Why would an anarchist argue that authoritarianism is the natural human condition in 2017's On Kings? Is the book's strange choice of cover art an example of Revelation of the Method?
I'm not familiar with Graeber's work so I read the wiki entry (yeah, I know) and something that stood out was his assertion that "debt and credit historically appeared before money, which itself appeared before barter." and "that credit systems originally developed as means of account long before the advent of coinage, which appeared around 600 BCE."
The later point seems obvious to me. Far easier to make a tally stick than to mint coins, especially if you live in the stone age. Of course there was 'wampum' but was that money or just an advanced version of a tally stick (accounting system) and did sea shells (useful for skinning furs) constitute 'money' or were they, like wampum or furs, considered a trade (barter) item? The distinction is a bit blurred I would say.
On the first point, I'm not sure how money appears before barter. Not all trade items were direct barter of course. I might trade furs for shells with the idea of trading those shells for arrow heads, so in a sense the shells become a form of money, with the labour value of collecting them defining the exchange rate. In the same sense arrow heads could be considered a form of money, so was the guy who knew where to find flint and chip it into arrowheads the first banker?
I recall an idea some anthropologist put forth (possibly as a joke, but with a hidden grain of truth) that the guy who knew how to make arrowheads was probably too valuable to risk taking on the hunt, so he stayed behind dividing his time between chipping flint and boinking the village women, which of course would have favoured his genes over the hunters (until they noticed 'their' kids looked a bit too much like arrow chip guy...lol)
My thoughts on these questions is that it's probably impossible to pin down with any accuracy, and that the various forms of money, credit etc. emerged at different times and in a different order depending on local conditions. The one thing that does stand out that is often missed in these investigations is the emergence of writing and numeracy a result of proto-credit systems, such as Mesopotamian grain storage, which required clay tablets to record deposits in what really amounted to a form of early banking. I'd be interested to know if those tablets circulated as money, and were they free form money, or did they require some kind of notarization to record change of ownership when I used my tablets to 'buy' an ox? Also, did the grain bank extend credit on the promise of repayment from next year's crop? This would make sense as a means of getting through a drought, but could precipitate a banking crisis if that drought was extended, leading to bankrupt farmers. Is this the origin of Jubilee?
I'm guessing these thoughts have been explored extensively in the literature, and that having not read much of it I'm just making amateur deductions. Still, the most important aspect of these early transactions to me seems to have escaped many anthropologists whose focus on the social relations arising from these transactions misses the main point: that these early transactions gave rise to writing systems and mathematics. A case of being too narrowly focused on one's area of expertise perhaps. The man with a hammer problem, basically.
What I would hammer away at is the rise of literacy via writing systems and numeracy that grew out of these relations, which would tend to create an elite of scribes and accountants who would tend to guard their knowledge in the same way an arrow chipper would keep the location of his flint supply a secret. This could throw a wrench into the notion that writing emerged as some form of sacred ritual, although there's probably an element of both in the early stages. I know from studying Punjabi and Hindi that the Hindi writing system was intentionally complex to restrict its use to the higher castes. It was actually forbidden at one point to teach lower castes to read! Guru Angad by contrast, simplified Hindi into the Gurmukhi script so that Sikhs could read the Guru Granth Sahib, which led to widespread literacy in northern India. Same occurred with Arabic so that believers could read the Koran, and of course with Gutenberg whose mass produced Bibles printed in the vernacular also greatly expanded literacy.
I'm riffing on McLuhan (as usual) since he pointed out that the linguistic elements of historic development are often overlooked in favour of a materialist approach focused on production and trade, whereas the two are intimately entwined, the best example being Phoenicia to which we own our common western alphabet, often misattributed to Rome or Greece.
