I've collected some statements by various folks on the list in regard to primitive societies. There seems to be a severe bias against against the primitives, much of it unjustified.
Doug says:
>You can't build a socialist society
>without the technology and social organization that capitalism has
>produced. In fact, you couldn't even imagine one.
Our foraging ancestors achieved a socialist society several millenia before the idea of capitalism had entered anyone's head. These societies were marketless, stateless, and egalitarian.
I'm not arguing that we should smash our TVs and start hunting and gathering. But it does point out that modern technology is not a prerequisite for an egalitarian community.
Christopher Rhoades Dykema:
>On a more mundane level, when I encounter people who celebrate the
>arcadian simplicity of pre modern life, I like to ask if they'd like to
>go back to the absence of warm running water, daily bathing, and would
>like to depend on the pre modern versions of toilet paper. There's a
>nice chapter in Rabelais' GARGANTUA ET PANTAGRUEL, on this subject. I
>also ask women to consider the pre modern equivalents of sanitary
>napkins. (I'm old enough to remember my mother and sister's enthusiasm
>when tampons were invented about fifty years ago.) These bits of reality
>tend to cool antiquarian ardor.
I'm not going to argue against things like sanitation and antibiotics. They are real assets. But the primitives enjoyed some blessings we don't - abundant free time, freedom to choose how to spend their day, and a community based on cooperation instead of competition. Whether or not you would want to trade those values for modern convenience is a value judgement.
Not that we can't have both, of course.
Brad de Long
>There would have been Hobbes's point that even a bad government
>is better than no government and that anarchy with roving gangs of
>thugs is worst of all, and so there would have been danger from that
>direction as well.
The anarchy of roving gangs of thugs didn't occur until authoritarian societies had a chance to get going and then disintegrate. As Bob Black said, the "nasty, brutish and short" bit was unacknowledged autobiography, not the result of careful study of actual primitive societies. Statelessness has been, and hopefully can be again, a blessing.
Brett