When some possess more than others
The role of inequality in both the rise and fall of political systems
Archived article from Oct 20, 2000
By Douglas Frank
Throughout history there have been the “haves” and the “have nots.” How this unequal distribution of desired commodities has affected war, the rise and fall of states and the genesis of democracy has come under the critical eye of Manus I. Midlarsky, the Moses and Annuta Back Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution at Rutgers.
His book “The Evolution of Inequality: War, State Survival and Democracy in Comparative Perspective” (Stanford University Press), first published in 1999 and now available in a paperback edition, provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the impact of inequality on political systems.
In a discussion that ranges over several millennia and more than 100 countries, Midlarsky provides a framework for understanding how inequality among the inhabitants of a given geographic location can account for both the origin and the dissolution of the state.
Midlarsky points out that scarcity, and scarcity alone, can create an inequality in the distribution of resources. That some possess a larger piece of the pie, he insists, can be dependent only on the amount available, not on the varied abilities of individuals. Such inequality, however, can result in a hierarchy, with those who have acquired a greater share of the resources and control over how they are distributed on top. In this way, leaders and a political system eventually emerge.
“Scarcity leads to more inequality, and this doesn’t depend on natural selection or survival of the fittest,” Midlarsky maintains, noting that a dearth of resources often leads communities to expand into neighboring lands. “And when the elites are conquest elites they can establish very strong inequality by taking over large pieces of territory and gaining control of the resources,” the political scientist points out.
This imbalance becomes the basis of the state, as in England and Prussia, which are classic examples, he says. In both conquests, the Norman and the German, a very strong state emerged, resulting from the great disparity between the conquerors and the conquered.
Conversely, inequality can also lead to the fall of states, Midlarsky says. “In time, under conditions of scarcity, large landholdings continue to grow as a consequence of the sale of small, barely tenable holdings to larger landowners. Alternatively, conquered populations begin to mobilize because the people can now read and write, or they begin to make money and resent continued control of resources by the elite.”
These conquerors are now rulers without much of a mandate to rule, and this can lead to the dissolution of the state through revolution or by the gradual shrinking of the borders as the “barbarians” take over the land because the central government is weakened, says Midlarsky.
Midlarsky also argues that war is not necessary for the formation of states, as others have maintained. He points out that “for all its persistence in history, warfare still is episodic. There are long stretches of historical time when warfare is absent or at least maintained at a fairly low level.”
Using early civilizations as examples, including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes, he finds that evidence of stratification and ranking (signs of the emergence of the state) often occurs earlier than evidence of fortifications and organized violence.
Turning to what he calls the “paradox of democracy,” Midlarsky posits that some level of inequality is necessary for both the formation and the maintenance of democracy. If the inequality of wealth is too great, it can result in strict autocracies as in Latin America during the past century, and if it is too little, communist or socialist states can result. In the middle are most Western democracies, which Midlarsky says can control inequality only through balanced and diverse redistribution of resources.
A specialist in the study of international warfare and national revolution, Midlarsky’s latest book is the “Handbook of War Studies II” (University of Michigan Press), out this year. A compilation of essays from 18 contributors, it updates an earlier work that he describes as an “all-inclusive look at war.”
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