The Power of the State in the Old Days

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The power of the state in these early versions I assume, where it was mainly just taking stuff but leaving enough for you to keep you somewhat whole is very costly. So why is it that some places that adopted farming develop these sophisticated hierarchies leading to the early city states of Mesopotamia and then the central state of Egypt? Other places like New Guinea, which adopted farming at the same time as Egypt just stayed with this nothing much small tribes that keep on fighting each other. These are areas in which land productivity is low according to the conventional story so we flow land productivity no surplus no state. Now what we say is a different story in areas inWhich land is highly productive but it is

Since at least Adam Smith, the common wisdom has been that the transition from hunter-gathering to farming allowed the creation of the State. Farming, so went the theory, led to agricultural surplus, and that surplus is the prerequisite for taxation and a State. But economist Omer Moav of the University of Warwick and Reichman University argues that it wasn't farming but the farming of a particular kind of crop (but not others) that led to hierarchy and the State. Moav explains to EconTalk host Russ Roberts storability is the key dimension that allows for taxation and a State. The conversation includes a discussion of why it's important to understand the past and the challenges of confirming or refuting theories about history.