The Great Pre-modern Regionalisations and the Centralisation of the Tributary Surplus
Nowadays, the term ‘globalisation’ is used in various ways, often vague and ambiguous. Moreover, the phenomenon in itself is considered as a given and unavoidable, an expression of the evolution of reality that is claimed to be ineluctable.
Phenomena similar to modern globalisation which, for the first time in history concerns the entire world, are to be found in more ancient times. However these only concerned the large regions of the old world, the so-called preColombian Americas being isolated and unknown by the former (as well as by the latter). I will call these globalisations ‘regionalisations’.I describe all these phenomena with one common criterion: that of organising command over the surplus of current production at the level of the whole region (or of its world) by a central authority and the extent of centralisation over that surplus used by that authority. This in turn regulated the sharing of access to the surplus that it commanded.
The regionalisations (or globalisation) concerned could be inclined towards homogeneity or polarisation, according to whether the redistribution of the surplus was subjected to laws and customs that aim expressly at one or other of these objectives, or they could be produced by deploying their own logic.
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