@wolfgang59 saidHunter gatherer bands wound up being egalitarian and I don't think that was a coincidence. I believe bands that tended to be autocratic would have had high degrees of internal tension, violence and instability. We don't like being told what to do and if we can fight back or even just leave, there's a high probability we'll do so. Over time then, an egalitarian band would have had a serious evolutionary advantage over an autocratic one.
Isn't this just a Nature vs Nurture argument?
We have evolved as social animals and have deep needs to be accepted by
our group(s). Those needs are amplified by social constructs which reinforce
our needs. Traditionally banishment was as bad a punishment as death and
in more modern times being "sent to Coventry" was a powerful way for
individuals to be punished ...[text shortened]... far more difficult
to express our freedom than you are suggesting. We are all, to a degree, sheep.
Which is why we don't see autocratic hunting gatherers; our natural inclination is to not be under other's control.
@no1marauder saidThis is not how I heard the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea described in books I've read of them, nor is it how I heard some of the Amazonian tribes in their first contact.
In hunter gatherer bands (which comprise how the majority of Man lived for all but the last 10,000 or less years of the species' existence), a baby or child was in a subservient state, but not an adult - there were no "communal leaders" in the way you are using the term - no one could compel you to do anything. Decisions in groups were made by consensus, not by a "chief".
Of course, some amount of decentralization of power exists, but the elders and other high status individuals have more say than individuals, and custom tends to rule.
While these societies do not have universal characteristics, it is also true that there can very severe discrimination towards women and use of them as a sort of slave.
This is the natural state of man -- hierarchy.
Only in a fabricated world are people born into some jungle full of literate 18th century Enlightenment thinkers in periwigs carefully dividing labor and respecting one antoher's natural rights.
@philokalia saidWell, I'm sorry you're so basically ignorant of modern Anthropology. I'll try to help.
This is not how I heard the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea described in books I've read of them, nor is it how I heard some of the Amazonian tribes in their first contact.
Of course, some amount of decentralization of power exists, but the elders and other high status individuals have more say than individuals, and custom tends to rule.
While these societies ...[text shortened]... ghtenment thinkers in periwigs carefully dividing labor and respecting one antoher's natural rights.
@philokalia said"Most remarkably, unlike any other people that have been studied, hunter-gatherers appear to lack hierarchy in social organization. They have no chief or big man, no leaders or followers. They share everything, so nobody owns more than anybody else. They make all group decisions through discussion until a consensus is reached. In fact, another name that anthropologists regularly use to refer to band hunter-gatherer societies is egalitarian societies. As part of their egalitarianism, they have an extraordinary degree of respect for individual autonomy. They don’t tell one another what to do or offer unsolicited advice. "
This is not how I heard the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea described in books I've read of them, nor is it how I heard some of the Amazonian tribes in their first contact.
Of course, some amount of decentralization of power exists, but the elders and other high status individuals have more say than individuals, and custom tends to rule.
While these societies ...[text shortened]... ghtenment thinkers in periwigs carefully dividing labor and respecting one antoher's natural rights.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism
@no1marauder saidI am not an expert at Locke by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this has a lot more to do with a vision of traditional economics in which labor is remunerated and opportunities to work are guaranteed, and has less to do with any Socialist/Capitalist dichotomy, which postdates Locke.
He is. I'm a Leftist-Libertarian and/or Libertarian Socialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
The Lockean proviso is the basis for an argument that wealth should not be so concentrated that some in a society cannot receive the essentials of life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockean_proviso
I've also just found that since Socialism is dependent on a massive government actively interfering in the economy, there's naturally some distance between Locke and socialism.
I guess I'd have to revisit this but it seems really dirty to associate this poor man with the murderous ideology of Socialism.
Here's one of the ground breaking studies of hunter gatherers:
"But research conducted among the Ju/’hoansi in the 1950s and ’60s, when they could still hunt and gather freely, turned established views of social evolution on their head. Up until then, it was widely believed that hunter-gatherers endured a near-constant battle against starvation, and that it was only with the advent of agriculture that we began to free ourselves from the capricious tyranny of nature. When in 1964 a young Canadian anthropologist, Richard Borshay Lee, conducted a series of simple economic input/output analyses of the Ju/’hoansi as they went about their daily lives, he revealed that not only did they make a good living from hunting and gathering, but that they were also well-nourished and content. Most remarkably, his research revealed that the Ju/’hoansi managed this on the basis of little more than 15 hours’ work per week. On the strength of this finding, the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in Stone Age Economics (1972) renamed hunter-gatherers “the original affluent society.”
