Pre-historic human societies

[Dennis Breslin]

I think debates such as this typically fizzle along ideological
lines where competing sides want early human societies to
serve as benchmarks for this or that primordial kind of human
activity.  Certainly, early human societies were stateless as
well as egalitarian and were clearly marketless, but foraging
societies also were not exempt from power relations nor from
organized social inequality or institutionalized forms of
social exchange.  But since we're treading in the waters of
ideal types, evidence can only be partially helpful.

I would contend that early human societies do represent a
relative kind of egalitarianism, but one that  had to contend with
gender, age, kin, etc. as Grant points out.   The kind of equality
that did exist can serve as a benchmark of sorts, tho the material
circumstances that gave rise to it are not really applicable to us
now.  Organizing people around virtue isn't humans strong suit.

I'm not sure about the primordial nature of the market and I don't
think that its productive to equate social exchange with a market.
Likewise, a notion like landed property may be in evidence
in some cases, but this can blur the distinction between territorial
control and property ownership. Group size and resource
scarcity play important roles in shaping power, hierarchy,
and exchange.  The important lesson we can learn is that
when faced with conditions of harsh scarcity, humans can
fashion a less harsh society.  When humans have to contend
with the prospect of producing and distributing a
surplus, we brutalize one another with something under
different circumstances would be called progress.

I don't think 17th century Europeans settlers would have
behaved any differently even if they saw foragers and
horticulturalists as holding an advanced theory of property
ownership.

Dennis Breslin

From: "Grant Lee" <grantlee at iinet.net.au>
>
> They certainly were "stateless", but I'm not sure about "egalitarian" or
> "marketless".
>
> I think there is a lot of evidence suggesting cultural hierarchies based
on
> gender, age and heredity -- apart from the implications of individual
> physical strength...