This. I don't know why people think of the Mayan empire or Cahokia as fundamentally different from the numerous "failed states" of the Mediterranean. I use quot

This. I don't know why people think of the Mayan empire or Cahokia as fundamentally different from the numerous "failed states" of the Mediterranean. I use quotes because there's increasing consensus that it's not so much a matter of failure as a matter of political revolution amongst the enslaved class forced to work in agriculture for the ruling class