Pharaonic Egypt

circa 3150 BC to 30 BC

Pharaonic Egypt was a type 2 state--meaning it combined 2 forms of domination: sovereignty and bureaucracy.

The Pyramids were 0th industrial revolution. Work was broken into repetitive chunks, and done by interchangeable workers on a near assembly line. The Egyptians fused violence to information by abstracting care labor, and turning it into mechanical labor.

All of this work was done in service of "caring" for the dead king. In return, the Pharaoh served as a bridge to the sacred, performing rituals on behalf of the people. Controlling access to the sacred is the original form of bureaucracy (aka the control of information).

Despite very different geographies, the Egyptians and Inca (also a second order state combining sovereignty and bureaucracy) had a number of structural parallels:

• Mummies holding property
• God-kings on tour
• Ceremonial capitals