The Aztec empire nevertheless remained a center-out empire, with all political control flowing out from the capital and all tributary wealth flowing in. It was able to retain the essentially engorged structures of a city-state by exercising power hegemonically rather than dominating territorially (Hassig 1985: 90-103).
The Aztecs conquered independent city-states to exact tribute,9 which they did without eliminating or replacing local leaders or imposing their own social, economic, religious, and political practices. Rather, they left the local leadership and social customs in place, thereby virtually eliminating the need to garrison troops locally, impose political cadre, indoctrinate the populace, or impose any of a number of costly control mechanisms frequently needed to control conquered peoples (Hassig 1985: 99-100). Instead, they extracted moderate amounts of tribute which the local leadership paid, and they did so not by force, but by power - by raising and maintaining the perception that they could and would impose their will if thwarted. The Aztecs did not destroy their enemies so much as yoke them into a single economic entity, and they did so in a way that made their empire essentially self-perpetuating.
Without cultural indoctrination or the ready availability of force to compel compliance, the risks of revolt might seem to be constant. The system would appear to be dangerously unstable. Yet this empire generally produced peace, albeit of a subservient sort. Revolts were infrequent (Hassig 1988); indeed, they were extremely rare in relation to the apparent ease with which they might have occurred. in the absence of enculturation, which is generally a multi-generational phenomenon, some other form of “re-education,” or the direct application of force, preferably in conjunction with the removal of the tributaries’ ability to mount armed resistance - why did this imperial system produce as much internal peace as it did?
World History
