Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T18:57:25.093Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Model of Fluctuating Labor Value and the Establishment of State Power: An Application to the Prehispanic Maya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Elliot M. Abrams
Elliot M. Abrams*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Assessment of the nature of intrasocietal relationships in the context of the origin of state-level power is a critical area of study within anthropological archaeology. A well-established model of such emergent political relations (Wittfogel 1957) posits that differential access to land, coupled with intensification of agriculture, places common farmers in a position of inferiority, and thus subjects them to exploitation by the elite controllers of intensive agriculture. The central thesis of this article is that the initial relationship between the elite controllers and the common laborers in an intensive agricultural system was mutually beneficial, with the state only capable of exercising more exploitative power some generations after the establishment of intensive agriculture. I argue that the economic measure of marginal productivity may best reflect each farmer’s personal contribution to agriculture, and that, in a largely kin-based system, it is difficult for the emergent elite to exercise exploitative power when the marginal productivity of labor is high. I support the thesis on the basis of the simulated trajectory of marginal productivity, which indicates that marginal product increases with intensification. I explore the model further in a consideration of the rise of the Classic Maya kingdom of Copán, Honduras.

La evaluación del carácter de las relaciones intrasociales en el contexto del origen del poder al nivel del estado es un área crítica de estudio dentro de la arqueología antropológica. Un modelo bien establecido de tales relaciones políticas emergentes (Wittfogel 1957) propone que el acceso diferencial a la tierra, junto con la intensificación de la agricultura, pone a los campesinos en una posición de inferioridad, y los sujeta a explotación por parte de las élites controladoras de la agricultura intensiva. La tesis central de este artículo es que la relación inicial entre las élites controladoras y los trabajadores comunes en un sistema intensivo de agricultura era mutuamente benéfica, con el estado solamente capaz de ejercer un poder más explotador algunas generaciones después del establecimiento de la agricultura intensiva. Planteo que la medida económica de la producción marginal refleja la contribución personal de cada campesino a la agricultura mejor que el producto total, y que en una sistema familiar, es dificil para una elite emergente ejercer poder explotador cuando la productividad marginal de trabajo está alta. Amparo la tesis a base de la trayectoría simulada de productividad marginal, que indica que el producto marginal se incrementa con la intensificación. Exploro este modelo con mayor extensión por considerar el establecimiento del reino Clásico Maya de Copán, Honduras.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 196 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Abrams, E. M. 1987 Economic Specialization and Construction Personnel in Classic Period Copan, Honduras. American Antiquity 52:485–199.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. M. 1989 Architecture and Energy: An Evolutionary Perspective. In Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 1, edited by M. Schiffer, pp. 47-87. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. M. 1994 How the Maya Built Their World: Energetics and Ancient Architecture. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. M., and Freter, A. 1988 Intra-polity Economics at the Maya Center of Copán, Honduras. Paper presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Phoenix.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. M., and Rue, D. 1988 The Causes and Consequences of Deforestation among the Prehistoric Maya. Human Ecology 16:377–395.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. 1978 Ceramic Variability, Environment and Culture History among the Pokom in the Valley of Guatemala. In Spatial Organisation of Culture, edited by I. Hodder, pp. 39–59. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. (editor) 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Barbour, W. T. D. 1986 Gender and Role in Teotihuacan Figurines. Paper presented at the University Seminar on Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Bentley, G. C. 1986 Indigenous States of Southeast Asia. Annual Review of Anthropology 15:275–305.Google Scholar
Bohannan, P. 1959 Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv. American Anthropologist 57:60–70.Google Scholar
