The Hobbesian myth posits that early human life was "nasty, brutish, and short," and that the invention of the state was a rational contract to escape this violent state of nature. However, anthropological evidence from the Neolithic revolution suggests a different causal chain. The shift from foraging to sedentary agriculture did not initially increase caloric intake or leisure; rather, it created storable surpluses and fixed property. This material transformation necessitated a corresponding shift in mechanisms of social control. Nomadic bands relied on informal networks and fission-fusion dynamics to resolve conflicts. Sedentary agrarian communities, bound to land and surplus, required disciplinary surveillance and codified law to protect property and enforce hierarchy. The state did not emerge to suppress pre-existing natural violence; it emerged to manage and protect the novel inequalities generated by agrarian accumulation. Violence was not the cause of the state, but the state's coercive apparatus was the cause of the systemic violence required to maintain property relations. Which of the following best captures the author's critique of the Hobbesian myth regarding the origins of the state?
C
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a causal_verification question requiring you to trace the true direction of causality between violence, property, and state formation as argued by the author.
Step 1: Identify the Hobbesian myth's causal claim. The myth claims: pre-existing natural violence → rational contract → state formation (to suppress violence).
Step 2: Identify the author's counter-claim. The author argues the Neolithic revolution created storable surpluses and fixed property. This material shift required new mechanisms of control (disciplinary surveillance, codified law).
Step 3: Trace the author's causal chain. Agrarian accumulation → novel inequalities → need to protect property → state emergence. Therefore, the state's coercive apparatus caused the systemic violence required to maintain property, rather than solving pre-existing violence.
Step 4: Evaluate options. Option C perfectly mirrors this reversed causality: the state is a coercive apparatus to protect property inequalities, not a solution to natural violence.
Step 5: Eliminate distractors. A invents "external violence." B overstates the case ("entirely peaceful") which the passage doesn't claim. D contradicts the passage's explicit denial that agriculture initially increased welfare/leisure.
Answer: C