"What you really need is not surplus, but a food that is easily taxed," he says. Malthusian theory: higher fertility if there is life above subsistence and as a result of increased population in copper capital declines back to the level of subsistence meaning no surplus. "Even today you cannot tell the government, sorry, I don't have any surplus."
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.