The State as a Socio-Evolutionary Response to the Challenges of the Scale of Control and the Continuity Gap

The article is an experience of theoretical reconstruction of the origin of the state as a natural phenomenon of evolution in general and social evolution in particular, under the formation of necessary and sufficient conditions. The analysis of R. Carneiro's criticism of M. Weber's classical definition, as well as the discussion of M. Berent's original concept of the non-state status of the ancient Greek polis, allow to formulate a new synthetic definition of the state. We add a new feature to the known characteristics: a formal structure of managerial positions reproduced across generations and independent of kinship relations. The conceptual scheme of the general evolutionary mechanism of the emergence of new structures combines classical ideas (from C. Darwin to A. Toynbee), as well as models of such anthropologists and sociologists (R. Carneiro, A. Stinchcombe, R. Collins, etc.). The scheme includes the following concepts: concerns, challenges-threats and challenges-opportunities, ingredients, response attempts, fixation mechanisms, providing structures, the most flexible and polyfunctional of which were called magic wands. The application of this construct to the theory of the origin of the state raises the question of the ingredients of the processes of formation of the first states. The ideas and results of the work of anthropologists and historical sociologists have made it possible to visualize the trends in the development of barbarian societies that led to the ingredients sought. Such reasoning not only reinforces R. Carneiro's classical theory, but also complements it with a general evolutionary mechanism. The first states emerged in response to historical challenges and concerns related to the economic, military and social development of barbarian societies, and then became the main magic wands in the political evolution of all world civilizations.