Act I

The First Power Civilizations

To understand the emergence of capital as a mode of power and the tragedy of human development, we need to consider earlier modes of power and the rise of complex human hierarchies. It has been suggested by scientists of complexity that any complex system such as human political communities follows certain rules of interaction that results in certain outcomes while at the same time restricting alternative possibilities. What this suggests to us is that within any mode of power there will be fairly particular rules of interaction that tend to reinforce, but yet perhaps at times undermine the social relations of power, privilege, and hierarchy. It is the task of Act I to begin our genealogy of capital as a mode of power by considering the historical and anthropological literature on the emergence of human hierarchies and inequality and to consider some of the rules of interaction that were followed to reproduce power relations that were non-capitalist. By what mechanisms and justifications were these rules of interaction instantiated and how did they buttress early social relations of power between dominant and dominated? To set the scene this act begins with a few basic facts about the emergence of modern Homo sapiens and the "Out of Africa" Hypothesis. The hypothesis suggests that modern H. sapiens emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago and, over time, spread throughout the habitable continents of the world. I will then consider one of the most significant transformations in human history: the transition from hunting and gathering/foraging to agricultural-based societies. This period of human history, though it begins in fits and starts in geographically differentiated spaces, is commonly known as the Neolithic Revolution. Some date this revolution in human affairs from 12,000 to 7,000 years ago and it took place "in the Near East, New Guinea, China, Central and South America, and eastern North America" (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2008: 105). While we could examine developments in any of these regions, the transition to agriculture and the revolution in human affairs it caused takes or will take us to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, where we have reasonably clear records on the emergence of three main things that are important for explaining the development of capital as power: counting, accounting, and money as a unit of account. Act I then moves to focus on developments in Lydia, Greece, and Rome, where we find a very curious and revolutionary development: money, not simply as a unit of account, store of value or a means by which to measure the relative value of people and things, but money as relatively standardized gold and silver coin. The steadfast belief, primarily among rulers, traders, and mercenaries that gold and silver were the only true money — and how this idea spread throughout the world — not only shaped the modern world and intersocietal relations but also laid the groundwork for the capitalist mode of power. As I will explicate, while qualitative things had become "accounted" for at least since the rise of the first agrarian civilizations, from the sixth century BCE, qualitative things came increasingly to be "accounted" for in gold and silver coin. As we will uncover, the adoption of coin as money had tremendous consequences for political and social developments and the lives of countless peoples.

OUT OF AFRICA

The prevailing hypothesis on the origins of H. sapiens is that anatomically and genetically modern humans emerged in eastern Africa at least 150,000, if not 200,000, years ago. The evidence is based on DNA patterning of current members of the human family and skeletal remains (Mellars 2006: 9381). Though heavily debated, new studies have argued that rather than one dispersal from Africa there were two migration waves. The first is believed to have occurred 130,000–115,000 years ago. Some suggest that, for reasons that are not quite clear, this initial population either retreated back to Africa or died out (Armitage 2011). But a recent discovery of teeth in Fuyan Cave in southern China suggests that this might not be the case (Wu et al. 2015). A team of researchers have argued that the forty-seven teeth are unequivocally those of modern humans and date to at least 80,000 years ago. The fossil evidence suggests that modern humans were highly likely in China before the second wave of migration into the Levant and Europe, believed to have taken place from 40,000 to 74,000 years ago (Appenzeller 2012). Since China is east of Africa, this suggests that modern humans may have also been in other Eurasian regions as well. The reason for this migration is largely lost to history but some scholars have suggested technological developments that made new environments easier to adapt to, climate disruptions that threatened preexisting habitats, the search for more appealing environments, and population growth as all possible answers (Mellars 2006). Both debates on the dispersion of modern humans and the reasons for departing Africa will continue as archeologists and geneticists uncover new evidence, but one thing is certain: H. sapiens gradually spread throughout the habitable earth and populated new territories and, in Eurasia, replaced early hominins such as Neanderthals.

As Harari (2011: 16ff) points out, there are two major lines of reasoning when it comes to explaining what happened to our earlier ancestors. The first theory holds that as H. sapiens migrated out of Africa they lived, survived, and interbred with the Neanderthals largely found in Europe and Homo erectus, largely found in Asia. In this sense, interbreeding would ultimately lead to a mix of DNA between H. sapiens and earlier members of the homo genus. There is indeed some evidence for sexual relations between the two species as scientists discovered in 2010. However, as Harari warns us, further tests must be done before we fully adopt the interbreeding theory to explain the disappearance of our close cousins. The second theory, the one most commonly adhered to, is called the replacement theory. The idea here is that the H. sapien diaspora into Eurasia led to the killing off of earlier settled peoples. Though the debate continues, some scholars argue that H. sapiens were better mentally equipped than their counterparts and had better technology and organizational abilities. This suggests that acts of violence would have been easier to accomplish against a less technologically and mentally sophisticated species. This is certainly plausible and, as Harari suggests, the move out of Africa to the Eurasian landmass may prove to be "the first and most significant ethnic-cleansing campaign in history" (2011: 19). However, there is the possibility of another culprit: tropical disease. Some scholars have suggested that the migrating H. sapiens may have brought diseases...