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In places like Uruk and Ur and Egypt, the unmistakable signs of states first appeared. City walls. Opulent inhabited by rulers. Temples inhabited not just by priests, but also vast armies of slaves and wage laborers toiling in workshops. Slavery, war, and conquest. Literate bureaucrats who collected taxes and recorded payments and debts. Conscription, imprisonment, and massive public works.

Virtually all of the features of the modern state, with which we’re so intimately familiar, can be traced back to that initial development in the Bronze Age Near East.

One of the most common objections to anarchism that I encounter seems based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the state actually is.

The state is not, as many people seem to think, a synonym for generic human political organization. It’s not another way of referring to social or political complexity. It’s something fairly specific, but so pervasive now that it can easily seem like a natural condition, just another part of the background noise of our lives.

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