The State is a historical phenomenon—it emerged in a particular stage in history. Prior to the emergence of the State, there were primitive forms of social organizations, which lacked definite forms of political authority. We can call this stage the stage of ‘stateless societies’ where no territorial allegiance existed nor was any centralized authority.18 Though many writers have advocated what they call a ‘tribal state’, it would be a misplaced notion to attribute statehood to these societies. In the Marxian sense, as Engels in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State presents, the possibility of such a state is easily refutable given the class-based nature of the State and its emergence alongside the emergence of classes in society.
Asian societies were characterized by the spread of civilizations along the Ganges (India), the Nile (Egypt), the Euphrates (Iraq/Syria), and the Yangtze or the Yellow River (China). These were agrarian-based monarchies (some benevolent but mostly despotic) where the rulers represented, what Gettell calls, ‘only as slave driver and the tax collector.’ Recall the rule of Ramses II in Egypt against which Moses fought.
Almost all writing on political theory rarely mention the fate of the State in Africa. It is assumed that even in contemporary times, given tribal divisions, the State is in a rudimentary form in African nations. A representative example could be South Africa, which is considered to be an organized state in the African continent (as borne out by its claim to the United Nations Security Council seat). However, writers have opined that even South Africa emerged as a State less than a century ago. Furthermore, it has been mentioned that as late as the 1870s, the subcontinent was divided into a large number of polities, chiefdoms, colonies and settlements of widely differing size, power and racial composition without political unity or cohesion.19
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