Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Confusion Over Methods of Resource Extraction

In today’s reading from Liverani, some of our questions about how wealth was extracted from the producers were answered, but I find his explanation somewhat convoluted and poorly articulated. The third chapter implies that the work and produce were forced from the people by the central administration, while the fourth chapter seems to say that they were given more or less freely by people compelled by religion or desire to help uphold the system. While the two systems aren’t necessarily incompatible, it is unclear how they interacted and which carried the most weight.

The third chapter argues that seasonal labor was carried out by large groups of forced laborers. It is not clear how these workers were forced, we are only told that the central administration makes them work but gives them rations of food that Liverani doesn’t consider payment. Later the military and guards are discussed, but nowhere in that section is anything mentioned about the use of centrally controlled military or police force to control the corvée system.

The next chapter offers a brief look at the religion of Uruk and an argument as to why and how it was implemented. Liverani argues that the state was tied in with religion to ease the taking of resources: the people were more willing to give to a super-human idea than to a human ruler. He explains that private citizens made “offerings” to the gods to receive benefits in turn. However, it is unclear what is meant by “offerings;” were offerings the whole amount owed or were they small gifts? Also, if the state was to use religion to extract the required resources, where does force come in? Later he gives examples of proverbs and poems that give moral and logical reasons for the people to give their share to the central administration, but it is very unclear how this benevolence ties in with the forced labor argued for in the previous chapter. As so much of Liverani’s argument depends on offering a mechanism for central accumulation of wealth, it is surprising how unclear he is about the interactions and specific meanings of the mechanisms that he proposes.

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