和社会复杂程度之间因果关系的究竞先有鸡还是先有蛋的长期争论。集约的粮食生产是否就是因，是它触发了人口的增长并以某种方式导致了复杂的社会？或者，众多的人口和复杂的社会反而是因，从而以某种方式导致了粮食生产的集约化？ 用非此即彼的方式提出这个问题，是没有抓住要点。集约化的粮食生产和社会的复杂程度通过自我催化而相互促进。就是说，人口的增长通过我们将要讨论的机制使社会变得复杂起来，而社会的复杂又导致集约化的粮食生产，从而导致了人口的增长。只有复杂的中央集权的社会才能组织公共工程（包括灌溉系统）、远距离贸易（包括输入金属以制造更好的农具）和各种经济专门团体的活动（如用农民的粮食养活牧人，又把牧人的牲口提供给农民作耕畜之用）。中央集权社会的所有这些功能，促进了集约化的粮食生产，从而也促进了整个历史上的人口增长。 此外，粮食生产至少在3个方而帮助复杂的社会形成了鲜明的特点。首先，它随季节变化定期地投入劳动力。收成贮藏好之后，中央集权的行政机构就可以利用农民的劳动力来兴建宣扬国威的公共工程（如埃及的金字塔），或兴建可以养活更多人口的公共工程（如波利尼西亚群岛中夏威夷的灌溉系统或鱼塘），或从事扩大政治实体的征服战争。 其次，组织粮食生产以产生余粮储备，从而使经济专门化和社会层次化成为可能。剩余粮食可以用来养活复杂社会的各个阶层的人：酋长、官员和上层阶级的其他成员；抄写员、手艺人和其他非粮食生产的专门人员；以及被征去修建公共工程时的农民本身。 最后，粮食生产促使人们或要求人们采取定居的生活方式，这种生活方式是积累足够的财产、发展复杂技术和精巧手艺以及兴建公共工程的一个先决条件。固定住所对复杂社会的这种重要性说明了，为什么传教士和政府在初次接触新几内亚和亚马孙河地区以前从未与外界接触过的游收部落或族群时，都普遍抱有两个直接的目的。一个目的当然就是“安抚”这些游牧部落的显而易见的目的；即说服他们不要杀害传教士和官员，也不要自相残杀。另一个目的就是劝诱这些游牧部落在村庄里定居下来，这样传教士和官员就能找到他们，给他们带来医疗保健和学校教育之类的服务，并使他们改变宗教信仰从而控制他们。 因此，粮食生产不但使人口增加，而且还在许多方而发生了作用，使复杂社会能够形成自己的一些特点。但这并不能证明粮食生产和众多人口使复杂社会的出现成为必然之事。根据实际观察，族群或部落组织对有几十万人的社会是不适用的，而且现存的大型社会都有复杂的中央集权组织。对于这种观察结果，我们怎样来予以说明呢？我们至少可以举出4个显而易见的原因。 一个原因是没有亲属关系的陌生人之间的冲突问题。随着组成社会的人口的增加，这种问题多得无法计数。一个由20人组成的族群内部的两人之间的互动关系只有190种（20*19/2），而——个由2000人组成的族群可能有199.9万个两人组合。每一个这样的两人组合就是一个潜在的定时炸弹，说不定在哪一次杀气腾腾的争吵中就会爆炸。族群社会和部落社会的每一次谋杀通常都要引起一宗蓄意报仇的杀人事件，从而开始了又一轮杀人和报仇行为，这样周而复始，永无止境，使社会稳定遭到了破坏。 在族群中，每一个人同其他每一个人都有密切的亲属关系，与争吵双方同时都有亲属关系的人出而调解争端。在部落中，许多人仍然是关系密切的亲属，每个人至少能够叫出其他每个人的名字，在发生争吵时由双方的亲友来调解。“几百人”是个界限，在这个界限内每个人能够认识另外每个人，一旦超过这个界限，越来越多的两人组合就成了一对对没有亲属关系的陌生人了。当陌生人打架时，在场的人很少会是打架双方的朋友或亲属，没有什么私利要他们去制止打架。相反，如果许多旁观者是打架一方的朋友或亲属，他们就会站在他的一边，这样，本来是两个人的打架结果就逐步升级为一场乱哄哄的群殴。因此，一个继续把冲突交给全体成员去解决的大型社会必然会分崩离析。仅仅这一个因素就可以说明为什么几千人的社会只有在形成完全控制武力和解决矛盾冲突的中央集权的行政管理机构时才能存在。 第二个原因是，随着人口的增加，共同决策越来越难以做到。由全体成年人来决策，在新几内亚的一些村庄里仍然是可能的，但这些村庄都很小，消息和通知可以迅速传达到每一个人，每一个人在全村大会上可以听到其他每一个人的意见，每一个人也都有在会上发表意见的机会。