18 Early State and Democracy



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In order to find out the presence of the early state in this or that society, the main point is to determine whether there is a political and governmental organization based on new principles, i.e. on the principles differing from those characteristic of pre-state societies. However, these new principles of government were not necessarily connected just with professional officialdom. It is easy to find an analogy. Today the court may consist only of the professional lawyers but it also may be a jury, i.e. non-professionals, who are constantly changing and whose activity is unpaid. However, nobody will state that only the former can be called a fair court.

6. The economic burden of the polis fell directly upon the rich rather than poor citizens (Berent). It is possible to speak about the state only in case when ‘extractions and obligations become compulsory and are strictly spread on a certain part of society (peasants, craftsmen)’ (Shtaerman, p. 93).



Objections. As it is known, in Athens and other poleis, the citizens did not pay direct taxes, except some extraordinary (only customs duties, trade taxes, and so on). But there were so-called liturgies, i.e. the rich people's duty to pay for any common activity or to do something for the whole society at their own expense: to construct and repair ships and so on. However, the metics and the freedmen paid direct taxes including extraordinary ones and they were also involved in some liturgies alongside with the citizens (Struve et al. 1956: 263–264).

In any case, the fact that in Athens the economic obligations were borne basically by the rich people, in my opinion cannot be a serious argument against the presence of the state there. Otherwise, we should deny the presence of the state in many modern countries where the rich citizens pay basic taxes directly or indirectly. The fact that the polis in a certain sense supported the majority of the population, that is demos, is really not typical of ancient states but on the whole it is not a unique case among states. Do not modern states provide many advantages to the majority of the population and modern demos? Do not the solvent tax bearers complain today that the state distributes social allowance and other help too generously at their expense? This is a distinctive feature of a broad democracy.

By the way, tyrants frequently aspired to impose tax burden on the rich part of the population (Berve 1997), and Berent considers tyrannies as polities of a type close to the state (p. 232).

The same can be said about Rome. If noble or rich people paid more for the rent of public lands, they used them more. It was their privilege. If they bore expenses for elections and performance of public positions, they tried to get these posts by any means. But it is significant to mention that since a certain moment Rome (and Athens since the moment of the Delian League formation) had received the main incomes from tributary lands as it was in the Assyrian, Inca, or Aztec empires as well as in some other early states.

Athens and the Roman Republic are also good examples of application of the state structure in political and social struggle between rich and poor people. However, the results of such confrontations and conflicts are not predetermined. In other words, it is wrongful to think that rich people should always win. Even in large empires there happened victorious revolts of peasants and slaves in the past and in the 20th century there were revolutions that resulted in the socially oppressed classes coming to power. In poleis and civitas the outcome of the struggle between groups of the citizens depended on many variables. It is natural that the victorious part of the citizens began to use the state to change their status and to secure the results of the victory. As Karl Kautsky wrote, ‘the class struggle becomes here (in the states of Greece. – L. G.) a vital element of existence of the state. Participation in such struggle was not considered reprehensible but, on the contrary, it became a performance of the civil duty. In Athens since Solon's time there had been a law in effect that everyone who at a break of the internal struggle did not join any party and did not defend it with the weapon in hands, lost his civil rights’ (Kautsky 1931: 334–335; see also Aristotle 1997: 277).

And although evolutionary the states with political domination of ruling groups combined with their economic superiority began to prevail however, there is no absolute correlation here. For example, in modern societies one part of population can force the other to agree with its requirements through elections. Therefore there is not any reason to regard the state as an organization where one part of a society constantly predominates. It is more correct to consider the state as an organization that helps one part of population force constantly or temporarily the other part to agree with its wishes, or both parts meet a compromise. If one applies such an approach, it will not be a surprise that the demos established its political supremacy in Athens.

7. In the polis ‘application of violence is not monopolized by an agency or a ruling class, and the ability to use force is more or less equally distributed among the armed or potentially armed population’ (Berent, p. 225). In Rome ‘coercion was applied only sporadically’, and ‘in time of distempers the matters were solved in street fights without intervention of governmental bodies’ (Shtaerman, p. 87, 88).

Objections. The monopoly of legitimate application of physical coercion (Weber) is missing not only in many early states12 but also in the mature ones. Did not a serf-owner in Russia or slave-owner in the Southern States have the right to apply violence towards their serfs and slaves? So, such a monopoly cannot be a distinctive attribute of either the early state or the state in general. As Ernest Gellner notes fairly, this Max Weber's principle obviously takes the centralized state of the Western type as a sample although there are states that neither wish nor are capable of ensuring the observance of such monopoly (Gellner 1991: 28–29). Or we should rather add, they do not consider it necessary and do not aim at it.