Boserup, E. 1965 The Conditions of Agricultural Growth. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Boserup, E. 1970 Woman’s Role in Economic Development. George Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Boserup, E. 1981 Population and Technological Change. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Chase, D. Z., and Chase, A. (editors) 1992 Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Chayanov, A. V. 1966 The Theory of Peasant Economy. R. D. Irwin, Homewood, Illinois.Google Scholar
Cheek, C. 1983 Excavaciones en la Plaza Principal. In Introductión a la Arqueología de Copán, Honduras, Tomo II, edited by C. Baudez, pp. 191–289. Secretaria de Estado en el Despacho de Cultura y Turismo, Tegucigalpa, D.C., Honduras.Google Scholar
Cheek, C. 1986 Construction Activity as a Measurement of Change at Copán, Honduras. In The Southeast Maya Periphery, edited by P. Urban and E. Schortman, pp. 50–71. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. 1993 Men and Women in Prehistory: An Archaeological Challenge. In Gender in Cross-cultural Perspective, edited by C. B. Brettell and C. F. Sargent, pp. 41–50. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Cowgill, G. 1993 Distinguished Lecture in Archaeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archaeology. American Anthropologist 95:551–573.Google Scholar
Demarest, A. 1992 Ideology in Ancient Maya Cultural Evolution: The Dynamics of Galactic Polities. In Ideology and Pre-Columbian Civilizations, edited by A. Demarest and G. Conrad, pp. 135–157. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Earle, T. 1978 Economic and Social Organization of a Complex Chiefdom: The Halelea District, Kauai, Hawaii. Anthropological Papers No. 63. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, T., and Christenson, A. 1980 Modeling Change in Prehistoric Subsistence Economies. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1983 Maya State Formation: A Case Study and its Implications. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Fash, W. 1991 Scribes, Warriors, and Kings: The City of Copán and the Ancient Maya. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Foust, J. B., and deSouza, A. 1978 The Economic Landscape: A Theoretical Introduction. Merrill, Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
Fox, J. 1987 Maya Postclassic State Formation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Freter, A. 1988 The Classic Maya Collapse at Copán, Honduras: A Regional Settlement Perspective. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Freter, A. 1991 A Reconstruction of the Late Classic Rural Ceramic Production System in the Copán Valley, Honduras. Paper presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Freter, A. 1992 Chronological Research at Copán: Methods and Implications. Ancient Mesoamerica 3:117–134.Google Scholar
Freter, A. 1994 The Classic Maya Collapse at Copán, Honduras: An Analysis of Rural Settlement Variation and Its Implications. In Village Communities in Early Complex Societies, edited by G. Schwartz and S. Falconer, pp. 160–176. Smithsonian Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Fried, M. 1967 The Evolution of Political Society. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. 1963 Agricultural Involution. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Harris, M. 1992 Distinguished Lecture: Anthropology and the Theoretical and Paradigmatic Significance of the Collapse of Soviet and East European Communism. American Anthropologist 94:295–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haviland, W. 1988 Musical Hammocks at Tikal: Problems with Reconstructing Household Composition. In Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past, edited by R. Wilk and W. Ashmore, pp. 121–134. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hayden, B., and Cannon, A. 1982 The Corporate Group as an Archaeological Unit. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:132–158.Google Scholar
Hendon, J. 1992 Status and Power in Classic Maya Society: An Archaeological Study. American Anthropologist 93:894–918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentz, D. 1991 Maya Diets of the Rich and Poor: Paleoethnobotanical Evidence from Copán. Latin American Antiquity 2:269–287.Google Scholar
Mallory, J. 1984 Late Classic Maya Economic Specialization: Evidence from the Copdn Obsidian Assemblage. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Martin, K., and Voorhies, B. 1975 Female of the Species. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. 1991 Classic Maya Emblem Glyphs. In Classic Maya Political History, edited by T. P. Culbert, pp. 19–29. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1990 [1950] The Gift. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Millon, R. 1976 Social Relations in Ancient Teotihuacan. In The Valley of Mexico, edited by E. Wolf, pp. 205–248. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Price, B. 1978 Secondary State Formation: An Explanatory Model. In Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution, edited by R. Cohen and E. Service, pp. 161–186. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Price, B. 1984 Competition, Productive Intensification and Ranked Society: Speculations from Evolutionary Theory. In Warfare, Culture, and Environment, edited by B. Ferguson, pp. 209–240. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Rathje, W. 1971 The Origin and Development of Classic Maya Civilization. American Antiquity 36:275–285.Google Scholar
