the question that’s been nagging at me lately: what’s the deal with the state? what’s the state origins. you know, that big, hulking thing we’re told keeps society from collapsing into chaos—governments, bureaucracies, laws, and all that jazz. we’re fed this story that the state is the natural endpoint of human progress, like it’s the inevitable boss level in the video game of civilization. but what if that’s just a tall tale? what if the state doesn’t have some grand origin story, no moment where humanity collectively decided, “yep, we need a ruler to sort this mess out”?
i’ve been chewing on this for a while, digging into the messy, fascinating ways humans have organized themselves over millennia. the state, as we know it, feels like a monolith, but when you start peeling back the layers, it’s more like a patchwork quilt—stitched together from countless experiments, accidents, and choices. there’s no single spark that lit the fuse, no eureka moment where someone invented “the state” like it’s the wheel or fire. instead, what we’ve got is a kaleidoscope of human societies, each tinkering with power, cooperation, and control in their own way. so, let’s dive into why the state’s origin story is less lord of the rings and more like a choose-your-own-adventure book with half the pages missing.
no single blueprint for power
first off, let’s ditch the idea that the state emerged because humans suddenly got “civilized” and needed someone to keep the barbarians at bay. that’s the hobbesian vibe—thomas hobbes, the 17th-century philosopher who argued life without a state would be “nasty, brutish, and short.” it’s a compelling story, sure, but it’s got more holes than a slice of swiss cheese. when you look at the archaeological record, you see something wilder: humans have been messing around with social structures for tens of thousands of years, and they didn’t just stumble into states because they got tired of being free.
take the ancient city of teotihuacan in mexico, for example. around 2,000 years ago, it was a bustling metropolis, home to tens of thousands of people. you’d expect a place like that to have a king lording over everyone, right? but here’s the kicker: archaeologists haven’t found evidence of a single ruler calling the shots. no palaces, no royal tombs, just a city planned with eerie precision—think grid-like streets and massive pyramids. the people there seem to have run things collectively, maybe through councils or shared rituals, without needing a big boss. now, compare that to ancient egypt, where pharaohs were basically gods on earth, their power cemented by divine claims and monumental tombs. two wildly different setups, both thriving in their own way. no one-size-fits-all recipe for power here.
or let’s rewind even further, to the neolithic “mega-sites” in ukraine, like nebelivka, from around 6,000 years ago. these were massive settlements, housing thousands, with houses arranged in neat circles like some prehistoric urban planner’s fever dream. you’d think a place that big would need a centralized authority to keep things humming—tax collectors, maybe, or a proto-police force. but nope. the evidence points to a kind of egalitarian setup, where people cooperated without anyone cracking the whip. these folks were building complex societies long before anyone dreamed up the word “bureaucracy.”
what’s the takeaway? power doesn’t always mean top-down control. humans have been playing with different ways to organize—sometimes hierarchical, sometimes not—since forever. the state, as we imagine it, isn’t the endgame of social evolution; it’s just one of many experiments. and those experiments? they’re shaped by culture, ecology, and plain old human stubbornness, not some universal law that says, “thou shalt have a king.”
debunking state origins: the myth of inevitability
here’s where things get juicy. we’re told the state is inevitable because humans are messy creatures who need rules to avoid stabbing each other over the last slice of mammoth meat. it’s the old “agriculture leads to surplus, surplus leads to inequality, inequality leads to kings” pipeline. sounds neat, doesn’t it? except it’s about as accurate as a horoscope. the real story is way more chaotic—and way more interesting.
let’s talk about the inka empire for a sec. when the spanish rolled into peru in the 16th century, they were gobsmacked by the inka’s organizational skills—roads, storehouses, a whole system of knotted cords called khipu to keep track of everything. classic state, right? but dig deeper, and you find something funky. the inka didn’t just impose their rule; they built on local traditions of communal labor and village networks called ayllu. power was distributed, not hoarded at the top. the sapa inka, their ruler, wasn’t some untouchable god-king; he was more like a figurehead for a system that relied on local cooperation. it’s less “all hail the king” and more “let’s all pitch in, but with fancy hats.”
now, swing over to the mississippian culture in north america, around 1,000 years ago. cahokia, their biggest city, had mounds that rivaled egypt’s pyramids in ambition. but unlike egypt, there’s no clear sign of a centralized state pulling the strings. instead, you’ve got clans, councils, and rituals tying people together. when cahokia’s population dipped, it wasn’t because some evil empire invaded; people just… left. they picked up their stuff and tried something else, maybe because they didn’t like the vibe anymore. that’s not the behavior of folks chained to a state; it’s the kind of flexibility you see in societies that value choice over control.
the point is, states—or things we call states—don’t just pop up because humans hit a certain population size or start growing wheat. they’re the result of specific choices, often reversible ones. sometimes, people leaned into hierarchy; other times, they gave it the middle finger and went full egalitarian. the mesopotamian city of uruk, one of the earliest “states,” had temples and scribes, sure, but it also had assemblies where regular folks had a say. compare that to the modern state, where you’re lucky if your vote feels like it matters. the past wasn’t a straight line to our present; it was a labyrinth of possibilities.
so, what’s the state, anyway?
by now, you’re probably wondering: if the state doesn’t have a clear origin, what the heck is it? great question, and i’m not gonna pretend there’s a tidy answer. the state, as we think of it—governments, laws, police—is a relatively recent invention, cobbled together from older ideas about power, loyalty, and obligation. but those ideas? they’ve been around forever, remixed in countless ways.
think of it like a spotify playlist. every society has its own mix of tracks—some lean heavy on authority, others vibe with cooperation. the state we know today, with its borders and tax forms, is just one playlist, not the whole music library. and it’s not even the best one, if you ask me. ancient societies like the indus valley civilization, with their sprawling cities and no obvious kings, were jamming to a different tune—maybe one where urban planning and trade didn’t need a dictator to keep the beat.
what ties all this together is human agency. we’re not doomed to live under states because of some evolutionary glitch. we choose how to organize, even if those choices are shaped by circumstance. the calusa of florida, a fishing society that ran a complex tribute system without farming, didn’t need a state to thrive. neither did the haudenosaunee, whose confederacy balanced power across five nations without a single overlord. these aren’t exceptions; they’re proof that humans are creative as hell when it comes to living together.
so why do we cling to the state like it’s our only option? part of it’s habit, part of it’s fear—fear that without someone in charge, we’d all turn into mad max extras. but history whispers something else: we’ve done this differently before, and we could again. the state’s not a monolith; it’s a story we keep telling ourselves. and stories? they can be rewritten.
this brings me to a final thought, one that’s been rattling around my brain like a loose penny. if the state’s just one way of doing things, what happens when we imagine something else? not some utopian fantasy, but a real, grounded look at how we could share power, make decisions, and live without assuming hierarchy’s the only game in town. archaeology and anthropology give us glimpses of those possibilities—societies that valued freedom, not just order. maybe it’s time we dusted off those ideas and gave them a spin. after all, if our ancestors could experiment with power, why can’t we?
reference:
graeber, david, and david wengrow. the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity. london: allen lane, 2021.
