You’ve put together a prodigious analytic essay here with, what I suspect, a lot of nutritional insight relative to early human social grouping. Pretty dense, and I’m afraid I might have celiac disease. I’ll need to reread it several times, but I suspect it will be worth it.
Good essay, the insight into the tax friendly nature of grain crops is certainly a useful historical lens, equally domesticated herds of cattle are a far easier target for carbon taxes than wild buffalo for instance. Going to ponder crops which lend themselves to hiding value from over zealous authorities, what’s the natural anarchist plant, a perennial? Thank you
I wonder if this can fit with Maria Gimbutases ideas on how egalitarian, agrarian societies were conquered by warrior societies on horseback. Tax and tribute are similar, and ruling classes even now are into horsemanship, hunting, war, etc. Peasants are generally pacifist and cooperative, while it seems that nomadic herding societies are more up for a punch-up. Mongols are an example.
I'm going to start talking about Gimbutas soon... please feel free to direct me to links of articles and videos about her... seems like her work has been vindicated!
Now you've given me even more to read. Homework, I mean.
I have initial reservations about the tax-collector and wheat theory though - essentially based on psychology - that is to say it simply wouldn't occur to normal human beings to invent something called 'tax collection' - i.e. appropriation - for no beneficial reason - of other people's stuff. To a selfish, evil monster, however, yes, that would occur to them. In fact, although I haven't read Scott's book (yet) so I can't say for sure, I'd be interested to know the answer to the question 'how long?' - by this I mean 'how long was it between the initial (sedentary) cultivation of wheat and the creation of a hierarchical state?'. These things don't 'just happen' after all. I mean, they don't happen simultaneously. And it's not inevitable that it would turn into statism simply for 'structuralist' reasons. There is no structuralism - there is only (human) agency.
My psychological hunch is that given humans had been used to egalitarianism and sharing for several hundred thousand years, in the early sedentary agricultural community/village, there would have essentially been 'voluntary tax-giving' - that's to say all the farmers put all of their crop together and everyone shares it (exactly as would've been the case in hunter-gatherer communities). This obvious, common sense system of resource management would, I venture, have persisted for a long time and - here's the crucial psychological insight - only mutated into a hierarchical tax-collection (i.e. appropriation of others' assets) system by the introduction of malevolent people possessing the physical means to force this state of affairs on the people (or deceive them into accepting it).
In other words, hierarchy (or statism) was not at all created by normal human behaviour, but by the behaviour of the malevolent.
As I've said a lot recently, in order to truly understand the human story we really need to distinguish between normal people and arseholes (or monsters as I like to call them).
It is, after all, perfectly possible to imagine/visualise a large society governed by benevolent people (a utopia) - they would simply need to have a functioning system of detection and ostracism of malevolent types. Such a system could, with the right comprehensive education system (granting everyone immunity to the manipulative wiles of the malevolent), be continued indefinitely.
Anyway - there's my initial two bushels of wheat...
P.S. I agree with your semantic digression, by the way. Please make this a regular feature.
You’ve put together a prodigious analytic essay here with, what I suspect, a lot of nutritional insight relative to early human social grouping. Pretty dense, and I’m afraid I might have celiac disease. I’ll need to reread it several times, but I suspect it will be worth it.
Good essay, the insight into the tax friendly nature of grain crops is certainly a useful historical lens, equally domesticated herds of cattle are a far easier target for carbon taxes than wild buffalo for instance. Going to ponder crops which lend themselves to hiding value from over zealous authorities, what’s the natural anarchist plant, a perennial? Thank you
I wonder if this can fit with Maria Gimbutases ideas on how egalitarian, agrarian societies were conquered by warrior societies on horseback. Tax and tribute are similar, and ruling classes even now are into horsemanship, hunting, war, etc. Peasants are generally pacifist and cooperative, while it seems that nomadic herding societies are more up for a punch-up. Mongols are an example.
I'm going to start talking about Gimbutas soon... please feel free to direct me to links of articles and videos about her... seems like her work has been vindicated!
I really liked your piece. And enjoyed the line about how we now have a new villain to play the role of snake in man’s fall from grace! Loved it
I'm glad you liked it! I indulged myself in quite a few digressions so I'm glad it still was enjoyable for the reader.
Cool, I’ll pick up a copy of Scott’s book and give it a read. Sounds fascinating
You're in for a treat! It's highly technical yet highly readable. Sophisticated scholarship at its best!!!
Very interesting piece... and BTW thanks for introducing me to Anna's Archive!
You're welcome! It was Daniel Pinchbeck that turned me onto Anna's Archive, which has made my life appreciably better!
Now you've given me even more to read. Homework, I mean.
I have initial reservations about the tax-collector and wheat theory though - essentially based on psychology - that is to say it simply wouldn't occur to normal human beings to invent something called 'tax collection' - i.e. appropriation - for no beneficial reason - of other people's stuff. To a selfish, evil monster, however, yes, that would occur to them. In fact, although I haven't read Scott's book (yet) so I can't say for sure, I'd be interested to know the answer to the question 'how long?' - by this I mean 'how long was it between the initial (sedentary) cultivation of wheat and the creation of a hierarchical state?'. These things don't 'just happen' after all. I mean, they don't happen simultaneously. And it's not inevitable that it would turn into statism simply for 'structuralist' reasons. There is no structuralism - there is only (human) agency.
My psychological hunch is that given humans had been used to egalitarianism and sharing for several hundred thousand years, in the early sedentary agricultural community/village, there would have essentially been 'voluntary tax-giving' - that's to say all the farmers put all of their crop together and everyone shares it (exactly as would've been the case in hunter-gatherer communities). This obvious, common sense system of resource management would, I venture, have persisted for a long time and - here's the crucial psychological insight - only mutated into a hierarchical tax-collection (i.e. appropriation of others' assets) system by the introduction of malevolent people possessing the physical means to force this state of affairs on the people (or deceive them into accepting it).
In other words, hierarchy (or statism) was not at all created by normal human behaviour, but by the behaviour of the malevolent.
As I've said a lot recently, in order to truly understand the human story we really need to distinguish between normal people and arseholes (or monsters as I like to call them).
It is, after all, perfectly possible to imagine/visualise a large society governed by benevolent people (a utopia) - they would simply need to have a functioning system of detection and ostracism of malevolent types. Such a system could, with the right comprehensive education system (granting everyone immunity to the manipulative wiles of the malevolent), be continued indefinitely.
Anyway - there's my initial two bushels of wheat...
P.S. I agree with your semantic digression, by the way. Please make this a regular feature.