Well all of civilization and society is based on violence and coercion to some extent. I'm not sure that small tribes polities were any less violent than larger empires, and I'd generally have a bias that larger empires were more peaceful per-capita because if you are the king war is tiresome and threatening. Better to be at peace.

I'm also not sure about your suggestion. Yes small polities had the means to defend themselves, but the pharaoh's army is much larger and you're definitely going to die if he shows up and you fight back. So why wouldn't the pharaoh have shown up to put down a rebellion? Time and time again in the history of the region a king, pharaoh, or other despot would make examples of rebels, put down rebels, and march armies up and down the region to ensure fealty and assign minor lords to protect a region. They could have found the smelters and destroyed them or seized them, those working on it could have been killed.

I'm just not sure that this democratization of violence is the answer. Though it may be a key contributor. Curious about your thoughts or others. Incredibly fascinating topic.

Have you read about the Assyrians? Those early empires were nasty.

And yes, the common people might have been better off under larger empires than under smaller ones, but who has ever cared about the common people? The upper class were probably more "I'd rather be the king of a small kingdom than bend my knee to an emperor."

Bronze age empires were large -- if the pharaoh couldn't trust his subordinates he could only be in one place at a time.

>Time and time again in the history of the region a king, pharaoh, or other despot would make examples of rebels, put down rebels, and march armies up and down the region to ensure fealty and assign minor lords to protect a region. They could have found the smelters and destroyed them or seized them, those working on it could have been killed.

And when all those rebellions cost the Pharaoh 3x what they used to to put down you're forced to be a lot more diplomatic. Less extraction under threat of violence means smaller army means worse negotiating position for the next one. It's a cycle.

And for every full scale armies meeting in the field type rebellion there's a lot of "sir a second village has lynched the tax men" which compel you to dispense policing forces, etc, etc.

Just because you "can" do something in moderation doesn't mean it's a sustainable way to run your empire at scale.

You can't "just regulate the smiths" like some 21st century despot because those smiths also make the iron tools those people need to farm to pay your taxes. And you can't just "supervise" them with your loyal people because this is pre-industrial and there do not exist sufficient surpluses to feed those nonproductive mouths.