This research also revealed that the Ju/’hoansi were able to make a good living from a sparse environment because they cared little for private property and, above all, were “fiercely egalitarian,” as Lee put it. It showed that the Ju/’hoansi had no formalized leadership institutions, no formal hierarchies; men and women enjoyed equal decision-making powers; children played largely noncompetitive games in mixed age groups; and the elderly, while treated with great affection, were not afforded any special status or privileges. This research also demonstrated how the Ju/’hoansi’s “fierce egalitarianism” underwrote their affluence. For it was their egalitarianism that ensured that no one bothered accumulating wealth and simultaneously enabled limited resources to flow organically through communities, helping to ensure that even in times of episodic scarcity everyone got more or less enough.
There is no question that this dynamic was very effective. If a society is judged by its endurance over time, then this was almost certainly the most successful society in human history—and by a considerable margin. New genomic analyses suggest that the Ju/’hoansi and their ancestors lived continuously in southern Africa from soon after modern H. sapiens settled there, most likely around 200,000 years ago. Recent archaeological finds across southern Africa also indicate that key elements of the Ju/’hoansi’s material culture extend back at least 70,000 years and possibly long before. As importantly, genome mutation-rate analyses suggest that the broader population group from which the Ju/’hoansi descended, the Khoisan, were not only the largest population of H. sapiens, but also did not suffer population declines to the same extent as other populations over the past 100,000 years.
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hunter-gatherer-inequality-namibia/
Your "chiefs" are a modern aberration at war with the essential nature of Man.
@no1marauder saidI can't help it if you are unfamiliar with the descriptions of life in the tribes along the Kronkil in New Guinea or among the Yanomami...
"Most remarkably, unlike any other people that have been studied, hunter-gatherers appear to lack hierarchy in social organization. They have no chief or big man, no leaders or followers. They share everything, so nobody owns more than anybody else. They make all group decisions through discussion until a consensus is reached. In fact, another name that anthropologists re ...[text shortened]... /www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism
I do not know what to say to this particularly since you have not brought up any real examples.
However, you have made me bump Napoleon Chagnon's book closer to the top of my list.
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@philokalia saidYou found out wrong; socialism is defined as "a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods." http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/faq/sp001547/secA1.html#seca14
I am not an expert at Locke by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this has a lot more to do with a vision of traditional economics in which labor is remunerated and opportunities to work are guaranteed, and has less to do with any Socialist/Capitalist dichotomy, which postdates Locke.
I've also just found that since Socialism is dependent on a massive governme ...[text shortened]... this but it seems really dirty to associate this poor man with the murderous ideology of Socialism.
A Libertarian Socialist doesn't believe in the State or capitalism i.e. the invention of "private property" (as opposed to "personal property" ) was the greatest diminution of liberty and freedom ever forced on the People surely hand in hand with ideas of dictatorship and aristocracy.
Our Natural State would be fairly accurately described as a "socialist" one and it had no "government" at all.
I'll give you a Zen story for your contemplation:
"Scholar Tokusan--who was full of knowledge and opinions about the dharma--came to Ryutan and asked about Zen. At one point Ryutan re-filled his guest's teacup but did not stop pouring when the cup was full. Tea spilled out and ran over the table. "Stop! The cup is full!" said Tokusan.
"Exactly," said Master Ryutan. "You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can't put anything in. Before I can teach you, you'll have to empty your cup."
https://www.learnreligions.com/empty-your-cup-3976934
You need to "empty your cup", Philo.
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@philokalia saidThe Yanomami are horticulturists, not hunter gatherers. They live in fixed villages and " Crops compose up to 75% of the calories in the Yanomami diet". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami
I can't help it if you are unfamiliar with the descriptions of life in the tribes along the Kronkil in New Guinea or among the Yanomami...
I do not know what to say to this particularly since you have not brought up any real examples.
However, you have made me bump Napoleon Chagnon's book closer to the top of my list.
I can find no reference for Kronkil.
The article I provided summarizes the anthropological research. Here's the paragraph before the one I quoted:
"Anthropologists who have trekked to isolated regions of the world to observe hunter-gatherer societies—whether in Africa, Asia, South America or elsewhere—have consistently been impressed by the egalitarian nature of those societies (e.g. Ingold, 1999). The people live in small self-governing bands of about 20 to 50 people per band. They are nomadic, moving from place to place to follow the available game and edible vegetation."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism
@no1marauder saidThat is a very interesting article, honestly!