However, on the whole in the state formation process there was an evident tendency towards exactly the state concentrating the right to recognize guilt or innocence, to authorize the application of coercion on the part of individuals so that it would not be an obvious arbitrariness (for example, towards a slave, a debtor and so on). So it is not only the monopoly of application of coercion that is typical of an early state but the concentration of lawful application of force. It could be expressed in monopoly on some kinds of application of lawful violence (for example, in execution of judicial verdicts) or in monopoly on the authority sanction to apply force even if a verdict was carried out by the interested part, or in interdiction of some types of violence (for example, regarding the blood feud; see e.g., about the Aztec state [Kurtz 1984: 307]) and so on.

A certain (and rather considerable) concentration of legitimate compulsion and violence took place in Athens and other poleis, as well as in Rome. The power there first of all aspired to supervise the distribution of the sanction to violence. If the interested parties or activists were able to deliver the accused people to the court themselves, it meant that no special state apparatus was required for this purpose. In this case a more important fact is not that the citizens had arms and quite often arrested the accused or criminals to deliver them to the court but that the body that pronounced judgement on the culpability or innocence, i.e. the court, as well as the execution of death penalty verdicts, both were in hands of the state.

Thus, a developed apparatus of coercion is not strictly obligatory for an early state. However it is evident that in the process of state system development the combination of the tendency towards monopolization of the right for violence on the one hand, and the formation of special bodies of violence on the other hand, reveals itself as evolutionary leading and becomes the most widespread factor.

As for the settlement of disputes between groups of the citizens in ‘street fights’ it was not only typical of the Roman Republic but it took place in other states too. In the Novgorod Republic in ancient Rus parties of aristocrats (boyars) were at enmity and sometimes a meeting finished in fights of debaters ([Bernadsky] 1967: 268; Froyanov and Dvornichenko 1986: 235, 238). But it is not an argument to name Novgorod a stateless society.

8. In polis the imperious actions depend on the correlation of strength of different social groups and groupings of the citizens. On the contrary, in agrarian states the overwhelming majority is discharged of power and main political actions are carried out between parts of elite (Berent).

Objections. It is necessary to take into account once again that polis is a democratic state. Any democracy, especially the one where it is honorable to have political rights, is always connected with the electorate power.

Thus, we come back to the problem whether the early state should only be the means of dictatorship of a social (class) minority or there can be alternatives. I believe that though the first case was more spread and evolutionary dominant, the situation could turn the other way round.

However, it is necessary to emphasize that even in the mature states of the East the state rather frequently acted as an independent supra-class and supra-estate force. As Alayev fairly remarks, in the medieval Asia ‘the state as an apparatus was not the representative of class interests of feudal lords (rent receivers as a whole) but on the contrary, was a structure built over the main classes’ (1995: 623). So people of the lowest ranks together with their supporters can take the helm of state machine when a revolt or revolution succeeded.

Thus, the general features of the state as a machine that can be conducted by different forces were available both in democratic and monarchic societies. The only difference is that in the former such a rotation occurred regularly while in the latter it was casual.

Undoubtedly, in the monarchic states in most cases ‘the main political actions took place among parts of elite’. But let me point out that the more despotic the state is the smaller is the role played by parts of elite. And the main intrigues sometimes are simply transferred to the palace or harem of a sovereign. So basically, the elite is already removed from influencing the decision-making process. Besides, a reshuffle of personnel structure took place quite often in bureaucratic states and thousands of officials lost positions and power.

On the other hand, when the power was in more difficult situations, decisions were taken very frequently on the basis of ‘correlation of strength of different social groups’ and their wishes. Then the parliaments, Estates General, Zemskij sobor (the analogue of States General in Russia), and similar bodies were called.

In the polis much depended on the correlation of power of the citizens' different social groups and groupings. The vector of its social policy depended on those who possessed the state power at a definite moment. Such a system is rather typical of some medieval states for example, Italian city-republics. Were there not many turnabouts in the social and economic policy in the 20th century because of the political victory in elections of a certain party? Was it not the way Nazism had been established in Germany? Was it not in Chile in 1970 when socialists came to power? But anyway, in modern societies the state is better conceived as an arena where competing groups struggle to gain a greater share of social power but it is not an instrument under the collective control of a dominant class (Stuart-Fox 2002: 136).

Thus, in polis and in the Roman Republic (if we ignore the separation of the slaves and people not possessing full rights from participation in public life) the state acted as a special machine, as a special means of implementing the goals of the groups that temporarily became its masters. Meanwhile in most cases the state was a patrimony of certain royal families having the specific sacral rights. Such a system ideologically unacceptable for us, at the same time was evolutionary much more stable and consequently progressive than the democratic polis system which is ideologically closer to us.



However, we would like to argue once again that it is impossible to consider the evolutionary crystallized type of the state as the only type of the state in general.

