Role specialization in coercion enables elites to enforce expropriation

Evidence

Because of economic surplus, not all adults need to devote most of their time to food procurement and survival. Certain males are then freed to specialize in the arts of coercion (e.g., war-lordism, policing) or spiritual and intellectual sophistry. These role specialists are used by political elites to establish and enforce expropriative economic and social relationships with other members of the society. Once these role specializations and expropriative relationships are in place, arbitrary-set, group-based hierarchies then emerge. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3170

Categorization

• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone working on political economy or state formation — surplus frees males for coercion, which then locks in expropriation, a compact causal story.