Here's one of the ground breaking studies of hunter gatherers:
"But research conducted among the Ju/’hoansi in the 1950s and ’60s, when they could still hunt and gather freely, turned established views of social evolution on their head. Up until then, it was widely believed that hunter-gatherers endured a near-constant battle against starvation, and that it was only wi ...[text shortened]... nequality-namibia/
Your "chiefs" are a modern aberration at war with the essential nature of Man.
It also goes on to point out how these traits that enabled this specific group of Hunter-Gatherers ultimately worked against them in the face of modern society.
This would only convince me that there is not much in the way of a 'state of nature,' but I would still argue that hierarchy remains a default because this is really an exception -- the whole rest of the world did not follow this pattern, after all.
Your "chiefs" are a modern aberration at war with the essential nature of Man.
I would think of it that way.
I think the actual inclination is toward organization and consolidation of power, and that the Hoansi are just an exception to this. The fact that some societies were able to maintain this standard of living does not necessarily mean that this was some idyllic norm that could be infinitely lived out. I think it is the case that the particular conditions which they faced allowed for this to happen, and have allowed for it to happen more or less in other places.
Just as naturally, the hill & river tribes of PNG have been murdering each other for innumerable centuries and practicing cannibalism, while some of the tribes with other types of lands and sustenance have different arrangements.
There is a diversity of organization, but the most common human organization is fundamentally hierarchical, and this is also the most successful sort of organization.
@no1marauder said
You found out wrong; socialism is defined as "a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods." http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/faq/sp001547/secA1.html#seca14
A Libertarian Socialist doesn't believe in the State or capitalism i.e. the invention of "private property" (as opposed to "personal proper ...[text shortened]... p."
https://www.learnreligions.com/empty-your-cup-3976934
You need to "empty your cup", Philo.
You found out wrong; socialism is defined as "a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods."
Sure, I will let you define your own words.
But then I might have to change my statements to match your words.
A Libertarian Socialist doesn't believe in the State or capitalism i.e. the invention of "private property" (as opposed to "personal property" ) was the greatest diminution of liberty and freedom ever forced on the People surely hand in hand with ideas of dictatorship and aristocracy.
I have not thought with the private/personal property dichotomy. I am aware that it exists.
I am not sure if it changes my ideas on this.
I am not that interested in Libertarian socialism because it seems ineffective and impossible.
Our Natural State would be fairly accurately described as a "socialist" one and it had no "government" at all.
If you define socialism as 'above,' then this would be consistent, but there is something absurd in describing premodern peoples as 'socialist.'
"Scholar Tokusan--who was full of knowledge and opinions about the dharma--came to Ryutan and asked about Zen. At one point Ryutan re-filled his guest's teacup but did not stop pouring when the cup was full. Tea spilled out and ran over the table. "Stop! The cup is full!" said Tokusan.
"Exactly," said Master Ryutan. "You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can't put anything in. Before I can teach you, you'll have to empty your cup."
A classic!
You need to "empty your cup", Philo.
I do not think it makes sense to talk about premodern peoples with modern political terminology.
@no1marauder saidSo is horticulture/farming aberrant & unnatural human behavior?
The Yanomami are horticulturists, not hunter gatherers. They live in fixed villages and " Crops compose up to 75% of the calories in the Yanomami diet". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami
I can find no reference for Kronkil.
The article I provided summarizes the anthropological research. Here's the paragraph before the one I quoted:
"Anthropologists who have ...[text shortened]... /www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism
@philokalia saidThose groups are what Man existed as for the vast majority of his time on Earth. They are not anything unusual but what we evolved to. More importantly, our brains still think along those terms which is why we resist hierarchy, which can only be maintained by force. The most hierarchical systems have crumbled to dust over the last few centuries. Locke foresaw the end of hereditary monarchy, which could have been claimed to be the most "successful organization" by your narrow terms 400 years ago.
That is a very interesting article, honestly!
It also goes on to point out how these traits that enabled this specific group of Hunter-Gatherers ultimately worked against them in the face of modern society.
This would only convince me that there is not much in the way of a 'state of nature,' but I would still argue that hierarchy remains a default because thi ...[text shortened]... ion is fundamentally hierarchical, and this is also the most successful sort of organization.
The future will not be kind to supporters of autocratic systems, Philo.
@philokalia saidIt was a bad idea. Have you read Jared Diamond's famous article?
So is horticulture/farming aberrant & unnatural human behavior?
It's here: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race