"The new order articulated in [the Pentateuch] stands in contrast to a primary socioeconomic structure prevalent ... throughout ... the ancient Near East: the divide between the dominant tribute-imposing class and the dominated tribute-bearing class... These two groups, the exploiters and the exploited, are opposite sides of the same coin. The dominant tribute-imposing class consists, in short, of the political elite...This class includes not only the nobility but all who benefited by association with it: administrators, military and religious retainers, merchants, and landowners who directly or indirectly benefited from state power. What all of these have in common is that they all participated in the extraction of produce, or surplus, from the dominated tribute-bearing class: agrarian and pastoral producers, slaves, unskilled workers ... Their production was drawn as surplus in the form of taxation, slave labor, rent, or debt service..."