Back to Graeber. I notice the book was co-authored by David Wengrow, so maybe that explains some of your questions? Personally, I try to focus on the ideas rather than the personalities. Obviously some background on a given writer can inform you of how they arrived at their ideas, but it's the ideas themselves that are primary, not the authors per se. A common example: "the map is not the territory." How many know that Alfred Korzybski is credited with that adage? And was it actually his own, or was he driving around Poland looking for a village and had to stop and ask a farmer for directions, who looked at his old road map and said, hey buddy... that map does not accurately represent the territory (he was a very literate farmer).
Now I'm finally beginning to get what you've been driving at with your exploration of Graeber. It maybe makes sense with what you've put forth here, though personally I'm not sure I could count out controlled opposition the whole way, but I haven't read any of his books. Like you, I've got other priorities at present. And I'm beginning to sense I'm getting burnt out on a lot of things.
Anyway, I'm glad you clarified your position on The Dawn of Everything.
I think of the Dawn of Everything as an anarchist classic, and I think you misread it. You suggest that their theses is articulated by Jared Diamond's quote and complain that they referenced statists. I think that the evidence they presented very much demonstrated that large human settlements could emerge with out the presence of a state. Their reference to statist theorists are primarily for the purpose of critique. I think the primary theses of the book is that humans can decide on the form of their social structure. This includes the rejection of authoritarian and statist rule, often through schismogenesis, that is cultural differentiation by rejection of an adjacent culture. But also by rebellion and dispersion. For instance they postulate that such a rebellion gave rise to the tribal structure that Kondiaronk came from. As for the origins of the state they give a brilliant account of the three social structures that must be present for the emergence of the state, and how indiscriminate violence was the essential ingredient. With the state as the predominant if not universal form of contemporary social structure it is useful for those who would end the state: to understand how states come to being, to know that it is possible to dissolve the state, and to appreciate that we can design and choose our own social formations including in large egalitarian human settlements.
Please feel free to point out any errors if you catch any! Yes, I'm a conspiracy theorist. Remember the part where we accurately interpreted COVID while most fell into lockstep?
I'm not familiar with Graeber's work so I read the wiki entry (yeah, I know) and something that stood out was his assertion that "debt and credit historically appeared before money, which itself appeared before barter." and "that credit systems originally developed as means of account long before the advent of coinage, which appeared around 600 BCE."
The later point seems obvious to me. Far easier to make a tally stick than to mint coins, especially if you live in the stone age. Of course there was 'wampum' but was that money or just an advanced version of a tally stick (accounting system) and did sea shells (useful for skinning furs) constitute 'money' or were they, like wampum or furs, considered a trade (barter) item? The distinction is a bit blurred I would say.
On the first point, I'm not sure how money appears before barter. Not all trade items were direct barter of course. I might trade furs for shells with the idea of trading those shells for arrow heads, so in a sense the shells become a form of money, with the labour value of collecting them defining the exchange rate. In the same sense arrow heads could be considered a form of money, so was the guy who knew where to find flint and chip it into arrowheads the first banker?
I recall an idea some anthropologist put forth (possibly as a joke, but with a hidden grain of truth) that the guy who knew how to make arrowheads was probably too valuable to risk taking on the hunt, so he stayed behind dividing his time between chipping flint and boinking the village women, which of course would have favoured his genes over the hunters (until they noticed 'their' kids looked a bit too much like arrow chip guy...lol)
My thoughts on these questions is that it's probably impossible to pin down with any accuracy, and that the various forms of money, credit etc. emerged at different times and in a different order depending on local conditions. The one thing that does stand out that is often missed in these investigations is the emergence of writing and numeracy a result of proto-credit systems, such as Mesopotamian grain storage, which required clay tablets to record deposits in what really amounted to a form of early banking. I'd be interested to know if those tablets circulated as money, and were they free form money, or did they require some kind of notarization to record change of ownership when I used my tablets to 'buy' an ox? Also, did the grain bank extend credit on the promise of repayment from next year's crop? This would make sense as a means of getting through a drought, but could precipitate a banking crisis if that drought was extended, leading to bankrupt farmers. Is this the origin of Jubilee?
