Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

k’uhul ajaw raised tribute from farmers and organized labor to build
the great monuments, and the coalescence of these institutions
created the basis for an impressive economic expansion. The Maya’s

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economy was based on extensive occupational specialization, with
skilled potters, weavers, woodworkers, and tool and ornament
makers. They also traded obsidian, jaguar pelts, marine shells, cacao,
salt, and feathers among themselves and other polities over long
distances in Mexico. They probably had money, too, and like the
Aztecs, used cacao beans for currency.
The way in which the Maya Classical Era was founded on the
creation of extractive political institutions was very similar to the
situation among the Bushong, with Yax Ehb’ Xook at Tikal playing a
role similar to that of King Shyaam. The new political institutions led
to a significant increase in economic prosperity, much of which was
then extracted by the new elite based around the k’uhul ajaw. Once
this system had consolidated, by around 
AD
300, there was little
further technological change, however. Though there is some
evidence of improved irrigation and water management techniques,
agricultural technology was rudimentary and appears not to have
changed. Building and artistic techniques became much more
sophisticated over time, but in total there was little innovation.
There was no creative destruction. But there were other forms of
destruction as the wealth that the extractive institutions created for
the k’uhul ajaw and the Maya elite led to constant warfare, which
worsened over time. The sequence of conflicts is recorded in the
Maya inscriptions, with special glyphs indicating that a war took
place at a particular date in the Long Count. The planet Venus was
the celestial patron of war, and the Mayas regarded some phases of
the planet’s orbit as particularly auspicious for waging war. The glyph
that indicated warfare, known as “star wars” by archaeologists, shows
a star showering the earth with a liquid that could be water or blood.
The inscriptions also reveal patterns of alliance and competition.
There were long contests for power between the larger states, such as
Tikal, Calakmul, Copán, and Palenque, and these subjugated smaller
states into a vassal status. Evidence for this comes from glyphs
marking royal accessions. During this period, they start indicating
that the smaller states were now being dominated by another, outside
ruler.

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Map 10 (
this page
) shows the main Maya cities and the various
patterns of contact between them as reconstructed by the
archaeologists Nikolai Grube and Simon Martin. These patterns
indicate that though the large cities such as Calakmul, Dos Pilas,
Piedras Negras, and Yaxchilan had extensive diplomatic contacts,
some were often dominated by others and they also fought each
other.
The overwhelming fact about the Maya collapse is that it coincides
with the overthrow of the political model based on the k’uhul ajaw.
We saw in Copán that after Yax Pasaj’s death in 
AD
810 there were no
more kings. At around this time the royal palaces were abandoned.
Twenty miles to the north of Copán, in the city of Quiriguá, the last
king, Jade Sky, ascended to the throne between 
AD
795 and 800. The
last dated monument is from 
AD
810 by the Long Count, the same year
that Yax Pasaj died. The city was abandoned soon after. Throughout
the Maya area the story is the same; the political institutions that had
provided the context for the expansion of trade, agriculture, and
population vanished. Royal courts did not function, monuments and
temples were not carved, and palaces were emptied. As political and
social institutions unraveled, reversing the process of state
centralization, the economy contracted and the population fell.
In some cases the major centers collapsed from widespread
violence. The Petexbatun region of Guatemala—where the great
temples were subsequently pulled down and the stone used to build
extensive defensive walls—provides one vivid example. As we’ll see
in the next chapter, it was very similar to what happened in the later
Roman Empire. Later, even in places such as Copán, where there are
fewer signs of violence at the time of the collapse, many monuments
were defaced or destroyed. In some places the elite remained even
after the initial overthrow of the k’uhul ajaw. In Copán there is
evidence of the elite continuing to erect new buildings for at least
another two hundred years before they also disappeared. Elsewhere
elites seem to have gone at the same time as the divine lord.

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Existing archaeological evidence does not allow us to reach a
definitive conclusion about why the k’uhul ajaw and elites
surrounding him were overthrown and the institutions that had
created the Maya Classical Era collapsed. We know this took place in
the context of intensified inter-city warfare, and it seems likely that
opposition and rebellion within the cities, perhaps led by different
factions of the elite, overthrew the institution.
Though the extractive institutions that the Mayas created produced
sufficient wealth for the cities to flourish and the elite to become
wealthy and generate great art and monumental buildings, the system
was not stable. The extractive institutions upon which this narrow
elite ruled created extensive inequality, and thus the potential for
infighting between those who could benefit from the wealth extracted
from the people. This conflict ultimately led to the undoing of the
Maya civilization.

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