Attributes distinguishing the early state

from its analogues in application

to the polis and civitas

From my point of view, in order to prove that Athens and the Roman Republic were early states despite all their specificity, it is also important to show that the four attributes I have formulated to distinguish an early state from its analogues (Grinin 2002b, 2003c: 145–161) are characteristic of poleis and civitas. The analysis of the state structure and political functioning of Athens and the Roman Republic in such respect provides additional proves for the argument that they were just early states but not analogues.

I remind that I pointed out four distinctive attributes of the early states:

specific properties (attributes) of the supreme power;

new principles of government;

non-traditional and new forms of regulating social life;

redistribution of power.

Specific properties of the supreme power

Regardless of the way the political system of Athens and Rome can be interpreted, the supreme power in these societies undoubtedly demonstrates sufficient might, completeness of functions, and ability to self-reforming. Sometimes there were too many changes and they happened too often that made power for example, in Athens quite unstable.

But the role of the supreme power is different in large and small states. For small states like Athens, the supreme power as I have already mentioned, is something quite inaccurate from the geographical point of view. Actually, Athens gradually became the geographical center because of her hegemony in the Delian League.

But in terms of supreme rights the strength of this power in Athens is quite obvious. The supreme source of power, i.e. the assembly of citizens (ecclesia), and bodies to delegate its power are available. It is combined with a precise order and special procedure of making, processing, approving, and canceling decisions as well as of their performance supervision. It is significant to remark that the power structure and system of division of powers is getting more and more complicated in the course of time.

The role of the supreme power is self-evident in large states. The center of an empire is the largest center of power affecting somehow all peripheries. The city of Rome gradually became such a center. The orders proceeded from there and also the governors were sent to the provinces, settlers left for the dependent lands, the victorious armies with loot came back there, grain and other products from the conquered territories were also delivered there.

The specific properties of the supreme power do not mean that it always acts reasonably, far-sighted, in the interests of the society, and so on. The main point here is that the supreme power can impose its will, change important relations in a society, mobilize its forces to solve the major tasks, levy or cancel taxes, and so on. Whom such a will proceeds from (the monarch, aristocracy, national assembly, senate, etc.) depends on the state structure. But the important point here is that this is а) the will of not hundred percent of a society; b) the decisions or requirements stated by this will are the most legitimate; c) in order to change the already existing provisions, the decision of the same supreme power and a special procedure are required; d) disobedience to this will and moreover, denying its rights is considered as a serious offence and is punished severely. In particular, in Athens in 410 B.C. a special law was adopted which declared a public enemy everyone who would try to depose the democratic regime of Athens or take any post during the deposition of democracy. Those who were guilty of this crime were to be subjected to death penalties and their property was to be confiscated. Everyone could easily kill such a malefactor and receive half of his property. After the deposition of the government of the Thirty Tyrants this law was complemented by the permission to inform against those threatening democracy (Berve 1997: 261–264; Vipper 1995: 253).

Both in Athens and Rome we see that the supreme power turns out to be capable to implement active foreign policy and sustained wars, mobilize resources, impose new taxes or cancel them, change radically the political regime and territorial arrangement, expand as it was in Rome or narrow the civil rights as it was in Athens, change the property relations13, etc.14 It can be rather severe towards the citizens: to exile innocent people (the ostracism in Athens), hand them over to the court, confiscate their property.

New principles of government

a) New phenomena in formation of the government apparatus

As it has been noted, not all the early states were bureaucratic ones. Some of them were not bureaucratic at all because of their small size (for example, the Anglo-Saxon states in 7–8th centuries (Blair [1966]: 240–241) or their bureaucratization was relatively weak, especially in the conquered territory as in the states like the Aztecs' (Johnson and Earle 2000: 306). I consider it wrong not to refer such polities to the early states. Therefore I tried to describe the new principles of government as generalized as possible in order to make them more eligible for both bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic states.

Let me remind that I have pointed out the new approaches to the administrative body (and/or armies) formation among the new principles of government (Grinin 2002b, 2003c: 151–152). It means that essential changes occurred in the methods of selection for administrative and military posts in the early states; and also that the importance of the new types of functionaries and warriors increased there in contrast to the situation in state analogues. However, these changes in government are not connected everywhere with the presence of professional officials, police, regular army, etc. In many cases these institutions have been replaced with others.

For example, there were many functionaries and officials but few career officers in Athens and Rome. Though the apparatus of management and coercion in Athens and Rome was not so powerful as in bureaucratic countries, it was still quite numerous, especially in Athens. In the 4th century B.C. there lived only 200,000 people including slaves and metics. At the same time many hundreds of citizens were directly involved in administration (being elected or chosen by lot). If those who took part in sessions in turn (as in the Council of Five Hundred where only fifty members worked permanently during the 1/10 of a year) were added, the number of functionaries would go over a thousand. The technical staff like secretaries was also available in the Council of Five Hundred. Besides many officials operated outside Athens (in the interests of the Navy and on diplomatic matters). According to Aristotle (1997: 294), the number of such people was up to 700. There was also a judicial body (heliaia) of 6,000 (!) judges (but actually they were not professionals. The members of the court were selected by lot)15.