但共同决策的所有这些先决条件，在大得多的社会里已经无法得到了。即使在如今拥有麦克风和扬声器的时代，我们也全都知道，一次小组会决不能解决一个有几千人的群体的问题。因此，一个大型社会如要有效地作出决定，就必须加以组织并使之置于中央集权的控制之下。 第三个原因是经济方面的考虑。任何社会都需要在其成员之间转移财货的手段。一个人可能在某一天碰巧获得了较多的某种基本商品，而在另一天则获得较少。人的才智有不同，一个人通常总是对所拥有的某些生活必需品感到过多，而对另一些生活必需品又常嫌不足。在只有很少几对成员的小型社会中，由此而产生的必要的财货转移，可以通过对等交换直接安排在成对个人或家庭之间进行。在大型社会里使直接的成对冲突的解决缺乏效率的那种数学计算，同样也会使直接的成对经济转移缺乏效率。大型社会只有在除了有对等经济还有再分配经济的情况下才能在经济上发生作用。超过个人需要的财货必须从这个人转移到—个中央集权的行政管理机构，然后再由这个机构再分配给财货不足的人。 使大型社会必须有复杂组织的最后一个原因与人口的密度有关。粮食生产者的大型社会比狩猎采集者的小族群不但成员多，而且人口密度也大。每一个由几十个猎人组成的族群占据着很大一片地区，在这个地区内，他们可以获得对他们来说必不可少的大部分资源。他们可以在族群战争的间歇通过与邻近族群的交换来获得其他生活必需品。随着人口密度的增加，属于本来只有几十个人的那片地区可能会变成一个很小的地区，越来越多的生活必需品不得不从这个地区以外的地方获得。例如，我们可以把荷兰的16000平方英里的土地和l600万人划分成80万个单独的地块，每个地块包含13英亩土地并被用作一个由20人组成的独立自主的族群的家园，这些人始终在他们的13英亩土地的范围内过着自给自足的生活，偶尔利用暂时的休战到他们这小小地块的边界去同邻近的族群交换物品和新娘。这种受空间条件限制的现实情况，要求人口稠密的地区去养活大型的组织复杂的社会。 对解决冲突、决策、经济因素和空间的这些考虑，于是综合起来要求大型社会实行中央集权，但权力的集中不可避免地为那些掌权的人、私下据有信息的人、作决定的人和对财货进行再分配的人大开方便之门，使他们得以利用由此带来的机会为他们自己和他们的亲属谋取好处。对于任何一个熟悉任何现代人的分类的人来说，这一点是显而易见的。随着早期社会的发展，那些获得集中权力的人逐步地成了公认的上层人物，也许他们本来就是属于先前的几个地位平等的乡村氏族之一，只是这些氏族比其他氏族“更平等”罢了。 上面说的就是为什么大型社会不能以族群组织来运作，而只能靠盗贼统治来发生作用的原因。但我们还有一个问题没有解决，这就是小型的简单社会实际上是如何演化成或合并成大型的复杂社会的。合并、冲突的集中解决、决策、经济再分配和盗贼统治者的宗教，并不是通过某种卢梭式的社会契约而自动形成的。是什么推动这种合并的呢？ 对这个问题的回答在某种程度上决定于对演化的推理。我在本章开始时说过，归在同一类的社会并不是完全相同的，因为人与人之间、人的群体与群体之间永远存在着差异。例如，某些族群和部落中的大人物比另一些族群和部落中的大人物必然会更具魅力，更有权势，在作决定时更富技巧。在一些大型部落中，具有更强有力的大人物因而拥有更大的权力集中的部落，往往拥有对权力不那么集中的部落的某种优势。像法尤族那样拙劣地解决冲突的部落，往往又分裂为族群，而管理不善的酋长管辖地则分裂成更小的酋长管辖地或部落。能有效地解决冲突、作出正确的决定和实行和谐的经济再分配的社会，能够发展更好的技术，集中自己的军事力量，夺取更大的物产更丰富的地盘，逐一地打垮独立自主的较小的社会。 因此，如果条件许可，复杂程度处在同一水平的社会之间的竞争，往技导致了复杂程度更高的社会。部落之间进行征服或兼并以达到了酋长管辖地的规模，酋长管辖地之间进行征服或兼并以达到了国家的规模，国家之间进行征服或兼并以形成帝国。更一般地说，大的单位可能拥有对各个小的单位的某种优势，如果——这是一个大大的“如果”——这些大单位能够解决因规模变大而带来的问题，如来自觊觎领导地位的狂妄之徒的无时不在的威胁、平民对盗贼统治的忿恨，以及增多了的与经济一体化联系在一起的问题。 