I'm guessing these thoughts have been explored extensively in the literature, and that having not read much of it I'm just making amateur deductions. Still, the most important aspect of these early transactions to me seems to have escaped many anthropologists whose focus on the social relations arising from these transactions misses the main point: that these early transactions gave rise to writing systems and mathematics. A case of being too narrowly focused on one's area of expertise perhaps. The man with a hammer problem, basically.
What I would hammer away at is the rise of literacy via writing systems and numeracy that grew out of these relations, which would tend to create an elite of scribes and accountants who would tend to guard their knowledge in the same way an arrow chipper would keep the location of his flint supply a secret. This could throw a wrench into the notion that writing emerged as some form of sacred ritual, although there's probably an element of both in the early stages. I know from studying Punjabi and Hindi that the Hindi writing system was intentionally complex to restrict its use to the higher castes. It was actually forbidden at one point to teach lower castes to read! Guru Angad by contrast, simplified Hindi into the Gurmukhi script so that Sikhs could read the Guru Granth Sahib, which led to widespread literacy in northern India. Same occurred with Arabic so that believers could read the Koran, and of course with Gutenberg whose mass produced Bibles printed in the vernacular also greatly expanded literacy.
I'm riffing on McLuhan (as usual) since he pointed out that the linguistic elements of historic development are often overlooked in favour of a materialist approach focused on production and trade, whereas the two are intimately entwined, the best example being Phoenicia to which we own our common western alphabet, often misattributed to Rome or Greece.
Back to Graeber. I notice the book was co-authored by David Wengrow, so maybe that explains some of your questions? Personally, I try to focus on the ideas rather than the personalities. Obviously some background on a given writer can inform you of how they arrived at their ideas, but it's the ideas themselves that are primary, not the authors per se. A common example: "the map is not the territory." How many know that Alfred Korzybski is credited with that adage? And was it actually his own, or was he driving around Poland looking for a village and had to stop and ask a farmer for directions, who looked at his old road map and said, hey buddy... that map does not accurately represent the territory (he was a very literate farmer).
Speaking of authors, have you come across this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Innis
McLuhan thought he was important and cites him as a major influence.
Now I'm finally beginning to get what you've been driving at with your exploration of Graeber. It maybe makes sense with what you've put forth here, though personally I'm not sure I could count out controlled opposition the whole way, but I haven't read any of his books. Like you, I've got other priorities at present. And I'm beginning to sense I'm getting burnt out on a lot of things.
Anyway, I'm glad you clarified your position on The Dawn of Everything.
I think of the Dawn of Everything as an anarchist classic, and I think you misread it. You suggest that their theses is articulated by Jared Diamond's quote and complain that they referenced statists. I think that the evidence they presented very much demonstrated that large human settlements could emerge with out the presence of a state. Their reference to statist theorists are primarily for the purpose of critique. I think the primary theses of the book is that humans can decide on the form of their social structure. This includes the rejection of authoritarian and statist rule, often through schismogenesis, that is cultural differentiation by rejection of an adjacent culture. But also by rebellion and dispersion. For instance they postulate that such a rebellion gave rise to the tribal structure that Kondiaronk came from. As for the origins of the state they give a brilliant account of the three social structures that must be present for the emergence of the state, and how indiscriminate violence was the essential ingredient. With the state as the predominant if not universal form of contemporary social structure it is useful for those who would end the state: to understand how states come to being, to know that it is possible to dissolve the state, and to appreciate that we can design and choose our own social formations including in large egalitarian human settlements.
SIMPLY-MAGNIsiFENT:
“If we were to put on our tin foil hats,....”
I’m fairly certain yours was securely wrapped around your head straight out of the gate.
Please feel free to point out any errors if you catch any! Yes, I'm a conspiracy theorist. Remember the part where we accurately interpreted COVID while most fell into lockstep?