So the main difference between Athens and Rome on the one hand and bureaucratic states on the other is in the methods of staffing, replacement and payroll payment of the officials. However, it is exceptionally important to point out that the poleis and civitas form of government differed greatly from the pre-state and state-analogue forms and should be regarded as an early state. Let us give a more detailed consideration to this point.

One of the major innovations of the Athenian administration was that the absolute majority of officials and judges received salary. Due to this the major part of citizens could be supported. According to Aristotle, over 20,000 people were getting allowances from the state treasury. Besides the officials mentioned above, there were ‘1,600 archers plus 1,200 horsemen… When the war started later on, in addition to them there were 2,500 hoplites, twenty patrol ships, plus ships for transportation of 2,000 garrison soldiers …and also warders in prisons’ (Aristotle 1997: 293–294). Moreover, the citizens began to receive payment for visiting national assemblies and other public events.

We can give examples of pre-state and state-analogue polities where officials were selected by voting or by lot. There were also officials among them, particularly judges who got some compensation (for example, in medieval Iceland). However, I do not know examples of non-state polities where the administrative posts were so widely used to keep the citizens' well-being (the analogy with socialist states where everybody was either a state worker or an employee can be drawn at this point). According to Vipper's calculations, about 150 talents that is 3/8 of the local (only Athenian) budget, or 1/7 including the allies' payments, were spent on this purpose during the rule of Pericles (Vipper 1995: 215).

The fact that the Athenian polity supported its citizens at the expense of the taxes levied on the allies, state ownership and taxes imposed on the metics, proves once again that it was an organization acting in the interests of not the whole but a part of the population also aimed at exploitation of other polities. In other words, it was an early state.

The repressive apparatus was also available. For example, the total number of police sub-units in Athens was initially 300 and later 1,200 people (Kuchma 1998: 121–122). Though certainly it was not police from the modern point of view (Hansen 1991: 124).

Thus, some new principles of government were present in Athens. Though there were not so many professional managers, some of them usually occupied the supreme positions (in particular, those of strategi) and the others provided the continuity of management in various bodies as technicians. It is worth reminding once again that the army gradually became totally professional.

Quite a considerable number of officials was available in Rome too and it was growing constantly (though on the whole there were much fewer officials than in Athens). Meanwhile, the hierarchical structure of magistrates had been becoming more and more harmonious and distinct. The special Roman officials (the prefects) worked in a number of Italic communities.

Unlike in Athens, most of the offices in Rome were unpaid. But, the executive power was stronger there than in Athens. The range of consuls' authorities was always significant and their power was simply unlimited in wartime including the right to adjudicate the death sentences that were irreversible (outside Rome). On the whole, a governor of a province, proconsul or propraetor, had all the dictatorial authorities, i.e. full military, administrative, police, and fiscal power.

In addition, it is noteworthy that in Rome the magisterial service was unpaid but it was combined with the fact that according to the approved regulation all the officials had a certain number of low-ranked employees (apparitores) paid from the state treasury. When a change of magistrate took place this entire staff passed to the disposal of a new chief. The lictors who performed the security functions and those of the guard of honor were the most important among low-ranked employees. They could detain offenders and punish them if a high-rank official ordered. The number of lictors ran from six to twenty-four depending on the rank of magistrate. In addition to the lictors the magistrate was also given messengers, heralds, secretaries, clerks, accountants, and others. State slaves were given for the affairs humiliating free people (Kuchma 1998: 165–166).

It is also significant that though the term of office for Roman magistrates was limited (normally a year) and it was forbidden for a person to occupy several supreme posts in a row, however this rule was not strictly observed or actually was not observed at all (Mommsen 1993: 41). Moreover, the senate had the right (which was used widely) to expand the officials' authorities after the expiration of the term of their service (however not in the city of Rome). The main point here is that since the 4th century B.C. it had been approved that ‘all those who had performed the duties of consul, censor, praetor, or curule aedile were obligatorily included into the structure of the Senate after the term of office had been over’ (Mommsen 1993: 42). Taking into account that the rank of senator was lifelong and that proconsuls and propraetors got appointments in provinces, basically from the former magistrates, it turned out that a man elected for one of supreme magistracies for a year actually was included in the layer of governors for his whole life. The law on the order of magistrate operation of 180 B.C. strengthened the role of the Senate in the promotion of nominees for positions (Kuzishchin 1994: 92).


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