把小单位合并成大单位，这无论在历史上或是考古上都是有案可查的。同卢梭的看法相反，这种合并决不是在一些没有受到威胁的小型社会为了促进其公民的幸福而自由决定合并这一过程中发生的。小型社会的领袖和大型社会的领袖一样，珍惜自己的独立和特权。合并的发生不外乎下面的两种方式之一：在外力的威胁下合并，或通过实际的征服。有无数的事例可以用来说明每一种合并方式。 在外力威胁下实现合并的很好的例子，是美国东南部切罗基族印第安同盟的组成。切罗基族印第安人原来分为30个或40个独立的酋长管辖地，每一个酋长管辖地就是一个大约有400人的村庄。日益扩大的白人殖民地的开拓，导致了切罗基人与白人之间的冲突。当个别的切罗基人抢劫或袭击白人移民或商人时，白人无法区别不同的切罗基酋长管辖地，而是不分青红皂白地对任何切罗基人进行报复，或是对他们采取军事行动，或是断绝与他们的贸易往来。作为对策，各个切罗基酋长管辖地在18世纪逐步发现它们不得不加入一个单一的同盟。起先，较大的酋长管辖地于1730年选出了一个统领全局的领袖，一个名叫莫伊托伊的酋长，1741年由他的儿子继任。这些领袖的首要任务是惩罚攻击白人的个别切罗基人，并与白人政府打交道。1758年左右，这些切罗基人把他们的决策规范化，仿照以前的村社会议，每年在一个村庄（埃科塔）召开一次会议，这个村庄因此就成了一个事实上的“首都”。最后，这些切罗基人都成了有文化的人（就像我们在第十二章所看到的那样），并通过了一部成文宪法。 切罗基族印第安同盟就这样建立起来了，但不是靠征服，而是靠把以前的一些小心提防的较小实体合并起来，而这种合并只有在这些实体有被强大的外力消灭的危险时才可能发生。同样，关于国家的形成，每一本美国历史教科书都介绍过一个例子，谈到美洲白人殖民地中有一个殖民地（佐治亚）曾经促成切罗基国家的建立，而这些殖民地本身其实也是在受到强大的外力不列颠君主国的威胁时才被迫建立自己的国家的。美洲各殖民地在开始时也同切罗基的各酋长管辖地一样，小心冀翼地守护着自己的自治权，它们根据《邦联条例》（1781年）进行的第一次合并尝试，证明是不切实际的，因为它为前殖民地保留了太多的自治权。只是在出现了一些进一步的威胁，著名的有1786年的和末解决的战争债负担问题，才克服了前殖民地极不愿意牺牲自治的态度，并促使它们通过了我们现行高效能的1787年联邦宪法。19世纪德国的那些小心提防的各邦的统一，证明是同样困难的。在法国于1870年宣战这个外部威胁最后导致1871年小诸侯们向德意志帝国中央政府交出了他们的很大一部分权力之前，早先的3次统一尝试（1848年的法兰克福议会、1850年恢复后的德意志联邦和1866年的北德意志联邦）都失败了。 除了在外力威胁下实现合并外，复杂社会形成的另一种方式是通过征服而实现的。一个得到文件充分证明的例子，是非洲东南部祖鲁国的起源。在白人移民第一次看到祖鲁人时，祖鲁人分为几十个小型的酋长管辖地。在1700年代晚些时候，随着人口压力的增加，各酋长管辖地之间的战争变得日益剧烈起来。在所有这些酋长管辖地中，在集中统一的权力结构的设计中普遍存在的问题，被一个名叫丁吉斯韦约的酋长十分成功地解决了。1807年左右，他杀死了一个对手，从而获得了姆特特瓦酋长管辖地的统治地位。丁吉斯韦约从各个村庄挑选了一些年轻人，按照年龄而不是按照他们的村庄把他们组成团队，就这样建立了一种优秀的集中统一的军事组织。他还发展了出色的中央集权的政治组织，他在征服其他酋长管辖地时禁止杀戮，对被打败的酋长的家族秋毫无犯，只是用这个酋长的一个愿意与丁吉斯韦约合作的亲属来接替酋长的职位。他扩大了对争吵的审理范围，提出了较好的集中解决冲突的办法。这样，丁吉斯韦约就能够征服并开始把其余30个祖鲁族酋长管辖地合并起来。他的继承人扩大司法系统，加强监督和发展礼仪，结果使这个萌芽中的国家得到了加强。 通过征服而形成国家的这个祖鲁族的例子几乎多得不胜枚举。18世纪和19世纪的一些欧洲人碰巧亲眼目睹了由酋长管辖地形成土邦的情况，这些土邦包括被利尼西亚群岛中的夏威夷国、波利尼西亚群岛中的塔希提国、马达加斯加岛的梅里纳国、非洲南部祖鲁