Rue, D. 1986 A Palynological Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Human Impact in the Copan Valley, Honduras. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Rue, D. 1987 Early Agriculture and Early Postclassic Occupation in Western Honduras. Nature 326(6110):285–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rue, D., Freter, A., and Ballinger, D. 1989 The Caverns of Copán Revisited: Preclassic Sites in the Sesesmil River Valley, Copan, Honduras. Journal of Field Archaeology 16:395–404.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1972 Stone Age Economics. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. 1973 The Cultural Ecology of the Lowland Maya: A Reevaluation. In The Classic Maya Collapse, edited by T. P. Culbert, pp. 325–366. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. 1977 Environmental Heterogeneity and the Evolution of Lowland Maya Civilization. In The Origins of Maya Civilization, edited by R. E. W. Adams, pp. 287–298. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. 1986 Excavaciones en el Area Vrbana de Copán, Tomo I. Secretaria de Cultura y Turismo, Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. 1989 Household, Lineage and the State in 8th Century Copan. In The House of the Bacabs, Copán: A Study of the Iconography, Epigraphy and Social Context of a Maya Elite Structure, edited by D. Webster, pp. 89–105. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Sanders, W., and Price, B. 1968 Mesoamerica: The Evolution of a Civilization. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Sanders, W., and Webster, D. 1978 Unilinealism, Multilinealism, and the Evolution of Complex Societies. In Social Archaeology: Beyond Subsistence and Dating, edited by C. Redman, M. Berman, E. Curin, W Longhorne, Jr., N. Vergassi, and J. Wanser, pp. 249–302. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sanders, W., and Webster, D. 1988 The Mesoamerican Urban Tradition. American Anthropologist 90:521–546.Google Scholar
Schneider, H. 1974 Economic Man. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Service, E. 1962 Primitive Social Organization. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Sharer, R., Miller, J., and Traxler, L. 1992 Evolution of Classic Period Architecture in the Eastern Acropolis, Copán: A Progress Report. Ancient Mesoamerica 3:145–160.Google Scholar
Sidrys, R. 1979 Supply and Demand among the Classic Maya. Current Anthropology 20:594–597.Google Scholar
Smith, T. 1959 The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. Stanford University Press, Stanford.Google Scholar
Spink, M. 1983 Metates as Socioeconomic Indicators During the Classic Period at Copán, Honduras. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Storey, R. 1992 The Children of Copán: Issues in Paleopathology and Paleodemography. Ancient Mesoamerica 3:161–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuart, D. 1992 Hieroglyphs and Archaeology at Copán. Ancient Mesoamerica 3:169–184.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. 1974 The Modern World-System I. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Webster, D. 1977 Warfare and the Evolution of Maya Civilization. In The Origins of Maya Civilization, edited by R. E. W Adams, pp. 335–372. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Webster, D. 1985 Surplus, Labor and Stress in Late Classic Maya Society. Journal of Anthropological Research 41:375–399.Google Scholar
Webster, D., Sanders, W., and van Rossum, P. 1992 A Simulation of Copán Population History and Its Implications. Ancient Mesoamerica 3:185–197.Google Scholar
Webster, G. 1990 Labor Control and Emergent Stratification in Prehistoric Europe. Current Anthropology 31:337–366.Google Scholar
Wingard, J. 1992 The Role of Soils in the Development and Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization at Copán, Honduras. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, B., and Smith, E. 1981 Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, K. 1957 Oriental Despotism. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. 1966 Peasants. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Wright, H. T. 1994 Prestate Political Formations. In Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East, edited by G. Stein and M. Rothman, pp. 67–84. Monographs in World Archaeology No. 18. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar