Violence and social orders : a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history

All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked. Most societies, which we call natural states, limit violence by political manipulation of the economy to create privileged interests. These privileges limit the use of violence by powerful individuals, but doing so hinders both economic and political development. In contrast, modern societies create open access to economic and political organizations, fostering political and economic competition. The book provides a framework for understanding the two types of social orders, why open access societies are both politically and economically more developed, and how some 25 countries have made the transition between the two types.

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Nobel-Prize-winning economist North (Washington Univ.) and two colleagues aim in this highly ambitious work to explain the dynamics of social order and social change over the whole of recorded history. Their postulate is that most societies for most of the time--including the present--live in what they call "natural states," where violence is regulated by, and in the interest of, elites who control access to economic resources. But while this limits violence, it also checks economic and social development. In the early 19th century, a few societies in the West broke out of this natural state, opening up access to economic and political power and so promoting economic and political competition. This unleashed economic development, but it also increased the scale and intensity of organized violence, especially between states. This Faustian bargain is one, however, that more and more societies in the modern world are willing to settle for. A demanding but rewarding work, with intriguing echoes of Marx. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and researchers/faculty. K. Kumar University of Virginia

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
1 The Conceptual Framework	p. 1
1.1 Introduction	p. 1
1.2 The Concept of Social Orders: Violence, Institutions, and Organizations	p. 13
1.3 The Logic of the Natural State	p. 18
1.4 The Logic of the Open Access Order	p. 21
1.5 The Logic of the Transition from Natural States to Open Access Orders	p. 25
1.6 A Note on Beliefs	p. 27
1.7 The Plan	p. 29
2 The Natural State	p. 30
2.1 Introduction	p. 30
2.2 Commonalities: Characteristics of Limited Access Orders	p. 32
2.3 Differences: A Typology of Natural States	p. 41
2.4 Privileges, Rights, and Elite Dynamics	p. 49
2.5 Origins: The Problem Scale and Violence	p. 51
2.6 Natural State Dynamics: Fragile to Basic Natural States	p. 55
2.7 Moving to Mature Natural States: Disorder, Organization, and the Medieval Church	p. 62
2.8 Mature Natural States: France and England in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries	p. 69
2.9 Natural States	p. 72
Appendix: Skeletal Evidence and Empirical Results	p. 75
3 The Natural State Applied: English Land Law	p. 77
3.1 Introduction	p. 77
3.2 Chronology	p. 79
3.3 The Courts, Legal Concepts, and the Law of Property	p. 87
3.4 Bastard Feudalism	p. 91
3.5 Bastard Feudalism and the Impersonalization of Property	p. 98
3.6 The Typology of Natural States	p. 104
Appendix	p. 106
4 Open Access Orders	p. 110
4.1 Introduction	p. 110
4.2 Commonalities: Characteristics of an Open Access Order	p. 112
4.3 Institutions, Beliefs, and Incentives Supporting Open Access	p. 117
4.4 Incorporation: The Extension of Citizenship	p. 118
4.5 Control of Violence in Open Access Orders	p. 121
4.6 Growth of Government	p. 122
4.7 Forces of Short-Run Stability	p. 125
4.8 Forces of Long-Run Stability: Adaptive Efficiency	p. 133
4.9 Why Institutions Work Differently under Open Access than Limited Access	p. 137
4.10 A New "Logic of Collective Action" and Theory of Rent-Seeking	p. 140
4.11 Democracy and Redistribution	p. 142
4.12 Adaptive Efficiency and the Seeming Independence of Economics and Politics in Open Access Orders	p. 144
5 The Transition from Limited to Open Access Orders: The Doorstep Conditions	p. 148
5.1 Introduction	p. 148
5.2 Personality and Impersonality: The Doorstep Conditions	p. 150
5.3 Doorstep Condition #1: Rule of Law for Elites	p. 154
5.4 Doorstep Condition #2: Perpetually Lived Organizations in the Public and Private Spheres	p. 158
5.5 Doorstep Condition #3: Consolidated Control of the Military	p. 169
5.6 The British Navy and the British State	p. 181
5.7 Time, Order, and Institutional Forms	p. 187
6 The Transition Proper	p. 190
6.1 Institutionalizing Open Access	p. 190
6.2 Fear of Faction	p. 194
6.3 Events	p. 203
6.4 Parties and Corporations	p. 210
6.5 The Transition to Open Access in Britain	p. 213
6.6 The Transition to Open Access in France	p. 219
6.7 The Transition to Open Access in the United States	p. 228
6.8 Institutionalizing Open Access: Why the West?	p. 240
7 A New Research Agenda for the Social Sciences	p. 251
7.1 The Framing Problems	p. 251
7.2 The Conceptual Framework	p. 254
7.3 A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Violence, Institutions, Organizations, and Beliefs	p. 257
7.4 A New Approach to the Social Sciences: Development and Democracy	p. 263
7.5 Toward a Theory of the State	p. 268
7.6 Violence and Social Orders: The Way Ahead	p. 271
References	p. 273
Index	p. 295

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