"Hierarchy" of adults over children is natural for humans. It follows from the long period in which human children are not capable of taking care of themselves, which is unique to our species.
Other hiearchies didn't arise in human society until very late. The institution of the state originates in Mesopotamia (Iraq) 7 thousand years ago, according to current archaelogical evidence ( See Fagan 2004; Henry Wright on the orgin of the state; http://www.lsa.umich.edu/anthro/faculty_staff/wright.html ) Humans had been living in non-hierarchical societies for , oh , 200,000 years when the state arose, according to current paleoanthropolgical evidence.
So, there is nothing in our nature that prevents us from living without states or imperial states. It is possible for the state to whither away, naturally. Marx argues we will have to affirmatively expropriate exploiting classes first, though, to let nature take its course.
Charles
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
> jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk> wrote:
>
>> Are you saying that hierarchies are the natural and inevitable order of
>> things and that non-
>> hierarchal arrangements are not?
>
> It's hard to say anything's "natural" in human behavior, but
nonhierarchical
> arrangements have yet to present themselves in durable quantity.
>
> Doug
Nonhierarchical social arrangements are relatively common in human societies; people just take them for granted. (e.g., peer groups, many family relationships, food co-ops, my local bike repair collective, most open source software projects, lots of bands, just to draw a few examples from our own society.)
What's natural is the human capacity to create both hierarchical and nonhierarchical social relations. What pushes us one way or the other is a sociopolitical question.
Miles