ABSTRACT
Revolt and Rebellion In addition to overshoot, collapse can result from poorly organized power structures, political inghting, weak leadership, overtaxation of peasantries upon which elites rely, and other kinds of human social errors. e labor of peasants, which was almost always taxed as corvée in states of the ancient and colonial worlds (chapter 7), is needed for intensive agriculture and the production of a food surplus. In pre-Communist China, mandarins, the bureaucrats of the ruling class (chapter 7), oen grew extremely long ngernails as symbolic proof
that they did not perform manual labor. In contrast, peasants who wore rags and lived in hovels were described as “draught animals” (Lattimore 1951, p. 49). ey were required by the state to toil in elds of wheat or rice to generate a surplus to feed the mandarins and the rest of the ruling elite. Indeed, in many societies of the ancient world, ruling dynasties overtaxed peasants, who ed or revolted and ultimately overthrew the state.
